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Energy Performance Certificates for Landlord's Properties


Melboy

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And this from the home inspectors web site:

"From October 2008 it will be mandatory for an assessor to conduct a survey of the rented property for the production of an EPC. This must be carried out whenever there is a change of tenancy, so that the new occupiers can obtain an assessment detail before applying for the tenancy. The landlord/owner of the property would bear the cost of the EPC. Estimates suggest that there are approx. 2.5 million homes in the rental sector which would be affected by this legislation".

I believe the 2nd sentence to be b******t, clealy some mis-selling to increase business. If it's true then we've got problems.

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The comment previously about needing a new certificate on change of tenants has now been revised and looks like the requirement will be for every 10 years, but not sure how it will be implemented for existing tenancies or if offering a new fixed period to existing tenants. As referred to before, don't see this having absolutely any bearing on a landlord's willingness or otherwise to meet tenancy obligations. It's just a bit of paper with an indication of how much CO2 is kicked out from the house, the energy efficiency of the property and what improvements might be made. The problem will come if it's mandated that rental properties have to meet a particular rating value.

Notwithstanding the above, the assessment may be a differentiator that makes somes rental properties more attractive to potential tenants than others for environmental and cost grounds. Clearly, if the property was poorly insulated and leaked hot air, for example, it would be less attractive and possibly indicates poor maintenance by the landlord, but lower values are not a causal link indicating that the landlord is rogue or anything needs to be done to comply with the council's HSSRS standards. It might just mean the property is be less efficient than somewhere else through reasons of design etc.

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The comment previously about needing a new certificate on change of tenants has now been revised and looks like the requirement will be for every 10 years, but not sure how it will be implemented for existing tenancies or if offering a new fixed period to existing tenants. As referred to before, don't see this having absolutely any bearing on a landlord's willingness or otherwise to meet tenancy obligations. It's just a bit of paper with an indication of how much CO2 is kicked out from the house, the energy efficiency of the property and what improvements might be made. The problem will come if it's mandated that rental properties have to meet a particular rating value.

Notwithstanding the above, the assessment may be a differentiator that makes somes rental properties more attractive to potential tenants than others for environmental and cost grounds. Clearly, if the property was poorly insulated and leaked hot air, for example, it would be less attractive and possibly indicates poor maintenance by the landlord, but lower values are not a causal link indicating that the landlord is rogue or anything needs to be done to comply with the council's HSSRS standards. It might just mean the property is be less efficient than somewhere else through reasons of design etc.

Hello!

Just joined the group. Am a newish landlord but am also close to finishing my qualification as a DEA. Have recently gone part-time in my grown-up job running a training company and thought that becoming a DEA might be an interesting sideline as I slip into middle age! Been in training since May. Have done and passed the exams and am awaiting the assessment of my 5 sample EPCs. Cost so far is about £2k.

Thought it would be helpful to confirm that GPEL is exactly right about the current position. An EPC only gives an assessment and recommendations based on the information collected from the visit. The DEA has no authority to do anything else or make the property owner do anything else and I am sure he/she never will have. A couple of other things that might be of interest:

  • HMOs are currently excluded from the EPC software and are likely to remain so.
  • The existing proposals are that the EPC will be current for 10 years and will not therefore have to be renewed for every new tenancy agreement within that 10 years.
  • The cost of the EPC is fixed by the supplier and so can vary significantly according to the supplier and the property concerned.
  • Most of the DEAs who have trained to date have not been been getting any work. In part this is because of the Govt decision to delay the roll-out of HIPS to houses of less than 3 bedrooms and in part because the HIP providers (An EPC is a mandatory part of a HIP) are cornering the business of referrals for HIPs (and therefore EPCs) from Estate Agents and Solicitors. Self-employed DEAs are getting little or no work or are having to work for the HIP providers at knock-down prices as low as £80. Training as a DEA does not look like a good short-term career move! Many qualified thinking it was going to be a £30-£50K a year job but are lucky to have earner £30-£50 so far. If you do decide to train, don't give up your day job!
  • If you do qualify, the accreditation scheme you belong to requires you to declare an interest for EPCs you submit to the registrar (LANDMARK). You are not allowed to register an EPC for your own property or for those of your family. It is most unlikely that you will be allowed to do EPCs for properties where you are the landlord.

Dave Strong

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Can see no plausable logic to provide a fresh one every 6 mths if they have a life span of 10 years........

Looks like a few of us are going to have to qualify and do each others props then !!

Thank you Dave your input is most helpful......do you feel that once the flood gates are opened you may just be swamped with work tho..... even if only for a short space of time ..

Wonder why HMO are exempt ...as the implication is that ALL buildings res and commercial are to be rated..?

S

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"If you do qualify, the accreditation scheme you belong to requires you to declare an interest for EPCs you submit to the registrar (LANDMARK). You are not allowed to register an EPC for your own property or for those of your family. It is most unlikely that you will be allowed to do EPCs for properties where you are the landlord"

Hi

That’s me stuffed with a huge bill then to add to my electric periodics and my annual corgi’s

An I hoped I could have managed that one

Did anyone watch the money programme Buy to Debt!!!

Oliver

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hi Oliver

what is the score with the electric periodics ...how often and from when ?

Money prog ..focussed on "new build apts" with case histories not really across the board ...but still made some very pertinent points and i agree BTL over the next 12 mths will be very challenging....as for BMV shelter are as we speak trying to stop the practice of LL buying at massive discount from motivated sellers....

Simon

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Hello again!

HMOs are only excluded because the software the DEA uses to prepare and EPC doesn't deal with them adequately. To do so each "unit" in the house would have to be thermally separate.

The HMOs will be dealt with by using an energy assessment for the whole building using something called the SBEM (Simplified Building Energy Method).

This will, I believe, be the method used for getting an energy rating for commercial buildings though I don't know yet how that will impact on landlords next year. My guess is that they will have to have a certificate for the whole house in just the same way that they will have to have certificates for individual units where it isn't an HMO.

Also don't know who is or will be trained to do the SBEM! Some say that Gov't have thought that far ahead yet but do know that DEAs are very wary of paying for more training when they are not getting a return on the training they have done so far!

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Hi there, It may help if I briefly outline the background to EPCs.

In the 1990's John Major signed up to the Kyoto agreement to reduce the CO2 emissions in Britain. In order to meet this target the EU must implement reductions of 330 million tonnes between 1990 and 2010. An EEC directive in 2002 outlined one the ways of reducing CO2 emissions is by carrying out energy assements of existing housing stock.

All this would cost money, so the Government cleverley slipped the requirement for an EPC into the Home Condition Report part of the HIP, telling the public that this would improve the house selling process, when in fact the real reason was to comply with the directive at no cost to the Government (and getting someone else to pay!)

The HCR was eventually dropped a year ago leaving us with the EPC. Following the debacle of surveying firms losing many millions of pounds retraining their surveyors to do HCRs, you could understand their reluctance to spend money training them to carry out EPCs and so there were not enough Energy Assessors qualified to do EPCs and so the launch date was put back till last August and only for 4 bedroomed properties (this would also be a testing period).

No major problems are apparent and it will soon be rolled out for nearly all residential properties offered for sale and now it would appear also to apply to properties to let.

It is my understanding that the EEC only requires the properties to be reassessed every 10 years, although the government favours an EPC every time it is offered for sale.

Now to the personal view. The EPC looks like the sticker on a fridge freezer and is pretty unexciting, the method of assessment has been made for ease and has to be made on assumptions rather than fact. Certain house types such solid "no fine" concrete (there are plenty about) have to be assessed using data for different house types and as such the report and recommendations are pretty unreliable.

What is certain, is that unless your boiler is the latest all singing and dancing condensing boiler, the recomendation will be that you should replace your boiler. The cost of manufacture of the new boiler and disposal of the older fully functional boiler does not appear to be taken into consideration.

The sad fact is that it will all be a waste of time and money.

The buyer of an Period house is generally buying it because of its style, not its efficiency otherwise they would buy a new house. Likewise a tenant is unlikely to be interested in the energy performance of a property they are renting.

No one but a fool will rip out a perfectly good boiler and whilst we might be tempted to follow advice and put in more insulation in order to get a few more points, you will have to pay for a resurvey to get the extra points.

Finally, I would advise prospective Energy Assessors to proceed carefully. Forget the prospects of a lucrative living, the work will be handed out by the HIP providers, they will cut the fees to the minimum to get the work, take a big chunk for handling it and panelling it out to the Assessor. You will be expected to cover large regional area and carry out the inspection within hours (possibly minutes of being instructed), Your turnround will be monitored daily. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, there are large firms of surveyors out there, watching what is happening and who could easily take on this work within their existing workforce, simply by offering to undercut the existing assessors.

Finally, the Tories have indicated that they will drop the HIPS if/when they get into Power! Although I think the EPC under some guise will be here to stay.

It is being so cynical that keeps me going! :D

Cheers

Gee

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It is my understanding that the EEC only requires the properties to be reassessed every 10 years, although the government favours an EPC every time it is offered for sale.

What is certain, is that unless your boiler is the latest all singing and dancing condensing boiler, the recomendation will be that you should replace your boiler. The cost of manufacture of the new boiler and disposal of the older fully functional boiler does not appear to be taken into consideration.

The sad fact is that it will all be a waste of time and money.

:D

Cheers

Gee

Hello Gee,

Quite an informative post there.

Agree its another exercise that is a total waste of money in terms of whether tenant chose a particular habitat or not.

Question maybe davestrong or others can answer I'm looking at buying a terraced property (already tenanted-students) but it doesn't have double glazing or loft insulation and has an old but perfectly functioning boiler-will any of these need installing as a requirement for the EPC? If so, any idea how much loft insulation costs?-CH

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Hi CH

Don't worry, the assessment gives a rating to the property in terms of its efficiency (the higher the rating the more efficient) and also gives advice such as increasing insulation to 250mm or renewing your boiler etc.

The information is in theory there to allow you to make an informed purchase and point you in the right direction if you want to improve its efficiency. The advice is NOT mandatory and you can therefore ignore it once you have bought it. This is why it is a waste of time and money since it is only there to be seen to please the EU. This situation could of course change in the future.

However, in reality if you own an older house ie Victorian, there is very little you can do to increase your points, because the assessment takes into consideration method of construction, ceiling heights, window sizes, fireplaces, (all the items that made you buy in the 1st place and wouldn't want to change!)

Gee

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