More than half of the rental properties in Lichfield and Burntwood would fail to meet a new energy efficiency standards, an investigation has found.
The BBC Shared Data Unit has analysed more than 1.9 million inspections on homes in the UK across the past five years and released the findings as part of the Local News Partnerships scheme.
It shows that while the Government is considering proposals that would require landlords to hold at least a C-rating for energy efficiency for all new tenancies from 2025, more than one million rental properties in the UK would fail to meet the standard.
The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) sees homes graded between A and G based on factors such as insulation, glazing and heating.
The statistics reveal that of those inspections carried out on the Lichfield District Council area since 2018, 55% failed to achieve at least a C-rating.
It also found that a quarter of those rental properties in the local area that were inspected saw portable heaters being used by tenants to keep their homes warm.
At the moment, all rental properties must be rated E or above in order to have new tenancies under the Domestic Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard Regulation.
However, landlords only need to make improvements up to £3,500 towards this. If they still have not reached band E, they can apply for an exemption.
Chris Norris, director of policy at the National Residential Landlords Association, said that the new changes being proposed by the Government could see some rental homes put up for sale.
“Landlords are running businesses, so every cost they have has to be met in some way. That means that a particular property might not be viable anymore – they might have to sell that property because they just can’t do the work and still let it at a rate that people can afford to live in.
“In other cases, landlords are going to have to look at how much they can afford to let the property for and it probably will mean that some rents on some properties are going to increase over time.
“Hopefully, we can avoid some of that by making the retrofit more tax efficient and getting a long enough lead time that landlords haven’t got to do it all at once.”
Chris Norris
“Safe and healthy homes”
Rachelle Earwaker, senior economist at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said properties that have a poor EPC rating are causing issues for those living in them.
“Homes are colder and often damper – they are much more expensive to heat. At the moment in the energy crisis that has had a massive impact.
“We would hope that if you are a private landlord you have got scope in your budget to be making some of these changes. They should be in the business of providing housing as a service where tenants can live in a very safe and healthy environment, and can thrive there rather than constantly being worried about the quality of housing and the health impacts that that will have.
“So if landlords are leaving because they don’t want to be in the business of providing that sort of housing, then I say that could actually be a really good thing for the quality of homes that are provided across the private rented sector.
“But for the private rented sector – where tenants have no ability to make those changes themselves because they’re basically not allowed to or not able to – it is really on the private landlord themselves to be making those changes.
“We hope that landlords do have that ambition to make sure that their tenants are living in safe and healthy homes.”
Rachelle Earwaker
The data revealed that the private rental sector in the Lichfield District Council area had seen the number of homes not achieving a C-rating or above drop from 73% in the 2013 to 2017 period to the latest 55% figure between 2018 and 2022.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said funding was being made available to support improvements in homes.
“The Government is improving energy efficiency, including across the private rented sector.
“Just this month we announced the allocation of £1.8billion worth of support to make homes more energy efficient and the number of homes in England with an energy efficiency rating of C or above has gone from 16% in 2011 to 47% in 2022.
“All privately rented homes in England and Wales are required to meet a minimum standard of energy performance before they can be let.
“We have consulted on this matter and will respond in due course, after careful consideration of ways to make sure improvements are fair and proportionate to both landlords and tenants.”
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spokesperson
