1st
Aug 2016
According to The Telegraph as many as 330,000 PRS landlords will have to pay as much as a £5,000 “green tax”, so that their properties increase their energy efficiency levels.
In the newspaper's report it claims that many landlords will have to pay upfront for such improvements to boilers, cavity wall fillings and insulation from 2018.
There were plans that landlords would be able to apply for Green Deal loan to assist with funding the improvements. It had also been stated that the loans would be repaid back by the tenants who benefited from the lower energy bills. The government's new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is that the property owners will have to pay themselves.
Many rented 'homes' were built in the Victorian and Edwardian times and are most likely to have money spent on them to upgrade to Band E.
A policy advisor for an association, Richard Jones, said: "Unless they make funding available, landlords will be forced to pass these costs on to tenants in the form of higher rents. It could also make being a buy-to-let landlord prohibitive. They could struggle to find such a large amount of money upfront.
"Landlords have been harshly treated. This is an extra stealth tax on top of all the other measures that threaten the finances of the sector."
Private renting landlords from April 2018 will be required by law to raise their properties’ energy efficiency levels to at least Band E. It has been estimated that there will be at least 330,000 properties that are currently in bands F and G requiring major improvements.
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