Landlords are hated but

[Parsley1234]

I am a landlord tenants been in situ for over 10 years very happily in a character Victorian terrace rent raises minimum I leave them alone get repairs done in a timely manner however from 2028 I will have to either sell holiday let or leave vacant the property as the modifications are untenable for me. Double glazing adding internal walls to make small rooms smaller etc. We are in a housing crisis this is going to make it worse and for all of you who want to have a go at landlords maybe look at the government housing policy first

How do landlords make a profit?
By lording land.
Take advance of the price of piece of property, then prey on the desperation of others to extract rent.

Unless a land-lorder is letting people live in a house at true cost and giving away 100% of the increase in value of the property when they sell it, they are profiting from a corrupt system that exploits the working poor.

And thank god you are not, destroying beautiful old properties to meet some arbitrary standard it's insane.

*Advantage

This.

Don't tell me you are a freeman of the land as well 😂

@Parsley1234 you are refusing by your own admission!!! There are plenty of places that do double glazed units for old sach windows! It's not impossible! And should have been done years ago!
You might not be able to do the walls bu the floors ceilings and roof should all be insulated. Boilers, electrics etc. solar if possible.

No there are not always ways to do it. Older properties with lime render, open fireplaces and little insulation were built that way. They were designed to breathe. If you start messing around with amounts of insulation, double glazing etc you will end up with an awful lot of damp in the property because the condensation has nowhere to go. In the north particularly there are huge amounts of Victorian terraces constructed like this, and there are already huge amounts being sold, everywhere.

Plus it's a business with a balance sheet. Spending 50k to bring a property valued at 56k up to an epc C does not make sense, particularly if you know there will be massive damp problems as a result of those changes.

This government blames anyone and everyone else for their ineptitude. Let's place the blame for an incoherent housing policy exactly where it lies please.

And I don't think my tenants who are all professionals would appreciate the description of being desperate or being exploited. They are renting for many reasons, but not one of them are renting because they can't afford to buy . . ..

Loads of landlord have though. It doesn’t seem to have helped housing prices, and now there is a rental crisis as well.

Sure there's some benevolent landlords, but that's a minority. So many Hoogstraaten wannabes on homes under the hammer

I’m a tenant and a landlord too because I had money from my divorce settlement but couldn’t get a normal mortgage. It’s given my family a reasonable standard of living over the years that we’d never have had because I have chronic fatigue. I don’t think the current system is fair at all but I wasn’t going to wreck my life by standing by my principles.

I can see it from both sides and being a tenant is awful. Landlords have always tried to fool people into thinking that they have loads of expenses and it takes a lot of time. That’s simply not true. A tenant will have to pay rent forever and those with no pensions will be have to claim housing benefit. Therefore the tax payer is funding landlords.

This makes me wonder how the EPC is actually calculated: also a Victorian mid-terrace, I replaced the boiler, added loft insulation and new double glazed windows and got it up to a low D. To get it up to a C, I apparently need to put solar panels on the roof and do the internal wall insulation.

The tenants pay £450 a month: I've increased the rent once in a decade. It would take decades just to break even if I did all the work. They are now both retired existing on the state pension. In what world are they going to get a mortgage - when the new regulations are brought in I will be selling. And no, I won't be making a massive profit from it - the value has gone up about £10k max since I bought it.

Your tenants have paid your mortgage and bought you a house. House prices are artificially high because of people buying up homes to let out to people with less money so you will also make a lot on the sale. You have not been providing a public service. You have been making money by doing nothing in a capitalist system set up to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

House prices may have risen even more if landlords hadn't sold. There is a housing crisis because there aren't enough houses to live in, whether that is to rent or buy. Many of those renting would prefer to buy and one less rental property means one more property that can be bought by someone who wants to live in it rather than someone who sees it as an investment.

Well yes, of course (although that is taxable). Better again to sell for market value.

My point was no one will prosecute you for selling at under value like you proclaimed.

Ginandtonic, I did wonder if some of the EPC evaluators are taking a rather elastic approach to the grading system. Our late Victorian house would pretty much have to have been demolished and rebuilt to obtain a C rating. External insulation was a no-no due to ventilation and breathability, second skin internal would have caused issues with lime and horsehair plaster - it was a nightmare, hence our decision to sell our lovely home.

I think it’s going to create a nightmare situation. When I watch Rogue Landlords I’m horrified at some of the things they do ( one was FINED £1.5 Million for faults/overcrowding/not registering an HMO) There are shit landlords and there are good ones. My rule was I wouldn’t rent out a property I wouldn’t live in myself. They had to be safe, clean, warm , no damp no mould properties.
And when I sold the final one I sold to a landlord with it written into the sale that the tenant stayed on, as they wanted to, with current tenancy agreement terms ( I’d fixed the rent for a year)

This!!!

I can only assume that you don’t know what the standards are. I was reviewing an EPC the other day and to get it to a C rating the works suggested totalled approx 50000 pounds and included solar, wall cladding and various other wholly unrealistic recommendations

Why are they unrealistic recommendations? The government needs to get much tougher and start demanding both home owners and landlords invest in their properties to make them more energy efficient.

Because the energy used to implement those changes, not to mention the cost would take decades to cancel each other out. In fifty years time I fully expect that human endeavour will have come up with better solutions that are far more efficient and effective than those currently being recommended. So it is insane to. Spend vast amounts of time and energy installing things that have at best a marginal impact

I own a Victorian property and live in it. I have done extensive works to bring it up to standard, including double glazing. The sash windows looked great but were really so draughty. Why should tenants live in properties that are cold ,draughty and a misery to live in?

The new EPC rules are a massive worry as I live in a rented house that is listed. In fact the town I live has a huge number of listed buildings, so it isn't uncommon for them to come up for rent.

The EPC is F, which makes no sense as the house is easy to heat - the walls are at least 2 feet thick, even thicker on the ground floor and made of rubblestone/mortar. The windows all have secondary glazing. It's 2 bedrooms with a massive living room and a big kitchen, Last year, we were paying £70 a month for gas/electric to have the thermostat set to 18 degrees all day. In winter it seems to hold the heat really well, in summer it's really cool.

I'm desperately hoping there is some kind of exemption for listed buildings, as things like external insulation would not be allowed. There is no way that it will ever be a C within listing restrictions, so if it becomes unrentable there's going to be a lot of us suddenly looking for somwhere else to rent!

I think for buildings over a certain age there should be an alternative option to install solar panels, including allowing them on listed buildings.

I lived in several properties with sash windows and have never found them drafty personally, but I accept that is my personal experience. On the other hand I hate the hermetically sealed feeling you get in a house with high quality double or triple glazed windows, I currently live in a modern house with those types of windows and often want to have several windows open to prevent it getting stuffy feeling.

@dianthus101 there are many factors that impact house prices - landlords selling will at best have a slight to marginal impact on house prices. However it will have a SIGNIFICANT impact on the rental market - for which landlord supply is basically the key determinant of rents.

so an at most marginal reduction in house prices (if any) will be at the expense of renters.

also - the epc change requirements are poorly thought out and often won’t achieved the goal of better housing in any case. There are much better ways to achieve that goal.

it is very poorly thought through policy. As always in housing.

I mean most of the absolute worst landlords I’ve seen have been councils and social landlords - some of these provide absolutely appalling quality housing - far worse than most of what’s available privately

AFAIK listed buildings are exempt from EPCs at present.