What the Energy Price Cap Changes Mean for Lettings: Propertymark Webinar Takeaways

The Ofgem price cap has moved at every single quarterly review this year, and another rise is widely expected in January. For letting agents and landlords, this continues to put a strain on void-period bills and budgets. We teamed up with Propertymark to explore this topic in our latest webinar, digging into the numbers, tackling key questions and exploring practical steps to get ready for 2027. Here’s what we covered.

2026 In Numbers

The cap hasn’t settled once this year, today a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit is looking at roughly £1,723 a year. That’s about £60 more than January’s cap, or around £5 a month. Around two-thirds of UK households are on default variable tariffs, so they feel every swing. The roughly 11 million on fixed deals are shielded, for now. For void management, the figure that matters most is the standing charge which has now increased due to the change in energy price cap. A dual-fuel property currently carries around 84.5p a day in standing charges – that’s about £25 a month, or roughly £18 for a three-week void .

Why is it so volatile, and is this the new normal?

We asked our energy partner Ovo for a supplier’s view.

“The price cap is moving sharply because it tracks wholesale gas, and wholesale gas has been highly volatile since the US-Iran conflict restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Less global supply is pushing prices up. The swings come from sentiment, with prices reacting to every sign of the strait opening or closing. In a tight market like this, events that would normally barely register, such as an LNG terminal outage or a Norwegian pipeline returning from maintenance, now move prices noticeably.

Is it the new normal? Not permanently, but for now, yes. Volatility is likely to stay high while Hormuz is unresolved and European storage sits below normal heading into winter. Once supply routes stabilise, the swings should ease. Prices are unlikely to return to pre-2021 levels.”

Who’s feeling it most?

A false sense of security catches people out, Landlords saw April’s fall, assumed it was the new price, then July arrived. With this in mean the advice is not to plan around the last announcement but plan for the next one. Since January, the gas unit rate is up about a third, even though gas standing charges have come down. Electricity has risen less than 1%, but only because of the VAT change; without it, the rise would have been closer to 5%.

The portfolios to keep a close eye on:

– Older, less efficient, gas-heated homes, especially where the landlord pays the bills.

– HMOs, student lets and anything bills-inclusive. Rents set when energy was cheaper leave the landlord absorbing every rise until renewal

– Winter voids. A void with the heating on for frost protection costs noticeably more than the same void in spring.

– Build-to-rent and block management. Landlord and communal supplies on business contracts aren’t covered by the price cap at all.

Budgeting when the target keeps moving

When prices swing this much, budgeting against a single fixed figure stops making sense. Start with what you can predict such as the void length and the daily standing charge. Then layer on what’s specific to the property. Treat the result as a range, not a fixed number, and refresh it each quarter. Ofgem typically gives around five weeks’ notice of each change, so there’s time to plan and communicate. The agents getting this right, budget per void day rather than per property. Once you know your average void length and the daily standing charge, you can tell a landlord roughly what a void will cost before it happens. However the cap isn’t the biggest risk, more so how the void is managed. An extra week empty, a missing meter reading at the start or end, or a late supplier notification will usually cost far more than any cap movement.

Four ways to be ready for 2027

Rachel closed with four practical steps every agency can act on now.

1.Know your baseline. How long do your voids typically run across the book? What does that cost you and your landlords, and how does it change between summer and winter?

2. Tighten the changeover. Get a verified reading, or a working smart meter, and make sure the supply moves into the right name on the right date. This is where most of the leakage happens.

3. Plan for winter voids. Agree sensible heating settings and a schedule for frost checks, especially in properties vulnerable to the cold. For prepayment meters, consider swapping to a smart meter at the start of the void, or keep the credit topped up so you’re not caught out.

4. Keep landlords (and tenants) informed. The January cap will be announced in November. If it’s a big rise, get ahead of it: tell landlords what it means for their property and how you’ll manage it. And don’t forget tenants, as continued rises will hit affordability too.

Take the guesswork out of void utilities

Help the Move’s free platform handles utility changes whenever a tenant moves in or out. We notify the energy supplier, council and water company for you, capture meter details and readings, and complete council web forms automatically. We process more than 300,000 moves a year for letting agents, housing associations, build-to-rent operators and developers.

A big thank you to Propertymark for hosting, and to everyone who joined and sent in questions. Watch the full video below.

Want to know more? Get in touch to see how we can help you cut void costs and admin time.