Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing an EPC upgrade bill of up to £28,000 for the property he rents out in North London.

The house, which was his family prior to moving into No.10 in September, has a ‘D’ band EPC for the property which means, under his Government’s own changes to MEES regulations, will mean the property would be impossible to rent out legally unless the work was done, The Daily Mail reports.

The total cost for the work, as the property’s EPC advises, would be between £13,035 and £28,235 – and failure to make the changes risks a fine of up to £30,000. The exterior wall insulation alone would cost between £4,000 and £14,000 alone.

The £1.75 million property which is a four-bedroom house within a row of terraces in Kentish Town, North London (pictured), is reported to be rented out to a member of Starmer’s family for less than the £10,000 income threshold under parliament’s income-reporting rules for MPs. But if rented out at full market rate of £4,000 a month, at the higher end of costs it would consume seven months of rental income.

Ballot box

The Prime Minister therefore could face more than just the ballot box in five years; and would in 2030 have to upgrade the property if he were to continue renting it out legally.

Starmer’s energy secretary Ed Miliband (pictured) recently announced that as well as requiring all landlords to rent out homes with a minimum ‘C’ band EPC, his department is also to overhaul the MEES system on which EPCs are based to make them more accurate and reliable, and a consultation is currently under way.

Landlords will be able to fully fund the cost of upgrading one property capped at between £15,000 and £30,000 depending on the kind of upgrades being implemented, but landlords will have to pay half the cost of subsequent properties, all funded through the re-launched Warm Homes: Local Grant scheme.

But properties will have to be within one of the eligible postcodes published by the Government, which cover around half of the UK, but its guidance on the new scheme points out that this is a more generous offer than made available under previous' schemes in recognition of low uptake in the tenure to those schemes.

“Many of the poorest in our country live in cold, drafty homes, and many of these homes' are rented from private landlords and which are below decent standards,” said Miliband recently.

"I say this is a Tory legacy, a Tory scandal, a Tory outrage... this Labour Government will not tolerate it. We will end this injustice [with] decent standards for private rented homes - warmer homes, lower bills."