What’s inside the new guide showing landlords how to improve EPC?

If you’re a landlord, you’ll want to ensure that your rental is as energy efficient as possible. Not only could it increase the property's value, but it should also make it more attractive to new tenants, and keep them happy when they move in.

So it’s welcome news to see that the NRLA (National Residential Landlords Association) has teamed up with the TDS (Tenancy Deposit Scheme) to publish a new guide that could help landlords improve the energy efficiency of their rental properties, boosting the EPC.

The guide has been published at a time when tenants are particularly concerned about energy costs, and lawmakers are considering requiring landlords to increase the EPC rating of their rental properties to at least a C in the coming years

What’s inside the guide

The new Energy Efficiency Guide for Rented Homes includes a lot of useful information, including:

• Lower-cost tips to improve EPC
• Longer-term tips to improve EPC
• Common dispute Q&As
• Government grants
• Ideas that tenants can implement

The guide is quite comprehensive, including everything from running a full dishwasher to installing solar panels. But it leaves the ‘how-to’ element for landlords to figure out themselves (thankfully, you can read our energy efficiency guides for that).

Helpfully, it also includes recommendations on how to deal with tenants who are struggling with paying their energy bills or are complaining that the home is too cold. As well as providing advice, it also points landlords to helpful resources like the Government’s Fitness For Human Habitation regulations.

Why landlords should take note

By 2025, all rental properties will need to have an EPC rating of C or better. And although there are some exemptions, this could affect millions of properties.

And the Government’s recent Mission Zero review recommends that by 2025, “Government should mandate landlords to include ‘average bill cost’ alongside EPC rating when letting out a property.”

In effect, it will be even more important for landlords to improve the energy efficiency of their properties if they want to let it out to new tenants and attract good tenants.

What does Snugg think of the Energy Efficiency Guide for Rented Homes report?

The new report from NRLA and TDS is useful in so much as presenting a collated list of energy efficiency recommendations for landlords. But is it an effective tool to encourage landlords to improve their rental properties? Only time will tell, but our feeling is that landlords will need more than ‘food for thought’ to take action.

It’s interesting to note, however, that the Government’s policy of requiring rented properties to have an EPC rating of C or higher by 2025 has led to two major industry bodies working together to create a guide that educates and encourages landlords to take action. That will at least cause many landlords to consider making the necessary changes to their properties sooner than later.

We’re always pleased to see efforts made towards helping the UK’s housing stock become more energy efficient and environmentally friendly. So we hope that the Energy Efficiency Guide will be widely circulated to the NRLA and TDS’s members.