The Challenges on the Horizon for UK Landlords

By: Boris_Dzhingarov

Climate change – it’s a phrase we’ve heard all too often in recent months, years, and decades. The UK government has begun to action aspects of its manifesto towards tackling the problem and as a result, there are stricter regulations coming into play that will begin to effect landlords across the country. With such changes in the not-too-distant future, many landlords might already start worrying about the cost. Fortunately, companies like Propp specialise in finding the best finance for any given property, especially short-term funding agreements that will assist in covering the costs incurred of getting a property to the standard it needs to be to meet upcoming laws and policies.

Improving the EPC Rating of a Property

An EPC Rating, or Energy Performance Certificate, is more than just a multicoloured bar chart that you keep in the airing cupboard with the boiler. An EPC rating summarises the energy efficiency of a building and categorises it between the letters A (very efficient) to G (Inefficient). In times gone by, this might only have helped a person if they wanted to keep energy costs low or if they were an ecowarrior concerned with the carbon footprint of their accommodation. However, under new government guidelines, from the year 2025, landlords will not be allowed to rent out their properties to new tenancies unless the building has an EPC rating of C or above. That’s only three years to make considerable changes! The anticipated costs of achieving such a rating are expected to reach upwards of £10,000 per property therefore it poses as a serious challenge to the rental market, to landlords and tenants alike. Landlords will be required to fork out the money for the changes and most likely the expense will be reflected in the rising cost of the rental charge to the tenant.

The Key is in Knowledge

It’s time for landlords to educate themselves in regard to the efficiency of their property. Worryingly, 25 per cent of landlords are not even aware of what their property’s current EPC rating is, despite how easy it is to find. 15 per cent of landlords acknowledged they were not aware of these upcoming changes and 20 per cent admitted that they didn’t know how much the needed work would cost them. Those who did know guessed it would cost around £5,000 to make the needed efficiency changes however, as rising costs are seen across all industries, the figure is likely to come out a lot higher. In addition to these rising costs, nearly half of all properties will need to be vacated before the improvements can be made meaning that tenants will need to find alternative accommodation. Although this is not the responsibility of the landlord, it will undoubtedly result in an extended period of experiencing both a loss of income as well as increased costs. The cost of living is threat to everyone anyway and these factors will only make the job of a landlord even more challenging.

Evidently, more needs to be done to make landlords aware of their responsibilities and how these responsibilities are soon to change in the imminent future. Being a landlord is a challenging role and is not an undertaking that everyone would be prepared to go through, so if an individual has survived as a landlord in the challenging market up until this point, they are clearly made of a strong kind of metal. With that kind of resilience, the right information and the financial funding needed, a property can be improved successfully to reach government guidelines and continue as a source of income for years to come.

By Boris Dzhingarov

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