There is a trend in the UK for more and more people to rent their homes, many from private landlords. Too often, these are cold, energy inefficient homes: over 280,000 homes in cities across the UK that do not meet minimum energy efficient standards.
However, this is soon set to change due to legislation that kicked in at the start of this April. The minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) will require homes in the Private Rented Sector (PRS) to meet a minimum energy efficiency standard. This is good news for the hundreds of thousands of tenants, who have little or no choice but to live in cold homes.
It’s not all plain sailing, however. The regulations are currently too focused on the interests of landlords, who are able to exempt their properties from the regulations where improvements would mean an up-front cost. Instead, the regulations should be based on minimising the number of households living in substandard conditions – and the contribution that this policy can make to meeting fuel poverty targets.
The government recently consulted on changing the MEES regulations, with any changes coming into force in April 2019, and introduced the concept of a ‘cost cap’: if the improvements required cost any less than that cap, landlords would be expected to fund improvements. The consultation recommended that such a cap should be set at £2,500.
Yet this will result in less than half of the 280,000 worst properties (those with EPC ratings of F or G) receiving some form of energy saving improvement. In comparison, a cost cap of £5,000 would result in 93 per cent of F and G rated properties being improved. Using the lower cap, alongside the ability for landlords to apply for exemptions, weakens the huge potential that these standards could deliver.
Read more at City Metric
