The Government’s eco rules, which force landlords to spend thousands upgrading their properties, will cause an acute housing shortage, experts have warned.
A lack of advice means that landlords will be unable to improve homes in time to meet the new Government targets.
Ministers have remained silent for 15 months since outlining plans to ban landlords from letting energy-inefficient properties. Experts have warned this inaction could mean property investors cannot complete works ahead of the expected 2025 deadline.
Meera Chindooroy, of the National Residential Landlords Association, a trade body, warned the targets would be impossible to meet in time. This would mean landlords could be banned from letting out properties that are deemed to be insufficiently energy efficient. This would exacerbate the country’s housing crisis, she said.
“The 2025 deadline envisaged in the consultation is now all but impossible to meet. Without a renewed plan, there is the very serious risk of exacerbating an already serious supply crisis in the rental sector,” Ms Chindooroy said.
The Government consultation on energy improvements in the private rental sector closed in January 2021. Its recommendations included introducing a requirement that all newly let private rental sector properties should have an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of C by 2025. For all existing lets, the deadline would be 2028. It recommended that the cost for landlords per property should be capped at £10,000.
However, there have been no further announcements on when these rules will become law, or whether there will be any grant funding to support the measures.
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