Someone suggested adding a separate "waste/grounds maintenance...." charge to the rent but I don't see that as standing up - it is just circumventing rpz rules
This is correct. A tenant could take a case and would almost certainly win on these grounds.
We would consider refurbishment, but the rpz criteria seem difficult to achieve in our case as it's a small apartment
Yes. The problem with retrofitting for apartments is that you need agreement from the management company/OMC for many potential upgrades, so there is a strong possibility it might not meet the 7 step improvement necessary for a full reset of the rent to market levels.
We could consider holding it vacant for a few months to await outcome of govt rpz review due in q3/2025, in the hope of being able to reset rents to market value. Is this utterly daft?!
No, but its speculation, and given the current political climate highly unlikely that you'd simply be free to reset the rent to whatever you liked.
is it a good time to sell? Aware it will only attract owner occupiers due to rent cap
A lot of owner occupiers would be delighted with a nice 1990s apartment. You won't get any less interest than a B2B sale, in fact the B2B sales route might push a hard bargain on all of the above grounds. Owner occupiers won't be concerned about rent caps either.
Unfortunately for you, even if you were free to set the rent at whatever the market could bear, with only 1 bathroom in a 2 room in a 90s build, even a nice one, couldn't see you making the mortgage after tax and deductions on a mortgage of 2k a month. So it might make more sense to cut your losses on this one.
I wouldn't try it on with AirBnB either, you'll get the backs up of the management company/OMC & risk issues once full enforcement starts for the new system. Just sell it, you might be pleasantly surprised at the value people will pay for a nice apartment in that area.