Not to get into the politics of it, but looks like 2030 is the year by which rental properties have to have an EPC rating of at least a C.
at least a reasonable lead in time, and who knows what will change before then, but a heads up to any landlords amongst us and weighing up options.
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There is talk about grants to improve the efficiency of houses.
I bought a 1928 "traditional built" (no cavity) house at the start of 2022. The whole road is like this. Standard position was that I'd never get it above a D (2 contractors in the family told me this when I was buying) but having spoken to an expert in the field he basically said there is no house in the country that cant get to a C if not a B. It takes investment and its generally not cost effective for landlords but is very common across owner occupiers. There has been a massive change in our road since we moved in, about 10% have done external wall insulation, loads have talked about insulated plaster boarding inside, lots of people have done triple glazing. The rented houses aren't getting any of these upgrades done.
On ours as we've been renovating we have upgraded bits as we've gone along, new windows (triple glazed), insulated plasterboard inside (learning to dot and dab plasterboard was an experience!), double the regs loft insulation, under floorboard insulation downstairs, draught proofing, new insulated front door and boarding the inside of the porch for an additional layer of insulation. When we have done the back of the house (ground floor extension and new windows) and done the external wall insulation our house will comfortably be a B rating. It is possible to do to old houses - only thing is to make sure the insulation is breathable in a traditional build house as the walls are designed to breath.
What weve done so far other than windows I've done the majority myself as part of wider renovation work, the cost of these hasnt been huge - the marginal cost of insulated plasterboard compared to normal plasterboard isnt too much, rolls of insulation for loft and under floorboards pretty cheap. obviously the extension and external wall insulation are much larger jobs and so will require cash and professionals (hence why we havent got to them yet).
There's already a huge shortage of rental property in many areas, we will get 100+ applicants if we advertise a property for a weekend. It's already getting worse as BTL's are beginning to sell, I get offered at least a handful a month via our managing agent in Dartford as he has landlords continuously selling. In this area it means rents continue to increase to almost embarrassing amounts quite frankly.
as for any house can get to a C, I think that's likely true for 95% (we have 4 out of now 53 that i've been told are highly unlikely to get to a C without demolition!), but it's the cost to get there. Once you build in the cost, the likelihood that the majority (of ours) will need to be empty, therefore no rent for a period, it's simple not viable (I am governed by certain rules on returns, investments etc).
We've known it's been coming, and as above i'll await the fuller details over the next 12 months, but suspect almost immediately if we have a tenant vacate we'll sell and likely begin to give notice to our tenants from 2026 onwards with a view to liquidating in good time before 2030, sadly many of our tenants have been with us for a decade or sometimes 2! We'll keep around 4 house we have as they are more modern one's we've bought within the past few years.
Out of interest, what would it take to bring up an average old-build house to a C? Presumably it's a bit more than insulating the roof
Roof insulation (all roofs, including flat/sloping roofs)
Wall Insulation
Floor insulation
Heat Pump or new, very efficient boiler, no other heat sources and TRV's on all rads. Over a certain size then likely split into zones.
100% low energy lighting
2 & to a degree 3 above are my issues/difficulties.
With both our 2 bed and 1 bed victorian conversion flats in Blackheath (in the same building) rated D, so when we started to investigate how much it would take to rectify matters, it was running into large numbers. All the windows needed replacing, and the one bed had two flat roofs on it (it was a duplex!) and that alone was eye watering.
Along with the incoming Govt possibly changing CGT rates and the rules potentially on Landlords, we decided the time was right to sell. Thankfully both sales have completed in the last 3 months.
We were really pleased the long term tennant of the 2 bed ended up buying it. She was the easiest tennant we could have wished for just over 10 years.
We felt a but guilty about serving notice on the tennant of the 1 bed but she ended up moving in with her boyfriend so everything happens for a reason!
We may look to buy again in the future but more likely would go for a more modern build instead.
Blimey this forum is really useful sometimes, cheers Rob!
Step 1: Room-in-roof insulation
Step 2: Internal or external wall insulation
Step 3: Floor insulation (suspended floor)
Step 4: Draught proofing
Step 5: Solar water heating
Step 6: Double glazed windows
Replace single glazed windows with low-E double glazed windows
Step 7: Solar photovoltaic panels, 2.5 kWp
I think law for resi but still in consultation on commercial (where something like 80% of UK office space would fail so the cost/time and viability is literally impossible to achieve in the timeline if it comes in).
Tech is improving all the time but I suspect won't be affordable for the mass market in time for the deadline.
Ultimately we live on a small island surrounded by water with tonnes of wind and a little sun. Improve our green energy production which should be relatively simple and I am not sure why making houses more efficient then matters - to the environment - it would obviously cost less to run them which is a benefit.
I am probably missing something.
IdleHans said:
I'm always wary of those estimates, also the pay back is for the tenant, not the owner (in a BTL situation).
Overall I'm not against improving the thermal efficiency etc of rental housing stock as frankly a lot are awful (inc social housing). But it just needs to be carefully thought out, and I'm not convinced it has been, what we don't need right now is less rental housing stock, which is what we will end up with. As aside from being even more difficult to find a rental property, those rents will be even more expensive.
I have a meeting early next month and no doubt we'll discuss and make a future plan, but I just can't see anything other than sell up at this juncture, returns aren't as great as many may think, we certainly earn a much better return (currently) with the cash in the bank.
I’ve only ever really discussed football on cl in the past but I work for Eco Approach who are one of the leading epc providers in the UK. I’ve worked there for just over 10 years now.
I've just checked mine and am relieved to see they are a B and a C - not worried about the one that is a B as a new build (Enderby Wharf) but not sure if anything could impact the C
Anyone else had to go jump through hoops to get their Landlord Selective Licence? What are people's thoughts on it? Isn't there (rightly of course) already legislation in place to tackle rogue landlords
The SAP/EPC Rating of a dwelling is heavily derived from the end running costs so even with a very well insulated dwelling you can get poor SAP Ratings by having an incredibly costly heating system. When the new Part L (2021) came in on the 15th June the unit cost of electricity was sky high so this is reflected on EPCs when using electric heating. Even heat pumps whilst miles better than panel heaters/electric boilers still don't perform as well as a highly efficient mains gas boiler from an EPC rating perspective in most cases.
the answer of course is to build a lot of social housing, but no way that’s happening anytime soon in the right places.
i also think EPC alone is the wrong target. We’ve just bought a newish build, already rated C but the place is a hovel!! We’ll of course be refurbishing it, but could easily rent as is if we wanted. So great it’s energy efficient, but I wouldn’t live there as is!!
These range from 'All relevant improvements made' to 'High Cost' - if the cost of the works of the cheapest recommended improvement is over £3500.00 then you can be exempt.
Any government led project or ‘initiative’ is doomed to failure, may never happen, mismanagement, seriously under costed or bound to created unintended negative consequences - select as many as appropriate.
if they really want to improve the rental market, number and quality of properties and affordability then the only way that will ever happen if there is a financial incentive for private money to latch on to. Do that and the problem goes away pretty quickly.
It will take us 18 months of no issue problems to get our money back.
I think we will sell once this tenancy is up. Anyone who thinks being a landlord is laughing all the way to the bank should give it a try.
We have all of the above but as stated we shall probably not be landlords in 6 years time.