Today’s clutch of stories shares an unglamorous thread: who is walking away, and why the paperwork behind that decision is starting to matter more than the decision itself. Government figures show landlord numbers falling for the first time in five years, a fresh buyer survey finds first-time purchasers abandoning deals the moment a report turns up damp or a crack, and separate research suggests four in five leasehold flats are struggling to sell within six months. None of it is dramatic in isolation; together it describes a market where confidence is thinning from both ends, and evidence, not intention, is what gets you through.
Landlord numbers have fallen for the first time in five years
HMRC’s Property Rental Income Statistics 2026 release, covering the 2024–25 tax year, leads on a reassuring five-year story: 2.88 million unincorporated landlords declared property income, up from 2.81 million in 2020–21, with total declared income up 26 per cent over the same period to £58.99 billion. Buried under that framing, as LandlordZone reports, is the detail The Telegraph pulled out first: landlord numbers actually fell by around 30,000 in the year to April 2025 — the first annual drop in five years. Average declared income crept up to £20,500, just £200 more than the year before once inflation is accounted for, while allowable expenses climbed 11 per cent over the same twelve months.
Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action, writing in LandlordZone, called the figures “the warning that came before it,” pointing out the data only runs to April 2025 — a full year before the Renters’ Rights Act’s 1 May 2026 commencement. He cited his own firm’s possession claims figures, up 28 per cent in July 2026 alone, as the leading indicator that a bigger move is already under way: “Since the Renters’ Rights Act came into force on 1 May, I have never known so many landlords serve notice.”
The real lesson isn’t whether 30,000 is a big number — against 2.88 million landlords it’s barely one per cent — it’s which number a release chooses to lead with. A five-year growth trend and a first-in-five-years fall are both true of the same publication; only one tells you where the market is heading now. Possession claims and notices served are the leading indicator; tax statistics running eighteen months behind are the lagging one.
If you’re a landlord weighing whether to stay in, don’t take comfort from a headline growth figure that’s already out of date by the time it’s published — look at what your local possession and licensing data is doing now. And if you let or manage property, a shrinking supply of rented homes without a matching fall in demand is a rents story waiting to happen, whatever this particular release says about landlord numbers.
The £10,000 EPC cap will be won or lost on paperwork, not intentions
The government’s January 2026 response to its MEES consultation confirmed that spending from 1 October 2025 on measures recommended on a property’s EPC, or by a ‘relevant expert’, will count towards the proposed £10,000 cost cap once amended regulations come into force — expected in 2027, ahead of the October 2030 deadline for privately rented homes to reach EPC C. LandlordZone sets out, via guidance from My EPC Upgrade’s Amritan Walia, exactly what needs to be on file to make a cost cap exemption claim stick: itemised quotes and invoices naming the property, the contractor and the specific product installed, installer certificates, dated notes explaining why a measure was chosen or ruled out, any consent correspondence with a freeholder or lender, and photographs labelled with the address and date. “Comprehensive documentary information is vital if your claim is to be successful,” the guidance states — an invoice that just says “insulation works” won’t register an exemption on the PRS Exemptions Register.
This is the same shift I’m seeing everywhere else in the sector this year: the work itself is almost beside the point next to whether you can prove you did it. A landlord who spends £9,000 on genuinely EPC-recommended measures but keeps only bank statements as evidence is, on this guidance, in a worse position than one who spends less but files every invoice, certificate and consent letter as they go. The exemption process doesn’t reward the work; it rewards the record of the work.
If you own a rental property below EPC C, start the paper trail now rather than waiting for the 2027 regulations to land — spending from October 2025 already counts, so if you’ve had insulation, glazing or heating work done since then, go back and gather the invoices, certificates and photographs before a contractor closes down or a receipt fades. Treat every retrofit job from here as a compliance file first and a repair second.
First-time buyers are walking away the moment a survey finds damp
A survey of more than 700 buyers and sellers by LRG and Acorn Group found that 35 per cent would not make an offer on a property flagged with damp or structural issues, rising above 40 per cent among first-time buyers and falling to 25 per cent among downsizers, as Today’s Conveyancer reports. Ryan Mathews, group managing director of surveying at LRG, said “a first-time buyer usually has neither that experience nor much of a contingency fund, so an unexpected report reads as a reason to walk away,” while Neil Louth, group executive director at LRG and chief executive of Acorn Group, said the finding “really highlights the importance of good advice.”
That gap between downsizers and first-timers matches what I see in practice. A downsizer has usually owned two or three properties and knows a rising damp finding or a hairline crack is a negotiating point, not a verdict — get a specialist quote, adjust the price, move on. A first-time buyer typically has neither the experience nor the cash buffer to absorb an unplanned repair on a mortgage already stretched to reach, so the same finding reads as a closed door, not an opening. The defect isn’t the problem; the absence of anyone explaining what it costs, how urgent it is, and what it takes to fix is.
If you’re a first-time buyer and your survey flags damp or a structural concern, ask the surveyor directly whether it needs fixing before exchange, is a monitor-and-review item, or is simply a specialist-quote-and-negotiate point — a good report should say which, not just describe the defect and leave you to panic. If you’re an agent handling first-time buyers, build the surveyor conversation into the transaction timetable rather than just forwarding the PDF and hoping.
Leasehold flats are getting harder to sell to the buyers who most need them
Research from Pepper Money, relayed via The Guardian and reported by Landlord Today, suggests 80 per cent of leasehold flats on the market in England during 2025 failed to sell within six months, with service charges, leasehold complexity, mortgageability concerns and a mismatch between seller and buyer expectations cited as the main drags. It sits alongside separately reported data on the same underlying problem: 19.9 per cent of flats sold at a loss in 2025, rising to 38.1 per cent for studios, against fewer than 5 per cent of houses.
Flats are precisely the stock a first-time buyer with a limited deposit is meant to buy first, yet they are the stock struggling hardest to sell. The average first-time buyer is now 34, up from 29 in 2000, and nearly a third already have children before their first purchase, up from a quarter in 2020 — more buyers now want the space of a house from their very first purchase rather than treating a flat as a stepping stone, and a service charge that has climbed well ahead of inflation eats into whatever a flat purchase was supposed to save them over renting. The bottom rung of the property ladder is the one under the most strain, at exactly the point buyers most need it to hold.
If you’re selling a leasehold flat into this market, get the service charge history and any known building costs — cladding remediation, major works, reserve fund shortfalls — on the table before a survey is booked, not after; buyers are already primed to walk, and an undisclosed charge on top of a survey finding is a two-strike deal-killer. If you’re a first-time buyer being steered towards a flat purely on price, run the service charge trajectory through your affordability sums the same way you would a mortgage rate rise.
What I’d actually do
- Landlord weighing whether to stay in? Watch local possession and licensing activity, not an eighteen-month-old tax statistic — it’s the leading indicator, the release is the lagging one.
- Own a rental below EPC C? Start the paperwork trail now — spending from October 2025 already counts towards the proposed £10,000 cap, and a vague invoice won’t register an exemption later.
- First-time buyer whose survey flagged damp or a defect? Ask the surveyor whether it’s fix-before-exchange, monitor, or negotiate-and-quote — don’t let the finding alone make the decision for you.
- Selling a leasehold flat? Disclose the service charge history and any major works before the survey is booked, not after.
- Choosing between a flat and a house as a first-time buyer? Run the service charge trajectory through your affordability sums, not just the mortgage rate.
Today’s notes touch survey findings that make or break a purchase, and the documentation trail an EPC exemption now needs — the practice covers full building surveys and EPCs across the South East, including condition reports that explain cost and urgency rather than simply listing defects. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 6 September 2026.