23rd
Feb 2024
In April 2019 the government targeted BTL landlords when introducing Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards onto new tenancies that properties must have an EPC rating below Band E otherwise it is illegal to let out the ‘rental’ home.
Those landlords who refused to comply could have faced a fine of up to £4,000, but councils do not have the resources or are unable to keep the income from fines to put to better use because of funding cuts, and cannot afford to enforce the regulations.
However social housing registered providers’ rental homes are not subject to MEES.
A housing law expert of a national law firm Simon Hartley, said: “When MEES were introduced, the role of enforcement was handed to individual local authorities, but, to date, these authorities have failed to enforce these regulations.
“One of the reasons for the absence of enforcement is thought to be that local authorities have been unable to locally retain any income generated from fines imposed for breaches of the minimum standards. If retained, these funds would have been able to incentivise diverting funding to enforcement action.”
He states that the mayor of London first raised his concerns of apathy around MEES enforcement in 2022.
Khan called the regulations as “another example of powers being devolved from the government without recognition of the resources needed to use them”.
Darren Rodwell, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association (LGA), backed Khan’s views saying; “Many local enforcement teams do not currently have the resources and capacity to proactively tackle poor standards in the PRS”.
He continued: “Everyone deserves a safe, decent, warm and affordable place to live, and councils do everything they can to tackle bad practice and take action, as appropriate, to raise standards in the PRS.
“The LGA will continue to work with the government to ensure that councils have the right powers, skills, capacity and resources to undertake effective enforcement activity to improve standards in the private rented sector.”
The government has so far handed out two rounds of funding enforcement of around £6.3m to 85 local authorities to aid their processes and functionality in enforcing MEES compliancy across the PRS.
But Mr Hartley is far from impressed and said: “These pilot schemes saw some authorities appoint MEES Compliance Officers to work directly with residential landlords to help ensure properties met requirements.
“This meant helping landlords to understand their responsibilities under the regulations and advising them on funding that may be available, rather than investigating compliance and imposing fines. The pilots, however, changed very little and authorities have continued to do little, citing limited capacity and resources to enforce the rules.
“While there may be perceived benefits in devolving MEES enforcement, local authorities remain too overstretched to take on this responsibility, leading to a lack of active MEES regulation across the country.
“While other factors may be encouraging greater sustainability in the built environment, if the government wants property owners to take the MEES regulations seriously, greater financial support and incentivisation for local authorities is needed.”
The government stated it had in fact funded more than £8m to support enforcement capacity when in 2022-3 it spent a further £2m to another 25 local authorities.
A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “It is the responsibility of local councils to enforce regulations – to date we’ve provided them with £8.4m to do so and help ensure homes are meeting the minimum energy efficiency standard.
“This is on top of the £6bn we’re spending this parliament to make homes warmer and more energy efficient, with a further £6bn up to 2028 to help around a million families save money on their energy bills.”
Rishi Sunak controversial change to the government’s net zero pledges was dubbed as “hugely disappointing” and a “colossal error” by the sector.
In his Downing Street speech Sunak gave details of the new approach to achieving net zero with the most contentious measure of scrapping the plan for all new private rental properties/tenancies starting by 2025 of having an EPC rating of C and for all BTL properties by 2028, saying “we will never force any household to do it”.
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