Renting and Home Energy: What Tenants Can and Cannot Change

A tenant in a privately rented home controls very little of the building that determines the bills. Walls, roof, windows, boiler, hot water cylinder and meter are all the landlord's fixtures. What a tenant does control is the certificate they are entitled to see before signing, the right to request consent for improvements, and the behaviour and portable equipment inside the property. The minimum legal standard for domestic private rented property in England and Wales is an Energy Performance Certificate rating of band E or above, and a property rated F or G must be improved to at least an E before it can be rented out, unless a valid exemption is registered¹.

That floor is low. Twenty per cent of private rented housing has a poor rating of E, F or G, compared with just 6 per cent of social housing³. Governments across the UK have proposed lifting the bar: for England and Wales, the equivalent of band C, with a single compliance date of 1 October 2030 proposed for the new standard, and a cost cap of £10,000 per property with a ten-year validity period for exemptions⁴. Scotland has consulted repeatedly on a minimum standard for private rented homes, at one point framed around the end of 2028⁵.

For independence, the honest summary is that renting caps how far a household can go. The fabric and the heating system stay in someone else's ownership, grid and supplier dependence remain, and any measure a tenant funds usually has to come out again at the end of the tenancy. What renting does not remove is the right to information, the right to ask, and in England and Wales a rule that a landlord must not unreasonably refuse a request where the work costs the landlord nothing¹.

What the certificate tells you before you view

An Energy Performance Certificate provides an assessment of a home's energy efficiency⁸. Certificates must be provided when a building is advertised for sale or for let to a new tenant⁹, and the requirement traces back to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which required certificates to be made available when buildings are constructed, sold or rented out¹⁰. Any property let, rented, sold or bought since autumn 2008 will have come with one¹¹. In Northern Ireland the position is stated plainly: when you first ask about a property which is for sale or rent, the owner or estate agent must show you its certificate¹².

In Scotland a certificate is required when a new building has been constructed, at the completion stage of the building warrant process, and when a building is to be sold or rented to a new tenant¹³. Each individual dwelling that is rented out needs its own certificate¹⁴, which matters in converted houses and shared houses where a single certificate for the whole building does not discharge the duty.

The certificate is a document recording the estimated energy performance of a building and its main heating system or systems, and is a legal requirement whenever a home or non-domestic building is advertised for sale or let¹⁵. The Energy Efficiency Rating is the first rating to appear, and it is required in adverts, showing both the current and the potential rating¹⁶. The potential figure is the more useful one for a prospective tenant: it indicates what the building could reach if the recommended measures were installed, which is a rough measure of how much scope the landlord has.

Certificates also carry a substantial data record. For a residential building the register holds the address and postcode, the energy rating and potential energy rating, building type and built form, inspection date, total floor area, energy tariff, gas network connection, floor level, glazing, extensions, rooms, fuel type, heating systems and controls, insulation, lighting, wind turbines, ventilation, solar water heating, construction age band, tenure type and air permeability, among many further items¹⁷. The address of the building is a required content item of the certificate itself¹⁸.

The A to G scale, and what counts as good

Ratings run on a sliding scale from A, very efficient, to G, least efficient⁷. Underneath the letters sits a numerical score: both the energy efficiency and the environmental impact ratings are scored 1 to 100 and split into bands A to G¹⁹. For non-domestic buildings an A+ band exists; for dwellings the scale is A to G, with G representing the least energy efficient rating²⁰. Official statistics describe assessments as banded A to G where A, or A+ for non-domestic property, is the most efficient²². Ofgem's supplier guidance uses the same framing²³.

Scotland's private rented regulations of 2019 defined energy efficiency using the certificate's Energy Efficiency Rating band A to G, where G is the least efficient and A the most, based on the 2012 Standard Assessment Procedure methodology²⁴. That dependence on a particular methodology version is one reason ratings from different years are not strictly comparable.

Two rounds of reform are changing what "good" means. A new rating system for domestic buildings is intended to give clearer information on the fabric energy efficiency of a property, the emissions, efficiency and running costs of its heating system, and the cost of energy to run the home to standardised conditions²⁵. Scotland's 2025 regulations set out, for a domestic property, a heat retention rating, a heating system rating and an energy cost rating²⁶. A single letter will no longer carry the whole answer.

The minimum standard for rented homes: E now, C proposed

The current floor in England and Wales is a rating of band E or above for domestic private rented property¹. Guidance for landlords is framed around that minimum level of energy efficiency, band E²⁷. Landlords may not grant a tenancy to new or existing tenants where the rating is F or G, and must not continue letting an already tenanted property at F or G, unless an exemption applies¹. The standard matters because the certificate rating sits at the centre of the regime: EPCs are the basis of many energy efficiency policies in the domestic built environment⁷, so a single assessment decides whether a home can lawfully be let.

The direction of travel in England and Wales is a dual-metric standard: a fabric performance standard first, followed by landlord discretion to meet either a heating system standard or a smart readiness standard⁴. Landlords would be required to ensure properties meet a minimum score of EPC C against the fabric performance metric and either the heating system or smart readiness metric³². Properties with a current EPC C would be recognised as compliant under the future standard until that certificate expires⁴.

Scotland's plans have shifted. The Heat in Buildings Strategy stated an intention to require all private rented sector properties to reach a minimum standard equivalent to EPC C by 2028 where technically feasible and cost-effective at change of tenancy, with a backstop of 2028 for all remaining existing properties³⁰. The 2023 Heat in Buildings Bill consultation proposed requiring landlords to meet a standard by the end of 2028, with properties failing it not allowed to be leased to a new tenant⁶. The Climate Change Committee said in February 2026 that Scotland's plan should include minimum energy efficiency standards for privately rented homes³⁴, which indicates the standard was not yet settled. An analysis of proposals in 2025 recorded new proposals for private and social rented homes to meet EPC C by 2030³⁵, while a parliamentary committee report in May 2025 described the proposal as the equivalent of EPC C by 2030 for privately rented homes in England and Wales³⁶. Where dates differ between documents, the differences reflect successive rounds of proposal rather than settled law.

Reading the recommendations report

Alongside the rating, a domestic certificate carries a recommendations report: information on measures which could be made to improve energy efficiency, with an indication of cost and typical savings for each improvement over three years¹⁶. For a tenant this is the most practical page in the document, because it names the specific weaknesses of that building rather than generic advice.

Two things limit it. First, the savings are modelled over a three-year window under standardised assumptions, not measured. Second, almost everything listed is a fixture. Loft and wall insulation, glazing, a new heating system and a hot water cylinder all belong to the landlord. A tenant reading the report is reading a list of things to ask about rather than a list of things to buy. Scotland's reform intends to use the reformed domestic certificate's new Heat Retention Rating as the basis for setting the rented sector standard⁹, which would push fabric measures up the list relative to heating swaps.

What a tenant can change without the landlord's consent

Official guidance for Scotland is blunt about the boundary: tenants should speak to their landlord first, and should not make any changes without the landlord's consent¹⁴. That covers anything fixed, drilled, plumbed or wired. Within that boundary, what remains to a tenant is the reversible and the portable: how the heating controls are set, how rooms are used and ventilated, curtains and removable draught excluders, LED lamps in existing fittings, and appliance choices where the appliances belong to the tenant.

It is worth naming one safety-relevant exception in the landlord duty list for Northern Ireland, because it applies equally to anything a tenant might do: draught proofing external doors and windows is listed as a landlord measure, but not in rooms containing an open-flue gas appliance³⁷. Sealing a room that feeds an open-flue appliance is not a neutral act.

Anything beyond that, including solar, a battery or a different heating system, is covered on the page on energy independence when you rent or live in a flat and turns on consent rather than technology. Reinstatement at the end of the tenancy, and the effect on a deposit, is the practical constraint on tenant-funded fixtures: a measure that cannot be removed cleanly is a measure the tenant cannot install unilaterally.

The right to request, and how far it goes

Private domestic tenants in England and Wales have a right to request consent for energy efficiency improvements. The purpose of the tenants' energy efficiency improvement regulations was described as empowering private domestic tenants to request consent for energy efficiency measures that may not unreasonably be refused by their landlord³⁸. Current guidance states that landlords must not unreasonably refuse such requests where the improvements can be funded at no cost to the landlord, for example through grants or third-party funding¹. The certificate itself is the natural starting point for a request, since each EPC comes with a report setting out cost effective measures such as low energy bulbs or upgrading insulation⁷.

The funding test is the hinge. A recommended measure counts as a relevant energy efficiency improvement only where third-party funding covers the full cost, or the cost is £3,500 or less inclusive of VAT, or a combination of landlord self-funding and third-party funding totals £3,500 or less inclusive of VAT¹. Above that, the obligation falls away, subject to the proposed higher cap of £10,000 under the future standard⁴. Because the recommendations on a certificate are cumulative and are meant to be installed in the order they appear to reach the potential rating⁷, the point at which the cap bites depends heavily on which measures a home has already had.

Consent runs both ways. Where a landlord has, within the preceding five years, been unable to raise the property's energy performance indicator to the minimum level because a tenant refused consent to a relevant improvement, or because third-party consent was refused or granted subject to a condition the landlord cannot reasonably comply with, the letting prohibition does not apply³⁹. A third party consent exemption is registered by demonstrating that consent for a relevant measure was required and sought, and was refused or granted subject to a condition the landlord was not reasonably able to comply with⁴⁰. In a flat, that third party is often the freeholder, which is dealt with under leasehold consent for energy work. The mechanics of making a request are set out on the page on asking a landlord for energy improvements.

What only the landlord can do: insulation, heating and bigger measures

Guidance for Northern Ireland lists what a landlord should do in a property rented to tenants: make sure roof spaces are insulated; replace draughty, ill fitting windows and doors; draught proof external doors and windows, excluding rooms with an open-flue gas appliance; insulate exposed water pipes; and fit the hot water tank with a good quality insulation jacket³⁷. Welsh guidance on fitness for human habitation frames the heating question in terms of the building: an efficient heating system appropriate for the fabric, meaning the thermal properties, of the building is important⁴¹. At the start of a tenancy in England, the landlord or letting agent must provide a gas certificate if there is gas supplied, and an Energy Performance Certificate⁴².

Two important limits sit alongside these duties. Guidance for Scotland states that landlords are not required by the minimum standard regulations to carry out improvement works¹⁴: the regulations restrict letting rather than compel retrofit, and an exemption is an alternative to doing the work. And in Scotland's Heat in Buildings Bill consultation, private rented properties would still have been required to meet the minimum energy efficiency standard even if a clean heating system had already been installed⁶, so a heat pump alone would not have substituted for fabric work.

Where a cold home crosses into disrepair or hazard, the route is not the certificate but the relevant housing standard: the repairing standard in Scotland, fitness for human habitation in Wales, and the housing health and safety rating system for excess cold in England. Damp and mould in a poorly insulated let is covered separately under damp and mould in rented homes, and the wider duty set under landlord duties on energy, heating and home safety.

Where the certificate falls short as a guide for tenants

Ratings are produced using the standard assessment procedure, with reduced SAP used for existing homes where information may not be available¹⁹. Reduced SAP fills gaps with assumptions drawn from the construction age band and built form, so two identical-looking terraced houses can rate differently on the strength of what the assessor could and could not see. Assessors must carry out energy assessments with reasonable care and skill, a duty enforceable by the relevant person, by prospective or actual buyers or tenants, and by the occupier of the building²⁰. That enforceability is the formal route where a certificate appears wrong.

The second shortfall is delivery. Written evidence to a parliamentary inquiry recorded that only 31 per cent of tenants who moved in the past two years received the certificate or other information on energy efficiency, compared with 79 per cent of owner occupiers⁴³. That figure dates from 2011, and predates the current minimum standard, but it describes a gap between the entitlement and the experience that a tenant should expect to have to assert.

The third is scope. The rating describes the building against standardised conditions, not the household. It says nothing about the tariff a tenant is on, whether a prepayment meter is fitted, or what a room actually costs to keep warm when someone is home all day. Nor does a band E rating mean a home is warm; it means it clears the lowest lawful step. A related structural point is set out on the page on the new build performance gap, where measured performance departs from the rating.

Validity, cost and finding a certificate

A certificate is valid for a maximum of ten years, or until another certificate is commissioned for the same building, whichever comes sooner⁷. Guidance for Scotland confirms that a new certificate does not need to be produced when the ten-year validity period expires, unless the property is being sold or let to a new tenant¹⁴. A home can therefore be occupied for years on an expired document without breach.

Where a property is being rented, providing the certificate is the responsibility of the landlord⁷, and it must be given to a new tenant free of charge¹⁴. In Scotland the owner must make a valid certificate and the related property report available free of charge to prospective buyers or tenants, and provide copies free of charge on sale or letting²⁶. Where a building is leased to an agency which then rents it on to its own tenants, responsibility for the certificate depends on the contract between the building owner and the agency¹⁴. For furnished holiday lets, guidance notes that the occupier is responsible for meeting the energy costs for the property⁷.

Assessment prices themselves are quoted by the assessor: a certificate is obtained from an accredited tradesperson⁴⁶, and no published national price exists. The register fees above are lodgement fees payable in the certificate process, not the price of an assessment.

Support schemes and help with bills as a renter

Most retrofit funding reaches a rented home through the landlord rather than the tenant, which is why the split incentive persists. Warm Homes: Local Grant supports local authorities in England to improve the energy performance of low-income owner-occupied or private rented sector households⁴⁷. The earlier Green Homes Grant voucher scheme provided grants to homeowners and landlords to make energy efficient improvements to homes in England⁴⁸. The Energy Company Obligation rates a property A to G, with G the least energy efficient, as part of its targeting⁴⁹, and referral routes are covered under ECO4 Flex.

In Scotland, the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan Scheme provides private registered landlords with interest free and low interest loan funding to invest in improving the energy efficiency of their properties and installing clean heating systems, and had supported landlords to install over 350 energy efficiency and clean heating or renewable measures as at October 2025⁵⁰. Area based schemes include councils working with registered social landlords to assist owners in mixed tenure blocks where a housing association is planning to deliver measures to blocks of flatted properties⁵¹, which is often the only practical route in a mixed-tenure tenement. Green Homes Wales offers access to grant funding alongside loans for specific energy efficiency measures, reducing out-of-pocket expenses⁵². Ofgem points households to energy supplier schemes and grants for making energy-saving improvements to a home⁵³.

On bills rather than fabric, a tenant paying the supplier directly is the customer and can use the standard support routes; a tenant on a rent-inclusive arrangement generally cannot. Funding from the landlord's side is set out under funding energy upgrades as a landlord, and household-level help under help for low-income households in England, Warmer Homes Scotland, Nest and the Warm Homes Programme in Wales and help for low-income households in Northern Ireland.

Exemptions, and why a cold let can stay legal

Exemptions are the reason a poorly performing property can continue to be let. A temporary exemption applies where someone has recently become a landlord; after six months the exemption expires and the landlord must either have improved the property to at least band E, or have registered another valid exemption where one applies, if they intend to continue letting⁴⁰. A high cost exemption also expires, after which the landlord must try again to improve the rating to meet the minimum level, and if it still cannot be achieved a further exemption may be registered⁴⁰.

Separately, the regulations exclude certain property types: listed or officially protected properties where the requirements would unacceptably alter them; temporary buildings used for two years or less; places of worship; low-energy industrial sites, workshops or non-residential agricultural buildings; detached buildings under 50 m2 of total floor space; buildings occupied less than four months a year with expected energy consumption under 25 per cent of all-year use; properties due for demolition with consents; and certain houses in multiple occupation not sold or let as a single rental in the past ten years¹.

The cost of the gap is contested but has been quantified in at least one study cited to Parliament: the delay in confirming new energy efficiency standards for the private rented sector could cost private renters an additional £1bn in energy bills, according to an Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit study⁵⁴. That is a modelled figure from an independent body, not an official estimate.

Changes ahead for rented homes and their certificates

Three strands of change are in motion. The certificate itself is being reformed, with a new domestic rating system giving clearer information on fabric energy efficiency, the emissions, efficiency and running costs of the heating system, and the cost of energy to run the home to standardised conditions²⁵; in Scotland the 2025 regulations set out a heat retention rating, a heating system rating and an energy cost rating for domestic property²⁶. The minimum standard is being raised, on current proposals to a dual-metric EPC C with a single compliance date of 1 October 2030 in England and Wales⁴. And the exemptions regime is being widened at the same time, with proposals for increasing the number of exemptions available and amending current ones, a cost cap of £10,000 and a ten-year exemption validity period⁴. Short-term lets were left over, with more engagement required before any further consideration⁴. The impact assessment for the 2022 amendment regulations was green-rated and judged fit for purpose⁵⁵.

In Scotland, the Heat in Buildings Strategy described work to set rules for private rented properties so that they use energy the best way they can⁵⁶, and the equalities assessment for the 2020 regulations confirmed that minimum standards in the private rented sector affect landlords and tenants, and owners responsible for making improvements required to meet the standard⁵⁷. A consultation on regulations introducing a private rented sector minimum standard ran between 6 June and 29 August 2025³¹.

For a household weighing how much energy independence is achievable while renting, the shape of the answer does not change with these reforms. The tenant gains better information and, in time, a higher floor under the building. The fabric, the heat source and the meter stay with the landlord; the grid and the supplier stay where they are. What tenure determines is not whether a home can be efficient, but who decides.