GREEN taxes unfairly hitting poorer tenants hardest – warns landlord

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Tenants in homes with electric heating are being unfairly penalised by the government’s green tax policy, says one concerned landlord.

Young, single tenants – often on low wages – are discriminated against because the green levy on their bills is higher on electricity than gas, according to Tricia Urquhart who has tenants in one and two-bed houses using electric heating.

They are generally paying far higher bills to heat their homes – often four to five times per kWh – and the recently announced 54% rise means their already expensive heating is even more costly in real terms.

The Nottingham landlord tells LandlordZONE: “I put in electric radiators when electricity was 10p a unit and the selling point was that they shouldn’t cost you more than gas – now it’s 21p.

One tenant couple never put their heating on because they don’t think they can afford it, while I’m surprised that another single tenant, who works from home and has the heating on, hasn’t given me notice.”

Little difference

Recently announced government help will mean 28 million households will receive about £350 to help offset soaring energy prices, but Urquhart says this will make little difference to these sole electricity users, whose bill is made up of 40% in green levies.

Currently, 23% of the cost of electricity is made up of environmental and social obligation costs, however, gas costs include less than 2%.

She adds: “Given that these users are using the green fuel it seems really unfair that the young, the single and the lower paid are paying such a large proportion of the green tax.

“I accept that the green levies may still need to be paid but they could be added to high use gas users and so penalise the polluters.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – GREEN taxes unfairly hitting poorer tenants hardest – warns landlord | LandlordZONE.

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EPC targets are a threat to the PRS

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Specialist Buy to Let and commercial bank Shawbrook has released a report concerned about the threat to the rental market posed by a future C rating EPC target. Click here

The headlines of the report indicate that 23% of landlords surveyed say the EPC ratings of their properties are currently D or below and that a further quarter of landlords are unaware of the specific energy efficiency rating of their property.

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SHOCK RESEARCH: 27% of landlords have no idea their tenants have cats or dogs

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Nearly one-third of pet-owning renters have been hiding their animals from landlords for more than three years, according to new research by build to rent giant Quintain Living.

Its survey of 1,000 renters also found that 38% don’t feel comfortable asking for permission to keep a pet and 29% had difficulty finding a property to rent as a pet owner. Almost one in five pet owners (17%) have considered giving up their furry or feathered friend in order to find somewhere to live.

Birds were named as the most secretly kept pets in the UK – a staggering 50% of respondents who keep birds admitted hiding them from their landlord – with rabbits in second place (43%) and rather bizarrely, horses, with 33% of respondents.

Walkies

Tenants find various ways of hiding their pets during landlord inspections, according to the buy-to-rent management firm: 35% take their pet for a walk, 32% ask a friend to pet-sit, 19% get neighbours to watch it, 15% hide it in a wardrobe or cupboard and 9% disguise it. As a result, 27% of landlords don’t know that their tenants keep pets.

Its research also found that Brighton is the most pet-friendly city in the UK – and Belfast is the least pet-friendly – with the most pet-friendly living in Norwich, Leeds and Sheffield. Plymouth, Cardiff and Edinburgh were at the other end of the scale.

Danielle Bayless (pictured), COO of Quintain Living, says: “For too long, renters have been excluded from keeping pets in their family homes, but, as we have proved, there is no reason why we cannot live in harmony together.

“We are proud to have been one of the first to offer pet-friendly homes to rent, as well as a host of pet-friendly amenities on site.”

Take our recent poll on attitudes to pets among landlords.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – SHOCK RESEARCH: 27% of landlords have no idea their tenants have cats or dogs | LandlordZONE.

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Free Financial Management Software for Landlords from Lendlord

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Lendlord is an online platform that helps landlords (with and without letting agents) to optimise their property investments with the following features:

Document Management

Securely store all your property details and documents in the cloud

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NEWSFLASH: Housing minister Christopher Pincher replaced during reshuffle

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Christopher Pincher, one of the more longer-serving housing ministers in recent times, has been a victim of Boris Johnson’s brutal cabinet reshuffle today.

Until now the MP for Tamworth had been a housing ministry survivor, retaining his role as a minister in Johnson’s reshuffle in September 2021 when Gove replaced Jenrick.

Despite losing his red box privileges, Pincher’s stint at the Ministry of Housing and latterly the Department of Levelling Up make him the longest-serving holder of the role since Brandon Lewis left the post in July 2016.

But Pincher is not moving because he’s disloyal – rather the opposite; he is expected to get the job of Chief Whip from Mark Spencer, whose authority had been undermined in recent week as ‘loyalists’ like Pincher whipped fellow MPs into backing the beleaguered PM.

His replacement is Stuart Andrew (pictured) MP for Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough and, as is traditional now, has almost no experience of the housing sector.

Reactions from the industry to Pincher’s departure have been tepid, largely because progress on so many pieces of key industry legislation has failed to proceed recently including the long-promised renting reform proposals, and the regulation of estate agency regulations, both of which have been languishing in ministerial inboxes for several years now.

Sean Hooker, Head of Redress at the PRS, says he hopes that Pincher’s departure doesn’t delay progress on reform of the private rented sector and that Andrew can ‘get up to speed as quick as possible’.

Andrew’s previous Whitehall experience includes being a Deputy Chief Whip, a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Defence and before that a similar role at the Wales Office.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – NEWSFLASH: Housing minister Christopher Pincher replaced during reshuffle | LandlordZONE.

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Meet Mark Smith (Barrister-At-Law) Landlord tax planning strategies – PIN Nottingham

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Our Hon. Legal Counsel, Mark Smith, Head of Chambers at Cotswold Barristers, will be presenting an overview of several landlords tax strategies at the pin Nottingham meeting Tuesday 15th February.

The Nottingham pin Meeting is now returning to its physical venue De Vere Orchard Hotel

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Pets most commonly concealed from landlords

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It is now the anniversary of the UK government changing the law to give pet owners more freedom to rent, and Quintain Living has released a new study focusing on renting with pets in the UK.

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LATEST: Landlord’s pet referencing system snapped up by digital lettings giant

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A leading digital lettings platform used by agents has acquired PetsScore, the pet referencing company that lets owners build up a profile for their pet to show landlords and letting agents.

The Lettings Hub plans to launch a range of pet-let products to tenants, landlords and letting agents this year, all integrated within BOX, its tenancy progression platform.

The supplier of digital products and services says that as 3.2 million households have bought a pet since the start of the pandemic – with 59% of new owners aged 16-34 years old – it’s inevitable that this will impact the rental market.

PetsScore, which only officially launched last September, lets tenants register their pets including information about microchip, breed/size/weight, vaccinations, pet insurance, medical treatment, training, and landlord references.

The Lettings Hub CEO Heidi Shackell (pictured) explains that if, as expected, the Renters Reform Bill scraps section 21 notices, landlords have little protection against a tenant moving in a pet without permission during their tenancy.

She says: “We believe a significant section of the market are looking towards newer solutions, focused on better due diligence and increased protection for landlords, whilst providing tenants with a valuable tool to overcome objections and encourage more long-term lets.”

Natasha Homer-Earley, a landlord and tech professional who set up PetsScore last year, adds that there is a chasm between the availability of pet-friendly rental properties and the overwhelming demand for them. “Over the coming months and years, there will be more opportunities to bring together fintech, proptech and data to improve the matching process between landlords, tenants, and pets,” she says.

Tenants with pets are still a hot topic in the PRS, after the government altered its voluntary model AST contract to require tenants to take pets unless they have good reason not to, while campaigning group AdvoCATS continues to receive cross-party support in its bid to alter the Tenant Fees Act to enable pet deposits to be legal.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – LATEST: Landlord’s pet referencing system snapped up by digital lettings giant | LandlordZONE.

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Are Gove’s ‘levelling up’ plans a step too far for landlords?

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Taxes. Regulations. Rental changes. Reforms. High standards. Section 21 being scrapped. Is this all too much for some landlords? The government’s dramatic Levelling Up White Paper feels like another knife in the back to the private rental sector.

A national landlord register

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OPINION: Why the EPC rating system needs fixing

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The government’s controversial policy of phasing out natural gas boilers in favour of heat pumps, in its drive to meet internationally agreed energy efficiency targets, could be stymied because of an out of date EPC algorithm.

Regardless of the fact that many older poorly insulated properties would be unsuited to heat pumps, fitting one with the current method of calculating a property’s energy efficiency rating could mean that a property with an EPC rating of C would be pushed to a D.

Currently there are some rather bizarre outcomes to the EPC system that need to be tackled if the above targets are to hold any credence with property owners and energy specialists and the Government have acknowledged this.

Heat pumps use more electricity

The problem is that heat pumps use electricity which is more expensive than natural gas. The same goes for a property heated by LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) which as a gas is more expensive than mains gas. The EPC system currently incentivises the use of mains gas over electricity or LPG on a cost basis.

Tom Spurrier, of the UK Green Building Council, a leading industry body, has said:

“We have currently got a metric that incentivises gas because it is cheaper.” If you install a heat pump, which is powered by electricity, your EPC rating may actually fall. Properties with Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) are also marked down because the gas is more expensive than mains gas.

One Whitehall source told The Daily Telegraph: “We are aware of this problem and it is being reviewed.”

The Conservative MP Craig Mackinlay, the chairman of the Net Zero Scrutiny group, said:

“Given that heat pumps can actually increase energy use, on which EPC certification is derived, they could push a property that might have been rated C under an old method into D. That could make it both unrentable and possibly even unsaleable, if some of the more nonsensical Net Zero measures that we hear about are realised.”

Headlong drive to net zero

Cabinet ministers have expressed concerns about the speed the Government is going with its transition to net zero. Households and businesses a concerned about the costs this will introduce at a time when gas shortages are resulting in record energy price increases – it could be the biggest cost-of-living squeeze in a generation.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) grades are likely to mandated at a minimum of “C” for rental properties in the near future from the present grade “E” and the rating is increasingly being tied to property prices and mortgage approvals.

Property values influenced by EPC ratings

Research by the price comparison website Moneysupermarket shows that by improving a property’s energy rating from G to A can increase its value by as much as 14 per cent.

The way that the ratings are currently estimated, based on a formula arrived at in 2012, means that by moving away from natural gas to so called “energy efficient systems” could result in properties becoming unsaleable and unlettable.

Currently the EPC calculations estimate what it costs to heat a home, rather than the carbon emissions a heating system produces. Heat pumps whether air source or ground source produce less CO2 than a gas boiler, but they are not necessarily recorded cheaper to run.

A ground source heat pump, which is more efficient than an air source system, can cost up to £25,000 and is currently the only mainstream alternative to a gas boiler, though the Government is experimenting with switching natural gas boilers to burn hydrogen.

Few alternatives to natural gas

Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, have both pushed back on a headlong dive into renewable sources and heat pump conversions, arguing that the UK should continue to rely on natural gas production as the country moves towards net zero with the 2050 target.

The EPC system was drawn up in 2007 as a way of nudging property owners into making their houses more efficient. It has become increasingly important over time, with lenders such as Natwest now offering so-called green mortgages with cheaper rates for properties graded A or B.

Not fit for purpose

Nicholas Mendes, the mortgage technical manager at John Charcol, has said that the current EPC system is “not fit for purpose” as the green ratings have now became crucial in lenders’ mortgage calculations:

“Having an A, B, or C EPC rating will no longer be a unique selling point, but the expectation. Whether you’re purchasing or remortgaging, be prepared, as we could see the best rates be for green mortgages in the future,” Mr Mendes says.

A Government spokesman for the Business Department told The Daily Telegraph:

“Energy Performance Certificates provide useful guidance for consumers and businesses outlining how energy efficient buildings are in a simple and comparable manner.

“We are already looking at ways the system can be improved through our EPC Action Plan to ensure they are as accurate and effective as possible.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – OPINION: Why the EPC rating system needs fixing | LandlordZONE.

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