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Energy: Housing

Answer

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero provides an Exemptions Register to enable landlords to register exemptions. The Exemptions Register has sufficient capacity to handle an increase in exemption registrations.

The impact assessment published alongside the government response to the ‘Improving the energy performance of privately rented homes’ consultation contains information on expected prevalence of exemptions, and information on treatment of exemptions in the modelling can be found in the attached table.

Table - Treatment of exemptions in the PRS MEES modelling

Exemption	Treatment in modelling
High-Cost exemption	Modelled: If the cost of making even the cheapest improvement exceeds the cost cap, we do not upgrade a property.
All Relevant Improvements Made exemption	Modelled: If no relevant improvements can be made then no improvements are made in the modelling.
Cost Cap exemption	Modelled: Where landlords install measures and hit the cost cap before reaching MEES, the model stops upgrading the property.
Property Value Adjustment exemption (affordability exemption)	Not modelled: This exemption allows landlords of properties valued below £100,000 to work to a cost cap that is 10% of the property’s value. The NBM does not contain property prices to allow robust modelling of the exemption.
Solid Wall Insulation (SWI) exemption	Modelled: For simplicity, we assume all landlords who can take advantage of this exemption do so (there may in reality be a small number of landlords who still wish to install SWI). Thus, our modelling results do not include SWI.
Negative Impacts exemption	Not modelled: We do not account for specific cases where a measure is recommended on an EPC, but determined to negatively impact a property or its value through some other assessment.
Third-Party Consent exemption	Partially modelled: We do account for in-situ tenants not consenting to improvements at a rate of 10%. However, we do not account for refused consent from other third parties, including superior landlords (freeholders) and local authorities through planning permission processes.
New landlord exemption	Not modelled: We do not account for property transfers, but given new landlords exemptions only last for 6 months this will not significantly affect modelling results

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL14569

Session

2024-26

Subjects

Conservation Housing Energy Exemptions Standards

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk