On the 19th December another consultation was launched about minimum energy standards. In October a 97 page guide was issued and this consultation proposes some significant changes to that guidance.
At the heart of the guidance is the rule that the landlord should not have to incur any cost. If there was no fully funded option then the landlord could register an exemption and continue to let a sub-standard property.
What this latest consultation does is to suggest that landlords could have to spend up to £2,500 before they could register such an exemption. The proposal would ignore any improvements made before October 2017. It also suggests that if £2,000 could be achieved through Green Deal, ECO funding or some other no cost to the landlord route, this would count towards the £2,500 threshold.
However, it suggests that if the tenant refused consent for the Green Deal funding, this could not be registered as an exemption and the landlord would have to spend up to the full £2,500 before an exemption could be registered.
The full consultation can be found here. Responses are required by 13 March 2018 with a suggestion these new rules will come into force in April 2019. As this will be after many properties will have registered a “no cost” exemption, it suggests that all such no cost exemptions should have to be re-registered after the revised proposals come into force to require the spending of the £2,500 now rather than in 2023.
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