As featured in The Times Money on Sunday 16th October ’22 by Hannah Smith

How the £10k cost of going green is forcing landlords into the red

The property-buying company Spring said it had uncovered the areas where most rental properties have low EPC ratings.

It found that of 683 landlord-owned homes in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire, nearly 80 per cent had an EPC rating between D and G, meaning they would need improvements. Some 79 per cent of 1,067 rentals in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, are rated D or below, 72 per cent in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, and Grimsby, Lincolnshire, and 71 per cent in Accrington, Lancashire.
In Cambridge, Wembley in north London, and Aylesbury and Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, less than 30 per cent of rental properties had ratings below D.

The new rules on EPCs are part of the government’s plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Under the bill, which is going through parliament, rental properties will have to have an EPC rating of at least C for all new tenancies by December 31 2025, and for all tenancies by December 31, 2028.

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