There aren’t many landlords, or homeowners generally, who don’t want to improve their properties. Better insulation, more efficient heating systems, solar panels and so on, all make properties more attractive to potential tenants and future buyers.
But EPCs have long been known to be precisely the wrong way to measure the environmental credentials of a house. The scores – which can differ depending on who performs the assessment – measure how much it costs to run a home, not how efficient it is or how little impact it has on the environment.
Telegraph Money has previously spoken to EPC assessors who revealed how installing ultra-efficient heat pumps could actually lower a property’s score – this is precisely the bizarre kids of outcomes Mr Gove was warning about.
Which?, the normally restrained consumer champion, recently branded EPCs “inaccurate” and “misleading”. It found evidence of widespread errors that confused just about everyone.
Yet Ed Miliband, the energy and net zero secretary, is determined to reinstate the deadline for landlords, this time in 2030. He confirmed the Government’s plans in the Commons last month. There has been no mention of whether landlords will again be protected by some kind of cap on upgrade costs.
So the whole merry-go-round starts again.
Before it was ousted, the last government consulted on ditching EPCs for a “Home Energy Model” – will it ever see the light of day?
Most reasonable people see the benefits in modernising Britain’s crumbling housing stock. But blindly following a terrible system, simply because it already exists, is a waste of everyone’s time and money – and is destined to fail.