Lettings bodies welcome government announcement to extend Green Deal finance to all landlords & tenants.

The extension, revealed by Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey, has been well received by the RLA, NLA and others.

Until now landlords were excluded from taking out a Green Deal payment plan to fund energy efficiency projects aimed at making accommodation meet EU environmental standards which by 2018 require PRS properties to be rated E or higher on Energy Performance Certificates.

This specifically affects owner of the 390,000 privately rented units which were identified in last month's English Housing Survey as having energy standards rated as F or G - plus tens of thousands in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, too.

The Green Deal is a scheme introduced in the early years of the Coalition Government to allow owners to install costly energy efficiency improvements without having to pay the full cost up front: instead there were various funding schemes - Green Deal payment plans - to encourage commercial sources to fund the initial outlay and recoup the expense via deferred payments, sometimes linked to the energy saving created by the improvements.

A Green Deal payment plan is a loan, and some of the 27 lenders involved with the Green Deal have been criticised for the relatively high interest rates attached to the loans.