Manifestos and MEES

There has been quite a lot of peripheral but really important stuff going on this week, including one bit that I missed previously.  So, there are three posts this week, of which this is the first.

This is the one that I missed.  The party wonks will be sharpening their pens for their manifestos and we will want to examine them carefully when they come out.  However, other organisations are seeking to influence those manifestos.  One of those is the National Residential Landlords Association.  While some landlord groups can be, frankly, a little “out there”, the NRLA tend to be at the more reasonable end of the spectrum.  They want to develop their own Manifesto to lobby candidates and parties.  They are suggesting that something like these could be the issues:

• Building safety and fire regulations
• Energy efficiency and planning reform
• Increasing housing supply
• Tackling enforcement of rogue landlords, or
• Taxation and financial viability of letting

One other matter they consider is getting Wales ready for the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES).  MEES has been talked about as an issue for a while and is going to be a particularly significant issue in Wales with a large proportion of properties coming in at below EPC rating of C.  That is an issue because of the lawfulness of renting property below the C threshold in the future.  Now, we may be anxious about EPC assessments (I had one done on my place a couple of years ago, and was a bit shocked by the assessment process), but that is what is governing MEES and there are a significant proportion of PRS properties in Wales below the C threshold.  I checked the NRLA stat and found that they are correct: just under 60% of PRS properties in Wales registered with RentSmart Wales are at D and below.  But, of course, there are geographical variations.  Anglesey, for example has almost 80% at D and below; and Cardiff at around 40%.  This does not take account of properties which are said to be exempt from MEES (but my sense is that is a bit of a self-certification process and may not be correct, but we can certainly discuss that).  The bottom line is that this looks like it will be a major issue going forward.