PropTech firm Kamma says well over 100,000 private rental homes across the UK are being let illegally because they already fail to meet EPC requirements.
Geospatial technology firm Kamma claims a total of 106,337 private rental properties are currently under minimum standards.
Kamma is also critical of a recent government initiative to give funding to 59 councils to help improve standards - ignoring, the firm says, 281 other councils that collectively account for 78 per cent, or 83,208, non-compliant properties.
Kamma says the councils that did get the funding contain just 23,129 non-compliant properties.
The PropTech firm’s chief executive Orla Shields says: “With inefficient properties identified as a major driver of UK emissions it’s vital that local authorities work with the private rental sector to find cost effective ways to reduce the carbon footprint of all illegally let rental properties.
“This will be all the more important if the proposed increase in Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards does go ahead and increase to grade C.”
Shields also questions the effective use of public funds.
She says the recent government announcement of £5,000 grants for heat pumps may be a huge step forward for the UK built environment “but at an average cost of around £10,000, and an average reduction in annual carbon emissions of around 2.6 tonnes per property, the cost to reduce emissions by a single tonne is £3,846. Ensuring that landlords meet existing laws is a much more cost effective approach.”
She continues: “If the identified properties in just these 59 councils improved to just the minimum standard we’d reduce our carbon footprint by around 32,150 tonnes. At a total cost of £4.3m this delivers a cost per tonne reduction of under £134, a far more effective use of funds than heat pump subsidies. The de-carbonisation of heating is a vitally important step towards Net Zero, but it’s not the only one we need to take. The government should take another look at the high impact, low cost opportunity to enforce its own laws.”
Top 5 local authorities by number of non-compliant PRS properties:
-
Cornwall (funded in the new government scheme) 3,693 properties
-
Birmingham (not funded) 2,119 properties
-
Liverpool (funded) 1,803 properties
-
Northumberland (not funded) 1,505 properties
-
Shropshire (not funded) 1,423 properties
We're excited to announce that we're working on building a shiny new website for readers of Landlord Today! As part of this process, commenting on articles will be temporarily disabled. We look forward to sharing our new and improved Landlord Today website with you shortly!
.png)
(1).png)
.jpg)
