On 8th July Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the £2 billion Green Homes Grant Voucher Scheme (GHGVS) which allows eligible households in England to receive vouchers worth up to £5,000 to spend on various green initiatives in the home, landlords can apply for a voucher from the government that will pay for at least two-thirds of the costs of hiring tradespeople to improve the energy efficiency of their home.
Only tradesmen who are registered with either TrustMark and Microgeneration
Certification Scheme (MCS) will be eligible to carry out the works.
Landlords will not be provided the voucher directly, instead
the voucher will be offset against the final bill from the tradesmen.
The grant aims to cover the costs of 66% (two-thirds) of any
work completed that meets the requirements. For instance, for the installation
of Cavity wall insulation costing £2,000, you could potentially expect to
receive a £1,333 voucher to help towards the costs, leaving the landlord to pay
£667.
The home improvements are split into two categories, Primary
and Secondary.
Primary Measures
·
Insulation:
Solid wall, Cavity wall, under-floor, loft, flat roof, room in roof,
park home.
·
Low carbon heat: Air source heat pump,
ground source heat pump, solar thermal
Secondary Measures
·
Draught proofing
·
Windows and doors: Double/triple glazing
(where replacing single glazing), secondary
glazing (in addition to
single glazing), upgrading to energy efficient doors (where
replacing
doors installed prior to 2002).
·
Heating controls and insulation: appliance
thermostats, hot water tank thermostats,
hot water tank insulation, smart heating controls, zone controls,
delayed start
thermostat, thermostatic radiator valves
In order to be eligible for a secondary measure at least one
of the qualifying Primary measures must have been installed, the secondary measure
will also receive a voucher but only to the equal value of the Primary measure
installed.
For example: Primary measure is £2000 loft insulation, then
the secondary measure can cost up to £2000 and not the full £5000.
Top up of existing measures are also allowed (e.g.
additional loft insulation up to the recommended level, solid wall insulation
for other walls where a wall has been previously insulated), but
replacements are not included.
To be eligible to apply for a voucher you must meet one of
the following criteria
- · All owner-occupied homes (including long-leaseholders, shared ownership)
- · Landlords of private rented sector domestic properties
- · Landlords of social sector domestic properties (including LA owned homes)
- · Park home owners (for residential sites including Gypsy and Traveller sites)
In addition to this, the government have extended the scheme to allow a £10,00 voucher which will fully fund improvement measures for those on low-income, however this low-income scheme is only available to owner-occupiers on a qualifying benefit.
How can
you apply?
Later on this month (August), homeowners and landlords will
be able to go the Simple Energy Advice (SEA) website and get advice about which
energy saving measure would suit them best.
Landlords cannot decide which measure to use, this will be
decided by SEA and the application will be done via SEAs website ONLY
You'll then be sent a list of TrustMark or (MCS) registered
tradespeople (schemes which list approved construction workers by the
government) in your local area to carry out the work, the Government will hand
out vouchers from the end of September.
SCAMS
Be wary, a number of website have been set up already stating
that you can claim your Voucher through them, this is not the case voucher
application is ONLY available via Simple Energy Advice (SEA) website, also if
you've been called saying you're eligible for a Green Homes Grant this is fake.
Fraud prevention scheme Cifas says it's received reports of scammers trying to
con people out of money by pretending to be part of the scheme.
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