Homeowners face shelling out thousands for eco-targets despite Rishi Sunak’s U-turn | Personal Finance | Finance

Homeowners may be forced to shell out thousands of pounds to upgrade their homes in order to fit green pledges, despite Rishi Sunak pushing the requirements back.

The Prime Minister sparked a fierce debate when he announced he was pushing back several climate commitments, including the deadline for selling new petrol and diesel cars and the phasing out of gas boilers.

This controversial U-turn, which sparked a Tory revolt spearheaded by former PM Boris Johnson, was fiercely defended by Mr Sunak, who said it would “ease the burden” of net zero on families and working people.

However, as it turns out, the move will not financially aid everyone, the Telegraph revealed.

One of the commitments that the Prime Minister pushed back is forcing mortgage lenders to ensure that properties on their loan books have Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings of C or better by 2030.

But major lenders including Nationwide Building Society and NatWest are still enforcing this rule, making 50 percent of their mortgage customers’ homes rated C or higher by the end of the decade.

This means that mortgage customers whose homes do not meet this standard will be thousands of pounds out of pocket as they will be forced to upgrade their homes.

Meanwhile, those who do not upgrade their homes could be denied a mortgage altogether.

More than 18 percent of private rental properties would need an investment upwards of £10,000 in order to bring their home to an EPC rating of C, the Department for Levelling up, Housing and Communities English Housing Survey, published last year revealed.

Conservative MP, Marco Longhi, said: “While I understand that banks may wish to offer products that align with their corporate values and market positioning, they should also make it clear that they will not apply this policy to existing customers.

“Otherwise, they would be forcing customers into actions that were not flagged as requirements when they first signed up to their products.

“Banks are free to offer products to new customers and to be clear about the conditioning they apply to those products.

“But applying EPC conditions retrospectively on existing products would be completely wrong.”