News
LATEST: Government relaxes requirement for Green Homes Grant installers to be registered or certified
Tuesday 5th January 2021
Nigel Lewis
The English government has executed a U-turn on its Green Home Grants Scheme and relaxed the requirement for installers to be Trustmark registered or certified through the previous Green Deal PAS or MCS schemes, with immediate effect.
These certification conditions, although designed to keep cowboy operators out of the multi-billion pound grant scheme, meant many landlords have struggled to find approved installers and tradespeople to complete their projects.
As we have reported before, approved tradespeople have been almost impossible to find who have gaps in their schedules for additional work, and I some area many don't bother to even reply to enquiries.
But it won't be a complete free-for-all - any subcontracted work must still be carried out in accordance with the relevant PAS or MCS requirements in regard to subcontracting.
NRLA Deputy Director of Campaigns, Meera Chindooroy (pictured, below) says: "Yesterday's announcement is good news for landlords.
"We have had an incredible amount of interest from our members following the Green Homes Grant announcement.
"However, we heard from a large proportion of members who said they were having huge problems finding local installers with capacity to carry out the work and this was causing a backlog.
"We fed these case studies back to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy to highlight our concerns.
"We welcome the news of these changes and encourage landlords to make use of this important initiative."
The NRLA has long campaigned for further funding to be made available to help landlords to go above and beyond the legal minimum of energy efficiency measures set out by the Government for the PRS.
With the grants, which were extended to March 2022, landlords will be able to claim up to £5,000 per rental property.