Landlords face ban on renting homes that are not energy efficient

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/landlords-face-ban-on-renting-homes-that-are-not-energy-efficient-lpqc0bj0f

Posted by ohell

25 Comments

  1. That’s going to really remove a lot of houses / apartments from being available.

    That would force rents up dramatically and make it even harder to find a place to rent.

  2. Powerful_Room_1217 on

    So if I was renting a home that is now not energy efficient what should I say to my landlord to sort it out?

  3. >by 2030

    That’s . . . conveniently outside the next election cycle.

    Why not make it 2028, which is within the cycle, so you can be judged on it?

    4 years is still plenty of time for landlords to make the improvements.

    >The Conservatives originally planned to reach the deadline by 2028

    Even the fucking Tories were OK with the target being at the end of an election cycle, ffs.

    Also, why the fuck are we **subsidising landlords** with the costs of this?

    >A consultation is expected later this year, which is expected to include a cap on the amount landlords will have to spend on upgrades. This was set at £10,000 under previous plans and Miliband is expected to stick with a similar figure.

    If you can’t afford the cost of running your business, sell up, and let either (a) someone who can afford the costs rent it out, or (b) a family buy it as, you know, a family home.

  4. 100% not happening. Incentives for improving efficiency and disincentives for none efficiency for sure but in no worked would there be a ban

  5. Assuming it’s a staged introduction of the ban, that would be good. Landlords would either improve the efficiency of the house or sell it.

  6. Another great move from labour. Im loving how they are hammering the greedy multi home owning bastards

  7. Visual-Blackberry874 on

    My landlord is about to get a shock then, with his E EPC rating and unwillingness to even entertain FREE upgrades to his investment.

    Or perhaps it is myself in for a shock and will be made homeless if he’s forced to upgrade the house that I live in.

  8. Illustrious-Welder84 on

    This has already begun in some sectors. There’s also usually exclusions for historic properties.

  9. The first flat I rented was terrible in the winter. Living room and main bathroom had such leaky windows that drinks would freeze overnight if I left them in the room. Neighbours that owned their flats would be improving/fixing things like the windows and doors, as well as the heating and boiler, meanwhile I had leaky windows and storage heaters, and the landlord had no incentive to fix it. The flat was 20 years old and nothing had been touched, just rented out to a line of renters over the years.

    Plenty of people saying “this will increase rents”, but I couldn’t use a large % of the flat anyway without dressing for an Everest expedition and the landlord didn’t give a toss as long as the building was standing. I personally don’t see this change as forcing landlords to upgrade their properties to be the most efficient properties in the country, but there should be a minimum standard that anyone that owned the property would expect themselves, that landlords are held to.

  10. Germany deems houses to be usable for 80years.

    But most houses have been build after WW2.. which was.. oh right. damn it.

    I’d love to see every other house getting torn down for a shed to store the landlord’s 3rd ferrari in.

  11. BlackShadowGlass on

    This will absolutely be passed on to renters in some form or another. That is just how the market works.

  12. I rent and I’m against this. Mine is currently a C, but if it were lower guess who’s going to foot the bill for the upgrades? Hint, it won’t be the landlord, and I doubt the energy savings from say a D to a C will cover the difference in increased rent.

  13. Hopefully they’re sold on to freeholders who actually intend to live in the home, instead of parasites who hold onto them as a specualtive asset while ransoming housing back to the public.

  14. If implemented this will remove a large amount of the rental stock from the market, especially in towns which have mostly older housing stock.

    Landlords won’t spend what it takes to upgrade, not with the rental economics as they are now. They will sell and re buy stock that meets the requirements, if they want to go back into the rental sector at all.

    The houses which then come on the market will go to kids of middle class parents who can help with the deposit.

    The only losers will be those who rent and don’t have a deposit or perhaps have a poor credit history. They will simply pay more to rent the same or similar accommodation.

    The law of unintended consequences – what usually happens when governments meddle in things they don’t understand for reasons of popularity.

  15. Are they going to include Council and Housing Association properties in this? Or just private landlords?

  16. I expect a lot of “but think of the poor rich people” type of comments under this post. Or “this won’t work”.

    Personally, I am in favour of strict legal action on the kind of shit people rent out as a place to “live”. The legal struggles some people have to go through to get their landlord to do something about walls crawling with mould is just one of these things that needs to be cracked down on.

    If you want to be smartypants and make money by having other people pay your mortgage for you, then you must be prepared to maintain the property to a certain standard. It’s like renting out a car but crying when the law says you should no longer be able to do that unless it’s got ABS. Suck it up!

  17. I rent out a Victorian terrace rated E. The EPC thinks I should spend between 15-20K to get it to C. The annual energy bills ATM are around £1000 a year. Looks like I’ll be selling up.

  18. i-am-a-passenger on

    As someone who has been renovating their flat for the past 6 months, to rent it out, got to admit that all these policies to increase rents is working out well for me. I can rent my flat for almost £200 more a month now than I would have been able to last year.

  19. Yeah, let’s make even less houses available. And for those who will make their house energy efficient, let’s raise the rent to pay for the works.
    Spot on!