Not the homeowner grant. Home Energy Scotland's grant requires you to own the home you live in and for it to be your only or main private residence, so a buy-to-let or second property does not meet that test — regardless of how suitable the house itself would be for a heat pump.
There is a separate route for landlords. Scotland runs the Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan, funded by the Scottish Government, and heat pumps are an eligible measure under it. Two conditions catch people out:
- You must be registered on the Scottish Landlord Register — enquiring is open to anyone, but the funding is not
- The measure must appear in the recommended measures section of an energy report for that property, so the report needs doing first
Terms differ from the homeowner scheme, and landlords with larger portfolios are treated differently again. Amounts and rates move, so we will not print a figure here that could be stale by the time you read it — Home Energy Scotland publishes the current terms, and we will go through them with you.
What we can be definite about:
- We install heat pumps in rental properties as well as owner-occupied homes
- The technical side is identical — heat loss survey, system design, MCS certification via JME Green Energy, commissioning
- We will quote a straight fixed price whether or not any funding applies
- We will tell you honestly if we think the property is not a good heat pump candidate
If you are a landlord weighing this up, give us a call on 0131 644 0045 and we will tell you where things stand at the moment, including whether a high-efficiency gas boiler is the more sensible spend for that particular property.