📈 April Fool’s Day may have passed, but the strain that households & landlords will soon face is no joke. A flood of price increases from broadband providers, water companies, governments, pharmacies, and the list goes on was announced last week.
📊 UK & foreign Investors bought £8.5 billion of property in the first quarter of 2022. Equating to 42,980 homes across Britain — in the first three months of the year. It is twice the figure recorded pre-pandemic in 2019.
📑 Since the government announced plans to raise the minimum Energy Performance Certificate rating in all rental buildings in 2021, landlords have been anxiously awaiting an update from the government.
📆 The recommendations set a deadline of 2025 for all newly-let properties and a deadline of 2028 for all other rented houses to achieve an EPC rating of at least a C. However, for the past two years, landlords have been kept in the dark about the potential workings of the scheme and any potential funding sources.
💷 The new regulations won’t take effect for any properties until 2028, according to the government. To avoid a fine of up to £30,000, landlords will have to spend thousands of dollars improving the energy efficiency of their buildings.
🚫 It is the most recent in a string of painful reforms for investors in buy-to-let properties that have led to an exodus from the market. The blows delivered over the last ten years in the fight against landlords have never been greater.