Washing Machine Energy
Ratings for Houses was the phrase one Huddersfield landlord told me a few years
ago when we
were talking about the colour bar chart graphs that every property has had for
over 10 years now. Now these weren’t brought in to use the whole palate of ink
in people’s printers, but to increase the energy efficiency of the UK’s housing
stock. The vast majority of Huddersfield landlords are, by now, acquainted
with the legislation that came into force on the 1st of April 2018, that
means all new and renewed private tenancy agreements must have an Energy Performance
Certificate (EPC) rating of E or above, otherwise it would be illegal to rent
the property out (EPC ratings go A to G – A being the best and G the worst).
Yet, from 1st April
2020, those rules will be extended to also cover existing Huddersfield
tenancies, meaning that under the new legislation, properties with an EPC
rating of F or G will be classed as unrentable – meaning it will be illegal to
rent the property and the landlord will be liable for a fine of £5,000.
It will be illegal for any landlord to let any Huddersfield
Rental property with an EPC rating of F & G from April 2020
Back in 2018, there was a loophole for Huddersfield landlords of F
& G rated rental homes on new tenancies, where they did not need to upgrade
the property for five years if it cost them money (called the ‘no cost to
landlord’ exemption rule) – yet back in April 2019 this exemption to improve
rental properties was removed – so they too are included in these new rules.
Therefore, this means that Huddersfield landlords must use their
own cash to cover the cost of improving their Huddersfield property to at least
an EPC band E, and we aren’t talking about an insignificant number here….
165 Huddersfield (HD1)
properties will be illegal
to rent out from the 1st April 2020
.. as they have energy ratings of F and G.
Now this requirement to upgrade the property is subject to a
spending cap of £3,500 (including VAT) for each rental property, as landlords
only need to spend what they need to, to improve their Huddersfield property to
EPC rating E.
In cases where a Huddersfield landlord is unable to improve
their Huddersfield property to EPC rating E within the £3,500 cap, then they
still need to spend their hard earned cash and carry out the most appropriate
measures which can be installed up to the £3,500 cap, and then register an exemption
(with 3 quotes from 3 contractors) for their property on the basis
that all relevant improvements have been installed and the property
remains below an E.
Huddersfield homes such as some G rated flats on St
Johns Road or some G rated terraced houses on Beech Street, Larch Road and Spring
St will all be illegal to rent out by April
If you are a self-managing Huddersfield landlord or a
landlord with another Huddersfield agent, then feel free to pick up the phone
and chat through any concerns with regard to these new regulations, how to read
a EPC graph, how to find the EPC rating of your home, in fact anything – call
me. The last thing you need is a £5,000 fine on top of the £3,500 improvement
bill.
One final thought though – it might be wise for Huddersfield
landlords who have had their rental properties for a while now to get a new EPC
carried out on their property (something we can help with irrespective of
whether you are a landlord of ours or not) as recent research has also acknowledged
that some early EPC’s understated the thermal efficiency of solid walls. As countless Huddersfield rental properties
are pre 1925, which is when most (not all) new properties were built with
cavity walls, the Dept for Business, Energy and Business Strategy have now
recalibrated EPC’s to give a truer result. This probably means that some solid
wall properties, Victorian and Edwardian terraced houses and converted flats, presently
rated F under an EPC will no longer demand any improvement works and certainly less
building work may be required in the case of a G rated rental property.
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