SHOCK: Just 12% of councils policing EPC certificates for privately rented properties

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Only 12% of councils are enforcing Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rules requiring private landlords to raise standards at their F and G-rated properties.

Freedom of Information requests by Generation Rent revealed that just 13 out of 101 councils had issued enforcement notices following MEES enforcement work in 2020-21, a total of 359. Barnsley Council issued the most notices with 181, followed by Bristol (35) and Thanet (30).

LandlordZONE has previously reported that some landlords who can’t or won’t spend on retrofitting are capitalising on the lax way property listings are regulated by using gaps in EPC and other regulatory systems to make their properties appear legitimate online – simply by declaring that they hold a valid EPC instead of providing physical copies.

Growing financial pressures, particularly the unequal burden of retrofitting in parts of the UK, could also be adding to some landlords’ reluctance to spend money.

upgrade costs

A recent report by think-tank Localis reported that in areas of the North and Midlands, the estimated costs of improving home energy can be about 25% of property values, while in affluent parts of London and the South East retrofitting with heat pumps represents less than 2% of overall property value.

Generation Rent analysed EPC data to assess the scale of the problem in each region in England. It says 201,000 private rented homes are classed as F on their EPCs and 62,000 are classed as G, out of a total of 4,265,000, which by law now need to be raised to at least a D rating.

The pressure group has called on councils to commit to using publicly accessible data on EPCs to identify tenants in cold homes and all their enforcement powers, including improvement notices, to protect them.

Director Alicia Kennedy (pictured) adds: “The government needs to act much faster to ensure that private landlords insulate their properties, including by reforming tenancies to give tenants more confidence to exercise their rights.”

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NRLA open letter answering unbalance Shelter press release

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The NRLA has sent an open letter to the Chief Executive of Shelter, Polly Neate CBE, looking to redress the imbalance of the latest Shelter press release:

Dear Polly,

I write following the publication of Shelter’s research: “Every seven minutes a private renter is served a no-fault eviction notice despite a government promise to scrap them three years ago.”

As you know

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BREAKING: NRLA takes Shelter to task over one-sided ‘anti-landlord’ campaign

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The NRLA has today published an open letter to Shelter taking apart its recent but widely-criticised research which gave the impression the entire landlord community is busy ejecting tenants without any reason.

Last week its press release claimed that “every seven minutes a private renter is served a no-fault eviction notice despite a government promise to scrap them three years ago”.

But the Chief Executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) Ben Beadle (main picture) says in his missive that the campaign represented a “disappointingly one-sided picture, which has the potential to create needless anxiety for tenants that their landlord is about to evict them for no reason”.

“There are, as we know, a small number of irresponsible landlords who have no place in the market and bring the wider sector into disrepute.

“Your press release, however, gives the misleading impression that most landlords fall into this category which is far from the case.”

Section 21 campaign

Beadle goes on to accuse Shelter of selectively using industry and government data to embellish its ongoing campaign to have ‘no fault’ Section 21 notice evictions banned.

Beadle says Shelter omitted to mention key facts within its press release including how 75,000 Section notices being issued every year is just 0.7% of total tenancies; that the overall trend in evictions is downward and that Section 21 evictions are used by many landlords because the Section 8 process is broken.

He also highlights how landlords can easily be refused a Section 21 notice application for minor admin breaches – for example not issuing a ‘How to Rent’ booklet correctly at the start of a tenancy.

“The NRLA is not opposing the Government’s plans to end Section 21,” says Beadle.

“However, as our proposals for a new system make clear, Section 21 cannot simply be scrapped without the associated reforms needed to ensure that a new system is fair and workable for both tenants and landlords.”

Read the letter in full here.

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Leaked Boris proposal to let tenants buy their homes criticised as ‘hare brained’

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Renters could be offered the chance to buy their homes from housing associations under a new pilot scheme being considered by Boris Johnson.

In a move which could reduce demand from private renters as more tenants become homeowners, The Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister has told officials to revive plans which first appeared in David Cameron’s 2015 Conservative manifesto.

It aimed to give the 2.5 million households in England who rent properties from housing associations the ability to buy their homes at a discount of up to 70%.

It cited a source saying Johnson was “very excited” about rejuvenating Thatcher’s original right-to-buy policy.

However, questions remain about how housing associations would be compensated and how their stock would be replenished.

The Telegraph suggested another idea being considered is for government spending on housing benefit to be used to help recipients get mortgages.

More than one million households are already on social housing waiting lists in England according to Shelter.

Chief executive Polly Neate (pictured) criticised the “hare-brained idea” as “the opposite of what the country needs”, while housing experts warned that the policy amounted to the sell-off of affordable homes during the cost-of-living crisis and called instead for an increase in housebuilding.

“Right to buy has already torn a massive hole in our social housing stock as less than 5% of the homes sold off have ever been replaced. These half-baked plans have been tried before and they’ve failed,” said Neate.

Lisa Nandy (pictured), Labour’s shadow communities secretary, called the plan “desperate” and added: “Millions of families in the private rented sector with low savings and facing sky-high costs and rising bills, need far more ambitious plans to help them buy their own home.”

Read more: Why have the Tories turned on landlords?

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