Energy Performance Certificates

Current: March 2012

Part 2 of the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections) (England and Wales) Regulations 2007 implements articles 7(1) and (2) of the EPBD, and requires the production of energy performance certificates when buildings are constructed, sold or rented out. In particular:

(1) Sellers and prospective landlords are required to make available energy performance certificates to prospective buyers and tenants at the earliest opportunity (regulation 5).

(2) Where the Housing Act 2004 imposes a duty on sellers or their agents to have a home information pack, sellers and their agents must ensure that energy performance information is included in any written particulars of the dwelling for sale (regulation 6).

(3) Regulation 8 and Schedule 2 amend the Building Regulations 2000 and the Building (Approved Inspectors etc) Regulations 2000. In addition to various consequential amendments, regulation 17E is inserted into the Building Regulations 2000. It requires energy performance certificates to be produced when buildings are constructed. Paragraph 1(5) of Schedule 2 revokes regulation 16 of those Regulations. Paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 2 substitutes regulation 12 of the Building (Approved Inspectors etc) Regulations 2000. The regulations that are revoked and substituted (which each required an energy rating for new dwellings) are superseded by the requirement to produce an energy performance certificate. Regulation 9 requires certificates for those buildings to which the Building Regulations 2000 do not apply.

(4) Schedule 2 also amends regulation 17A of the Building Regulations 2000, which implemented article 3 of the Directive. The amendment requires the Secretary of State to approve a methodology of calculation of the energy performance of buildings and ways in which the energy performance of a building shall be expressed.

(5) Energy performance certificates must be accompanied by recommendations for the improvement of the energy performance of the building (regulation 10).

(6) Regulation 11 sets out the minimum requirements for energy performance certificates. In particular, certificates must be no more than 10 years old, except in circumstances where the Housing Act 2004 requires a home information pack, in which case a certificate is only valid if it is less than three months old at the first point of marketing, as that term is defined in the Home Information Pack Regulations 2007.

(7) Regulation 14 imposes restrictions on the circumstances in which certificates and recommendations may be disclosed, and creates an offence for unlawful disclosure.