Advice for Owners

If you own a property and are getting ready to sell or lease it you need to make sure that you are at least aware of:-

Your responsibilities and how you are going to fulfil them.
How failure to comply with the regulations may affect you.

The regulations state that

“where a building is to be sold or let the owner must make a copy of a valid energy performance certificate for the building available free of charge to a prospective buyer or prospective tenant.”

So far, so simple, but the regulations also state that

“a person becomes a prospective buyer or prospective tenant in relation to a building on the earliest of the dates when that person–

(a) requests any information about the building from the owner for the purpose of deciding whether to buy or lease the building;

(b) makes a request to view the building for the purpose of deciding whether to buy or lease the building; or

(c) makes an offer, whether oral or written, to buy or lease the building”.

In order to be certain to comply with the regulations you should make sure that if you don’t already have an EPC then one is available as early in the process as possible. Ideally this should be at the same time as your agent is preparing marketing particulars and getting ready to put up a letting board.

For the avoidance of doubt, the responsible party in relation to these regulations is the owner and it will be the owner who will be pursued in the event of a failure to comply with the regulations.

• If an EPC is requested by a prospective buyer or tenant and you fail to make one available within 9 days then you may receive a penalty charge notice from the enforcing authority (the local authority) for the sum of £1000.

• There are transitional arrangements in place until 31 March 2009 which take account of the fact that there is a lack of knowledge about EPCs and possibly more crucially a shortage of trained assessors. This allows a period of 7 days after the expiry of the original 9 days and also gives you 9 days to supply the EPC after its receipt.

EPCs in Brief

EPCs are prepared by assessors who are members of organisations that have agreed a protocol with Scottish Building Standards including the RICS, CIBSE and BRE.

Buildings are measured and assessed in zones according to the use of each area and this data, along with details of the construction and services are fed into a computer programme which calculates the amount of CO2 produced per m2. This corresponds to ratings from A to G which are shown on the certificate.

The process also generates a short form report on measures that can be taken to improve the energy performance of the building, along with details of the payback period involved.

Details of how you can obtain a quotation for an EPC are available by following this link

Notable Points

There are few exemptions to the requirement for an EPC. Small standalone buildings less than 50m2 are exempt, as are unheated buildings and temporary buildings. It’s important to note that individual units in multi occupied properties will need their own EPC if they are the subject of a sale or letting after 4 January 2009, so some owners are making sure that EPCs are prepared on entire properties such as shopping centres and office blocks. In these cases the cost of an EPC prepared in respect of the whole building may be recoverable via the service charge dependent on the wording of the lease.

The position with regard to sublettings and assignations is confused and the government have recently stated that “the intention would not have been to include sub-leases or assignations”, but there is currently (January 2009) no clear guidance. As an owner, if these types of transactions are included then you will be responsible for obtaining the EPC. There is no obstacle to you recovering your expenses in doing this, via the tenant or assignor as one of the conditions of granting consent.