The EPC exemption register

Landlords who cannot bring a property up to the minimum band can register an exemption on the national PRS Exemptions Register. It is not a loophole and it is not automatic: each exemption has defined grounds, requires evidence at the point of registration, and is published.

Registering one is free. Assembling the evidence is where the work and the cost sit.

The main grounds

• All relevant improvements made: the cost cap has been spent and the property is still below the standard.
• Consent refused: a tenant, a lender, a superior landlord or a planning authority has withheld consent for the work.
• Devaluation: an independent surveyor advises that a measure would reduce the market value of the property by more than 5%.
• Wall insulation damage: an independent expert advises that wall insulation would damage the fabric or structure of the property.
• New landlord: a temporary six month exemption for someone who has recently become a landlord in defined circumstances.

What counts as evidence

For the cost cap ground, that means invoices and quotations totalling the cap, showing what was installed and what it cost, plus the EPC showing the property is still short.

For consent refused, it means the correspondence: what you asked for, who you asked, and their answer in writing. A verbal refusal you cannot evidence is not an exemption.

For devaluation and fabric damage, it means a report from an independent, suitably qualified professional. A builder’s opinion or your own view will not do.

How long it lasts

Most exemptions last five years from the date of registration. The new landlord exemption lasts six months. When an exemption expires you must either meet the standard or register a fresh exemption on current evidence.

Crucially, an exemption does not run with the property. If you sell, the new owner starts from the standard itself, which is worth remembering both when selling and when buying.

What changes in 2030

The same register and the same machinery apply, but against a higher target. From 1 October 2030 the standard for a private rented home in England & Wales is band C rather than band E, with a £10,000 cost cap per property and qualifying spend counted from October 2025.

That will push far more properties towards the cost cap ground than the band E standard ever did, particularly solid wall properties where internal wall insulation at £4,000 to £14,000 is the only meaningful measure left.

Before you register

Work through the cheap measures first, even if you are confident the property will end up exempt. Cylinder insulation, loft insulation to 270 mm, low energy lighting and cavity wall insulation are worth roughly 16 SAP points for £745 to £2,300, and a surprising number of properties that landlords assumed were hopeless clear the standard on that alone.

If the property genuinely cannot get there, that same work is also the evidence trail: it shows a local authority that the cap was spent on sensible measures rather than on one expensive thing that did not help.

How registration works

Registration is done online, one entry per property, and asks for the address, the ground being relied on, the evidence supporting it and the EPC reference. You are declaring that the information is accurate, and a local authority can ask to see the underlying documents at any point during the exemption.

Keep everything in one place per property — the EPC, the quotations, the invoices, the correspondence and any independent report. Landlords who assemble it at the moment of registration and then file it properly rarely have trouble; the ones who reconstruct it three years later usually do.

Common mistakes

• Registering on the cost cap ground without having actually spent the cap.
• Treating a tenant’s reluctance as a refusal, with nothing in writing.
• Relying on an exemption registered by the previous owner.
• Letting an exemption expire quietly and carrying on letting.
• Assuming a listed building is automatically exempt. The test is whether compliance would unacceptably alter its character, and it is applied to the specific measures.