"Labour has proposed a deadline of 2030 for all landlords to bring their rental properties up to a minimum EPC rating of C. This is an ambitious plan that is yet to be enshrined in law, but it shows clear intent from the government"
- Craig Cooper - epIMS
New research from epIMS, the EPC and energy efficiency platform developed for landlords, reveals that private landlords in England are facing a total upgrade bill of close to £20 billion if they are to ensure that all privately rented properties meet the government’s minimum proposed EPC C rating by 2030.
epIMS has analysed all private rental dwellings in England, looking at what proportion currently hold an EPC lower than a C rating, before calculating how much the nation’s private landlords are going to have to invest in order to bring these properties up to the required standard before the 2025 deadline.
The analysis reveals that there are an estimated 4.9 million private rental properties in England. And that 50.1% of them, or 2.5 million properties, currently have an EPC rating below C.
According to government research, the average cost of upgrading a property to an EPC rating of C in England is £8,000, which means it is going to cost the nation’s landlords an estimated total of £19.8 billion to upgrade all substandard properties to a rating of C.
On a regional level, landlords in London are facing the largest upgrade bill.
The capital has 1.2 million private rental properties, more than double the number found in any other region. So despite having the nation’s lowest proportion of properties that have an EPC rating of below C (44.6%), landlords are still facing a total upgrade bill of £4.7 billion, based on an average upgrade cost of £9,000 per property.
The second-largest bill is facing landlords in the West Midlands where the average cost of upgrading a rental property to a C rating sits at £8,148, meaning that a total of £2.2bn is required to bring all sub-standard properties up to scratch.
The South East ranks third where it would require £2.1bn to upgrade all sub-C properties, followed by the North West (£2.1bn), East Midlands (£2bn), East of England (£2bn), South West (£1.7bn), and Yorkshire & Humber (£1.5bn).
Landlords in the North East are facing the smallest upgrade bill of £517 million due to just 103,394 properties having an EPC rating of below C and the nation’s lowest average upgrade bill of £5,000 per property.
COO of epIMS, Craig Cooper, commented: “Labour has proposed a deadline of 2030 for all landlords to bring their rental properties up to a minimum EPC rating of C. This is an ambitious plan that is yet to be enshrined in law, but it shows clear intent from the government which means a legal minimum rating is almost certainly going to be introduced at some point in the near future.
"This will understandably be a concern for landlords, especially with the government suggesting that the average cost of completing the required upgrades is around £8,000 per property. But we’re here to reassure landlords that, in reality, this cost can be significantly reduced.
"We have identified a number of energy-saving solutions that, when tailored specifically to each property, are cost-effective, unbiased, and evidence-based, using the latest energy-saving technology to enable landlords to achieve a rating of C or above with minimum expenditure.
"We encourage all landlords to speak to us and discover how they can best upgrade their portfolio without having to incur formidable costs.”
