Updating post from Reddit.
Would be good to filter out those exempt such as historic properties that cant get a higher rating due to things like listed property restrictions.
Yeah we own our place with a mortgage, but if it was a rental no way would a C grade be achievable. It was built in 1850 and is Grade II listed.
Rental is exempt from the current E requirement if listed and a load of safety stuff too. Presumably that would remain the case. Plus even the proposed 10K cost ceiling isn't enough to do any actual work on a listed building these days and wouldn't even pay for the paperwork in many cases.
Seems sensible!
I thought the £10K cap was part of the Conservative proposals - I’d read (feel free to correct) that Labour were removing the cap. My issues are that the EPCs I’ve seen on my properties seem very subjective, and of random quality (including one where the surveyor didn’t bother looking in the loft, so just assumed no insulation).
The suggested remedies aren’t scored to show you what improvements in EPC score each would achieve, there is no steer on that and three of the four I’ve looked at recently all started their list with the idea of adding insulation to the solid floor of the house (cost £4K-£5K).
A little way down the list was the idea of changing all lightbulbs to LED’s and/or adding thermostatic valves to radiators
The three that missed a C rating only missed that score by a maximum of 3 points (0-100 rating)- simply substituting bulbs for LEDs or adding the values might be enough to have scored a ‘C’.
It's not 0-100 btw
Sorry - you are right that they don’t show 100 as a max, the range for an A is simply shown as 92+, B is 81-91, C is 69-80 etc down to G which is shown as 1-20.
My record is around 15k
My home was build 1850s it’s not listed as nothing special about it just a bulk standard terrace but not much can be done to improve insulation. A few of the houses in the terrace are rented, they are ideal for rent as cheap but not part of an housing estate so larger than the average new estate build.
There are plenty of properties which are not listed but not economical to bring up to these levels - and the EPC does not take into account many positive factors in older buildings.
For example I lived in an old stone cottage with walls nearly a meter thick. It was like one huge storage heater. Took a while to get up to heat, but kept a lovely balance of temperature in both winter and summer. The thick walls insulated well from the outside heat or cold.
There really were not options to insulate without destroying the character and risking other problems like damp, as its lime render breathing walls.
There are exceptions that can be applied for, but it's a big hassle and risky due to being down the the whim of assessors / councils etc.
Basically, it will never be rented as its just to risky. There are many like this in rural areas, as higher minimums come in, it the number of available rentals will drop.
My house is similar, and when I looked into achieving a C back in 2021 it was estimated to cost £30,000 at a minimum.
Ours claimed 20K to achieve a C. We instead put a load of solar on it and almost got a B. The EPC recommendations are in part complete nonsense because they don't reflect was is currently practical as opposed to what made sense a decade or more ago.
I have a victorian house with an easy C and it's as drafty and cold as you like. The boiler is running full power all winter and costs a ton.
It's all box ticking.
This is why they need to go to a heat loss calculation. A manual one you test for.
An expensive option that you can take instead of the tick box option
Personally, I think we need to remove the listed property restriction for rentals. It makes zero sense. If we really cared about the historical integrity of these buildings, we would be looking for ways to preserve these buildings better, but listing's mean you can't so much as render the exterior of a building. Interior retrofitting isn't exactly viable, either.
It's unsustainable, and the UK housing stock is the oldest in Europe. We can't just simply exempt listed properties and for so many reasons.
I think the listed status is fine within reason but they get so petty on some things like having the wrong glimmer in a replacement pane of glass. Removing it will just allow everyone to theoretically modernise listed properties to remove all the charm and character it may have. I think listed properties maybe should get funding and passes for alternative green technology that blends into the character. Like you wouldnt put solar panels on a thatched roof but you could potentially allow for a wind turbine if it is made to look like an old mill 😅
Most listed building and conservation zone nonsense could be fixed really easily in terms of insulation. There's a lack of will, time and imagination in government to tackle really simple regulation changes.
Most of the critical stuff can be done in a reversible way if there is ever a problem so all you need to do is remove the paperwork crapfest for
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Ground mounted solar with mounts that are removable when the system is taken away (already a common requirement for solar on farmland)
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Solar on roofs that are not the primary elevation providing it's fitted onto the roof, can be removed and does not require structural changes
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Installation of additional loft insulation using removable materials (ie not foams) and replacement of old style with modern insulation
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Installation of underfloor insulation on similar rules to roof insulation
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Installation of secondary glazing systems (this is sometimes already ok) that don't change the structure
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Replace existing plasterboard (but not lath & plaster) ceilings with insulation backed boards.
and a few others
There's a load of stuff that could be done in many cases like radiator changes and heatpumps without risking Grade II properties, and a combination of requiring MCS or for the other stuff some new qualification in "listed building works" that's basically an online course where they repeated talk about air flow and damp until the message arrives.
There's lot of stuff you really don't want like ripping out windows, spray foaming, cladding stone breathable buildings in crap etc but there's an enormous amount that could be done but isn't currently viable because of the compliance costs.
LMFAO there are 400,000 listed buildings in England. UK has the oldest housing stock in Europe if not the world. Most properties are cold and mouldy. It's an absolute shit show. Plus the EPC certificate has little to do with insulation, there are many people out there with not a bit of cheap loft insulation or with incandescent lights who get a lower rating because of it.
Yeah what I was trying to suggest is how many non exempt properties are below standard the stats don't really show that proportion and so it looks like they have inflated the figures by counting things like listed properties.
Again, those figures are based on how EPCs currently look and the metrics used to calculate them. These will be markedly different by 2030.
Exactly. There will be updates to the system. Further, if it costs you and the payback duration is long then you can bypass it
Of course there will be. But you mention all these things up front and don’t leave them till that later year. You explain everything in one go. Not like they’ve not had time to write it all up etc
I urge people to challenge them if the assumptions used look incorrect, I have twice had EPCs redone and upgraded now both major firms of surveyors from D to C. In both cases there were errors in the wall insulation assumptions and taking account leds/ condensing boiler being missed and ironically put as suggested improvements despite being there. I have had others that appear correct, but this experience has made me extra vigilant and I always search the national epc database for the neighbour’s certificates now to check mine have been fairly input and calculated.
Is there any detailed guide on what gives you points? I expect most of the people doing the checks are of low IQ in my area.
Funny enough in one case although a reputable firm of chartered surveyors doing it, they said they used the surveyors notes to input and type up the certificates in the office and may have used the data for the wrong flat!
Yea there are things you can do that give points. I've had epcs done on quite a few properties. Off the top of my head you can do the below:
Led lighting throughout. Trv valves on all radiators. Smart thermostat Efficient combi boiler (got worcester bosch boilers everywhere) Insulate the loft - they would recommend 300mm layer of rockwool on loft floor. Sod that. I think I'm going to insulate with pir board and board over the roof rafters instead if we need to get up to C rating.
Electric showers I think brought my score down. Can't remember for certain.
Double glazing - I got single glazed sash windows in a conservation area on couple of properties - always brought my score down. Pretty sure I'm still D as its still partially double glazed (loft conversions).
There is more but its been a while since had one done.
No idea, but my starting point has always been to download those of similar properties in the area that are of a higher rating and have a look at what they say
I've got two flats the exact same one c and one d. The c one does not have double glazing but everything else is the same. I think most of these epc guys are drunk or just making it up from home.
Ha yes just like the EICRs I’ve had done over the years, one electrician will be fine, advisory on something, a different electrician on same set up on a different flat, says new consumer unit and part rewire These regulatory things all sound like a great idea but are depressingly subjective/ inconsistent and you are at the mercy of the ability/ integrity of the person doing it
This is just testament to how poor the UK’s housing stock is due to decades of landlords’ under investment and profiteering.
Other examples - water suppliers, trains.
Loads of houses in the UK are inefficient. This isn’t a landlord issue it’s a housing issue
It’s an under investment issue - also when it comes to home owners.
For example - there’s scarcely any properties with single glazing left in Central Europe even though the underinvestment of the Eastern Bloc countries had to be made up for.
However the place we rented in the UK up until 2015 had single glazing throughout. This was actually with a landlady who was excellent in many regards but the place had been in the family for 50+ years and they managed to skirt around any major renovations as much as possible as witnessed by the ancient windows and the only partially replaced roof (they replaced the part a tree fell on 30 years ago)
Subsequent places we rented had gaps in the patio door (could have been easily addressed), were partially single glazed, lacked insulation or the double glazed windows were shot.
One of the places was absolutely paid off so LL would have had cash to fix it, another was owned by a wealthy family as well - enough cash sloshing around to spend a few K on improving the EPC rating.
If one rents out a property one should put enough money aside to maintain it to a standard that would be considered basic/adequate in Central Europe (adequate not a comparatively good standard )
Getting EPC C is pretty basic. All it really requires is loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, LED lights, double glazing, and a modern boiler with a thermostat. All of which can be done by the landlord
Really really depends. A lot of old property is near impossible to get to C and some stuff the cheapest way to get to C is to demolish it and try again. Landlords locally are offloading loads of big victorian houses and many of them getting to EPC C would involve cladding the entire building, digging all the floors up and replacing them and other stuff. Doing that would in turn make them damp unless done with great skill which will mean they get mouldy. So it's easier just to sell the lot.
I would not disagree with comments that some of the buildings you look at and wonder why the landlord hasn't spent a couple of grand fixing the roof insulation and windows - even if they put the rent up a bit the tenant would be better off than single glazed stuff.
If it costs more than a specific amount you don't have to upgrade though
Yes - but that amount is also going up a lot (stories say £10K) and presumably it'll keep rising in future. Also there's a lot of hassle in proving work is too expensive - multiple quotes, evidence keeping etc.
10k wouldn't be enough to demolish and rebuild
What if you have no cavity?
‘Pretty basic’ you just listed like 10K of upgrades.
If over the course of years of ownership a landlord was not able to build a maintenance fund of 10K AND also did not manage to do any of these basic improvements they either didn’t run a sustainable business or just were profiteering (extract profit and not re-invest).
I really don’t buy the excuse that the only way to be a landlord in the UK is to preserve properties in a state similar to 70s/early 80s standard housing in Central Europe.
I’m not arguing that houses shouldn’t be efficient. I’m just saying a home owner in their own home will face the same issues, and ironically LL will avoid these properties now to aim for C+ properties meaning first time buyers will be more likely landed with landlord rejected/landlord sell off properties.
All my properties are EPC C or better anyway and it sounds like I’m going to have even more tenants looking to rent as other landlords leave the market anyway if they can’t get their houses where they need to be.
Not sure where 10k comes from? Loft insulation is pretty cheap and can be done yourself. If the house doesn't have double glazing then what are you doing owning a house? Cavity wall maybe 3k for a terraced house. A new boiler maybe 2k.
Being a landlord is running a business and in any business there are costs of maintaining facilities
You listed 10K worth of stuff, I pointed that out. Really not that difficult to understand surely?
Best start on that list now then . . .
All my properties are C or better anyway so I guess what you mean is better prepare for higher rents since you want to paint us all as greedy
And if you can't have cavity wall insulation? Then what? I have all of the above apart from that and got a D.
I'd like to agree on housing. And it might be in a lot of cases but definitely not all.
My old property was from the 1800s and fully pgraded with insulation, high efficiency windows, smart heating, led bulbs, etc.
It was still D.
To go from a D to C involved around £20k worth of intrusive work.
The estimates on my bills and savings were ridiculously wrong. I was already paying less than they estimated I'd be paying if I spent the money to upgrade to C
Oh there are a) exceptions such as yours and these are catered for and b) as a homeowner you can make the judgement call but businesses should reasonably expect to have to adhere to minimum standards.
And judging by other comments here you might also be able to challenge the D rating of your property- given your improvements the survey might be off and you ought have a C rating.
I agree. For clarity that house is now rented out as I kept it when I moved as I might want to later.
I've renovated properties for more than a decade and the epc of C not D, given the age of some stock, seems like it will hurt tenants more than anyone else
What, you mean you weren't heating your house to 21°C during 9 hour heating cycles between October and May?! Unbelievable. /s
You mean you don't keep your house to a cosy 24C per day every day and have two pipping hot baths daily?!?! 😉
The problem with EPCs and fitness for purpose has been acknowledged and reforms proposed though.
EPC was meant to be nothing more than a fridge style efficiency sticker on the HIPS package before the RICS killed the rest off.
Exactly this. To use a high level estimate of efficency to control rental housing stock is not appropriate.
People think it will be landlords that suffer. 80% of the pain will be to tenants will reduced choice / volumes and higher prices
It's quite shocking how little landlords have been willing to invest into upgrading their housing stock. Buy to let was the worst thing to happen to housing. It allowed an undesirable kind of landlord to enter the market. The notion of the tenant paying for the mortgage as well as all the other costs is plainly ridiculous and unsustainable.
Lack of financial resilience in landlords is a huge issue. With six properties I know I’ve got an ongoing cost but can afford that without needing to use rent. BTL means no resilience for ongoing repair. This is why I’m sticking to cash only purchases. I’ve already done the coatings for EPC c and have embarked on a programme to get there well in advance. As such, my rents tend to be at the upper end of the local range because the properties are cared for.
But surely if you've owned the house long enough it has built up enough equity and the value of the property has increased to extract cash for repairs and improvements?
I mean, this isn't a landlord issue. There's plenty of owner occupiers that would score poorly as well.
You also need to consider that landlords will self select away from new builds, as they are expensive for what they are.
It is a landlord issue as well as a homeowner issue.
Difference being that landlords are running a business.
And regulating businesses to adhere to minimum standards used to be accepted practice in this country.
Not sure of it still is given it’s OK now to pump raw sewage into our waterways and coastal areas these days.
My point is that calling it a landlord issue suggests landlords are neglecting the properties, as opposed to calling it what itnis:
That in the UK we don't really spend money on making homes more efficient in a cultural sense.
My point is that calling it a landlord issue suggests landlords are neglecting the properties, as opposed to calling it what itnis:
That in the UK we don't really spend money on making homes more efficient in a cultural sense.
The "issue" of minimum EPCs is one you've made up. Minimum standards exist, and landlords do broadly keep to them.
What about conservation areas? What about houses that are 100 years old with original Bath stonework. They expect us to replace single glaze sash windows? Or insulate the external walls? Insulating the roof I am OK with..
You can secondary glaze a lot of sash windows even with a listed building. Our house is grade II and has removable magnetic secondary glazing throughout for the old sash windows. Took me about an hour to learn how to make the panels neatly and fit the first one, the rest were then a piece of cake (and I suck at DIY).
As they are a key reason for the listing there was no question of getting permission to double glaze the wooden sashes etc but the performance isn't far different and the sound blocking is even better.
Yep the proposals have absolutely no regard for preservation and conservation. Even our Victorian mid terrace which isn’t listed just isn’t possible to get up to a C in any sensible way. These buildings are meant to breathe being built from permeable lime mortar and plaster. Absolutely no chance I’m insulating the exterior and making my house damp.
Some landlord's need to realise that being a landlord is a job, and a business, and like any requires investment. You shouldn't be able to just sit on poorly insulated, dilapidated old housing stock and hope to receive consistent profit with next to no investment. In what other industries would this be considered acceptable practice? Good on the government if they push this forward.
Not sure why they jumping straight from e to c, and not to d first?
Also if it was clear how to achieve c but it's very difficult as every surveyor has their own ideas
How's this work for council owned? Looked at a row very local to me, all D's and E's mostly expired and done in 2018. Oddly in a row the semi was a D, the one next to it was an E, then the other side a D. How you get a lower rating in identical builds when sandwiched between two other houses I'm not sure, would think the end house had more exposure.
Maybe you could read up on the requirements to he to from E to D?
Examples given in this thread are LED bulbs, loft insulation. Both things that could have been easily done when there was a change of tenant in one of the houses.
We are entering the corporate landlord phase where only new, 110+unit blocks will be purpose built to accommodate rentals.
I tried my best to insulate a 1930's semi. It had double glazing , loft insulation, Eco boiler my EPC rating was rated as 55 D
Single brick construction was the biggest issue in my eyes. Old houses are inefficient but without major construction works cannot be bought up to C+ EPC standards
I have sold it
Very property specific but thin brick buildings are certainly one of the nightmare ones to get to C or B sanely. EWI is just so expensive and has so many problems if done badly.
I have a very old victorian house and I have got an C rating. It costs a ton to heat.
Getting that score seems quite easy. If you've had it renovated in the last 20 years, it should get a C.
Gas boiler, radiators, TRVs, led lights, double glazing, loft insulation.
Would guess HMOs are the worst and least likely to change
I am at low rates currently. Sub 3% with over 3 years to go , I will start off loading the rest in 2026. I got rid of one in March and one is currently going through the sale process.
BTL is finished. No longer worth it.
Good. Anything to free up supply. This combined with continued house building might just stall the housing market long enough for people to get on the ladder. An entire generation trapped in renting finally might get a chance now.
I was lucky to have got a house this year. But a house across the field from me has gone on for rent. It sold in January for same amount as my house. They are charging 1,850 a month for a two bed ex council house. Not modernised at all
Unless rents skyrocket (they have), soaking up any extra cash for renting over savings.
The market will have to correct itself. Supply can only stretch so far and once they hit their limit vacant rentals will have to pull prices down, or rather people will be forced to leave and rent elsewhere and rental costs will correct again.
IMO though, we should have a nationalised house builder tl wrestle control (and quality) away from developers.
I bought in phase 2 of 3 on a new build estate during the truss disaster. Up until then Phase 2 were closing a house a week give or take, we lost one plot because it was whisked away and whole streets were going fast. Then the Kwasi-Truss implosion and then house buyers dried up.
They still haven't sold every house on our phase and so phase three they just delayed. For years. Developers control supply so that they never ever have to compromise on value. The value only ever goes up and developers collude to maintain ever increasing values by strictly controlling supply.
Until we take that control away from developers the housing crisis will never end, house values will be tightly in the grasp of the developers and home ownership will remain out of grasp of 95% of people.
This business is not for you. HMO is the way.
It's no longer for me . You are right .
The thing is all these tax raids and EPC C and overregulation is not helping anyone ,it's not helping the tenants and also not helping the landlords.
Obviously anything to do with safety needs to be regulated: So electrical safety ,gas safety ,fire safety,legionella and mold etc needs to be regulated.
Even the licencing scheme is a rip off . I have been licensed by Newham and Waltham forest for many years and they have yet to visit the properties and carry out any inspections to confirm if the properties are habitable. Where is that £750 per property going ? With the money they are taking they should be able to hire an army of inspectors to visit the properties at least once per year .
You're a basic landlord. Convert them to hmo's. Don't waste your time on selective licencing. Have £5million and growing.
I do not have 20bil
It's utterly bollocks. Won't work
I mean honestly though. Who else do landlords expect to pay for it? These things need to happen.. if its no longer profitable as a landlord for you, you could always cash out?
Is this hearsay? If not the housing market will collapse. These stupid socialist governments don’t know nothing. Build more houses and stop the immigration. Birth rate is already declining amongst the nationals, that will fix the problem. Billionaires and millionaires who drive the economy with big business will leave and Britain will turn into a cesspit. I am from Scotland and the only industry growing in Scotland is complaining, people are against private development. Too many NIMBYS.
Mate you gotta take it a bit easy, lean back, breathe, relax, inform yourself and reflect.
Maybe drink a herbal tea or do yoga.
You’re going to rage yourself into an early grave over nothing otherwise.
Yawn.
See you’re already starting to relax. You can do this buddy.
I believe in you.
They put it oddly but they aren't wrong. We've functionally nationalised housing development, and the results have been predictable.
Its OK. Tenants will pay as rents go up.
Rents are already set at what the market can bear.
There’s no more blood to be drained from that stone.
The market will go up and bear more if lots of landlords pass on higher costs. Tenants will have to find the money or live on the street. I hope Labour's housebuilding plans will materialise and temper demand, though I'm not holding my breath.
It's set to what the market can bear today. Like it was set at what the market could bear 10 years ago.
In a lot of cases going energy efficient actually means the tenant can now afford the rent instead of giving it to Brutish Gas instead.