A leading landlord has welcomed the Government’s recent U-turn on EPCs, telling a webinar this week that he was facing a ‘crazy’ bill to upgrade his portfolio of properties to the minimum ‘C’ band.

Until Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap the proposed requirement that rented properties must reach this level, landlords had been worrying about the costs. There has been substantial debate about what these would have been, ranging from £3,000 to £15,000 depending on the property and its existing EPC banding.

But David Coughlin (main picture, right), who operates a large portfolio of rented homes and also runs property buying firm the Landlord Sales Agency, told listeners to a podcast hosted by Paul Shamplina on Tuesday that his energy efficiency expert had told him some of his properties would require the full £15,000 to upgrade.

Expensive

“He informed me that I would have to clad the outside of some of them to achieve a Band C by 2025 and that’s why it was going to be so expensive,” he said.

“It was clear many of them were going to need £10,000 to £15,000 spending on them, so thank god the Government have taken this off the table – the timetable and costs were just mental.”

Shamplina added: “You can’t bring too many things in too quickly as otherwise you’ll push many landlords over a cliff.”

Their comments echo the Prime Minister’s comments on 20th September, during which he said: “Under current plans, some property owners would’ve been forced to make expensive upgrades in just two years’ time.

“And even if you’re only renting, you’ll more than likely see some of that passed on in higher rents. That’s just wrong.”