EPC F and G: what the rules mean for landlords, and how to find the stock

Since April 2020, a domestic property in England and Wales cannot be let on a new or existing private tenancy if its Energy Performance Certificate is F or G, unless the landlord has registered an exemption. That rule is the minimum energy efficiency standard, and it turns an energy rating from a footnote into a fact about whether an asset can produce income.

What the rule says

The standard applies to privately rented domestic property with an EPC. The floor is band E. A landlord whose property is F or G must improve it to E, up to a cost cap of £3,500 including VAT, before letting it. Where the improvements would cost more than the cap and still not reach E, the landlord can register a "high cost" exemption for five years, having done what the cap allows. Other exemptions cover consent refused by a tenant or a planning authority, devaluation of more than 5%, and a recently acquired property, for six months.

Letting in breach is a civil offence with a fine of up to £5,000 per property. Enforcement is by the local authority.

The floor is expected to rise

The government has consulted on raising the minimum to C for private rentals by 2030, with a higher cost cap. Nothing is law until it is, but the direction has been consistent across governments for a decade, and a portfolio priced on E being enough is a portfolio priced on the current rule holding. The retrofit gap, the distance between a property's current rating and its potential, is the number that says how far each home has to go.

What an EPC actually measures

A certificate scores a property from 1 to 100 and bands it A to G. It is a model of the building's fabric and heating, not a measurement of energy use, and it is lodged when a property is sold or let. That last point matters for anyone reading area statistics: long-held and social housing are under-represented, because they have not been on the market to need a certificate. The energy profile of an area says the percentages are of certificated stock for that reason.

The certificate also carries the floor area, which is why energy data ends up in valuation: it is the most complete public source of how big a home is.

Finding the F and G stock

Three ways in, from wide to narrow.

• The energy profile of an area gives the band mix, the heating fuels and the heat-pump share. Every market page carries it; see the Bristol page for the shape of a whole authority.
• retrofit_candidates lists the homes in an area with the largest gap between current and potential rating, which is where the F and G stock that can be improved sits.
• epc_certificates returns the certificate history of one property: every lodgement, its rating, its recommendations and the floor area, so you can see whether work was done and when.

For a landlord, the question is which units in the book are below the line and what the cheapest route to E is. For an investor, it is where the forced sellers will be: homes that cannot legally be let and cost more than the cap to fix. Combine the retrofit candidates with the sourcing search filtered to EPC band and owner type, and the shortlist writes itself.

Reading the rating with care

A rating is a snapshot at lodgement. A 2011 certificate says nothing about a boiler replaced in 2019. Where a property has several certificates, read the latest; where it has one and it is old, the recommendations on it are the work that probably has not been done. And a property with no certificate is not exempt from the rule; it needs one before it can be let, and the assessment will place it somewhere.

Do it today

Ask your assistant, with MarketCode connected: "Which homes in SE6 have the largest retrofit gap, and how many of them are F or G?" Then pick one and ask for its certificate history. The Lewisham SE6 page shows the district's band mix beside its prices, which is the context a landlord's decision needs.