The Intermediary – September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 41
I N T E RV I E W
She continues: “The problem with
intervention from different Governments – and
Housing Ministers that stay in situ for about six
months each time – is that you don’t get any
consistency. Legislative changes, tax changes,
Stamp Duty changes – all of these stand in the
way of investment.
“We get fixated with first-time buyers,
whereas there’s a whole wider group of
individuals that could benefit from intervention
from the Government. For example, we could
support downsizers by reducing their Stamp
Duty. We are ignorant to certain tenures. The
PRS is a really good tenure that people either
choose to be part of, or have no option but to
be part of. It’s of vital importance.”
Housing, Sedgwick and Emerson agree, is
not a four-year fix. In order to get the market
moving, this must go beyond political cycles.
“Propertymark and Paragon have long called
for this to be dealt with in a very different way,”
says Emerson. “We need all political parties to
sign up to one framework that will continue to
deliver. They don’t, because everybody’s in for
the short-term. We end up passing the football
and nobody makes the progress they should.”
He adds: “Look at the 4.91 million rented
households – by all means, build four million
new houses for those people to move into.
But at the moment, with the cost of building
materials and skilled labour, that’s a massive
problem. We should cherish and nurture what
we’ve got in the PRS, while equally trying to
look at other ways of adding supply.”
The position of Housing Minister being junior
means that people hold the role while aspiring
to promotion, which does not favour longevity.
Making this an apolitical issue could be a good
first step, allowing for the housing agenda to
be addressed as a whole.
Lenders, and particularly specialists, with
a vested interest in this market should be
speaking out, but this itself can have the wrong
effects when trying to get political buy-in.
“Some of the people we speak to in
Government absolutely do listen, but if you’re
vying for votes, the fear is that no one is
going to vote for a party that supports a bank,
and one that lends to landlords at that,” she
explains. “Landlords have, since Shakespeare,
been deemed thieves and vagabonds. Those
that provide good quality homes for tenants,
that element is never really heard.”
30 years to come
Assessing the future means talking about tech.
But Sedgwick is circumspect about moving too
quickly away from the manual processes, such
Landlords have, since
Shakespeare, been deemed
thieves and vagabonds. Those
that provide good quality homes
for tenants, that element is never
really heard”
as valuations, that have served Paragon Bank
well as a BTL stalwart for 30 years.
Another challenge looming is Energy
Performance Certificate (EPC) reform. When
asked whether too much of the EPC burden is
being placed on landlords, Sedgwick’s agrees
that “yet again, BTL is an easy target.”
“To some degree the Government has
listened to key stakeholders, because some of
the exemptions are reasonable,” she continues.
“But we’re not going to hit the timeline, and
then we’re going to find ourselves with lots of
properties that cannot be rented out. Again,
that just exacerbates the problems we’ve
already got with supply and demand.”
Not only does the lion’s share of the EPC
problem sit within the owner-occupier set, but
Sedgwick also points out that Government
support schemes currently planned do not
extend to portfolio landlords working through
limited companies.
With this backdrop, she expects more
innovation across the BTL market in order to
support landlords in handling a difficult market,
while also improving their properties.
Looking further ahead, Emerson says: “With
the increase in population and the age of
people remaining in rental accommodation,
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see exactly
that contraction initially, and then we see
Government thinking, ‘oops, we’ve got a
problem now’. All of a sudden, the landlord will
be your best friend.”
BTL lending was originally created in
response to poor supply and restrictive funding
mechanisms. It has evolved into a vital part of
the UK’s housing lifecycle, supporting firsttime buyers and more, even as landlords are
pilloried as the mythical enemy of tenants and
homeowners alike.
After 30 years of growth and innovation,
if there is a problem within the PRS, the BTL
sector, and the wider property market, perhaps
we should look beyond landlords and the
lenders that allow them to invest.
September 2026 | The Intermediary
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