They report that tenants are being made the offer on the basis of landlords wanting to sell because of a cocktail of stricter energy efficiency requirements in the pipeline, higher interest rates, and concerns over the cost of living crisis.

Lewis Shaw, founder of Shaw Financial Services says: “Over the past six to eight weeks, we’ve seen an enormous uptick in enquires from tenants who have been given first refusal to buy the property they’re renting from their landlord, often with an element of gifted equity. Off the back of that, I’ve spoken to several brokers heavily involved in the buy-to-let space and they’re seeing lots of their landlord clients looking to offload the parts of their portfolios that are either low yielding or have an EPC below C. 

A full 25 per cent of landlords admitted they would sell some or all of their properties if this proposal happens. That rose to 32 per cent of those landlords with large portfolios of 20 or more properties.