With 10 months until these regulations come into force are you certain your landlords are prepared? Now is definitely the time to take action.
First came “The Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007” which introduced the need for landlords to supply an EPC to actively market and rent their property. The laudable idea was that this would tell prospective tenants how economic the property might be in its energy consumption. This was of course updated in 2012 regulations which confirmed the need for EPC’s.
With a government who are pledging to cut our waste emissions and promote more energy efficient methods many predicted this wouldn’t be the end of the regulation amendments.
As predicted on 26 March 2015 The Energy Efficiency (Private Rented Property)(England and Wales) Regulations 2015 come into force, the first stage from April 2018. These regulations confirm that in order to grant a tenancy to new or existing tenants the property needs to achieve a minimum of an E rating, meaning if the property achieves lower than this, the landlord is unable to rent the property without making necessary improvements.
Originally the Green Deal was supposed to provide public funding to enable landlords to bring their properties up to the required minimum standard, with little to no upfront cost to them. As with all good things, the government realised they did not have the finances to funds this.
But fret not, the Private Sector has stepped in and although there are far less approved Green Deal providers there are some who can access funding. Details of these providers can be found online by searching the Green Deal providers on Gov.UK. This funding is provided by way of a loan which is registered against the property rather than the owner or tenant, the money is recovered through the Electricity bill, and therefore by the bill payer. The repayments represent a tiny fraction of the electricity bill which should be cheaper as a result of the improvements.
Whilst this may not be the scheme that was originally intended we do appear to be getting closer to what was initially intended when the Green Deal was announced. The benefit being that properties available for rent in the ever growing private rented sector will be of a higher standard than ever before, thus ensuring that tenants have the most energy efficient homes possible.
