Property Master has called on the government to close the “green gap” and bring forward a replacement for the green homes grant scheme.

The scheme is to close this week on after the government chose to scrap the £2bn programme following just six months in operation.

The online mortgage broker, which specialises in buy-to-let mortgages, said the government has set an “ambitious target” as part of its Net Zero greenhouse gases by 2050 programme of raising the energy performance certificate for all new tenancies in the private rented sector to being a C or above by 2025.

By 2028 this requirement will be extended to all private rented sector properties, but Property Master estimated that around 67% of private rented properties in England and Wales – around 3.2 million in total – are currently a band D or below.

“We know the green homes grant scheme was not without its problems,” said Property Master chief executive, Angus Stewart. “It was difficult to access, hard to find the correctly registered tradespeople and the process of redeeming vouchers was cumbersome.

“But rather than reform the scheme the government has chosen to scrap it and leave landlords with a ‘green gap’ of finding anything up to £10,000 per property to meet these new requirements in just a few years.

“Around half of all landlords own just one property and they are already dealing with increased taxes on private rented property and for many the continuing coronavirus crisis that has pushed some 800,000 people into rent arrears.

“Indeed, landlords could be forgiven for thinking the new energy regulations in the absence of government support is just an extra backdoor tax on the private rented sector. For many this will be a squeeze too far on their finances and they may well choose this moment to exit the market which will reduce the number of homes for rent.”

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