Agents to face closer scrutiny as EPC rules tighten [Source: Estate Agent Today]
Friday 25th March 2011
New requirements are set to tighten up rules on Energy Performance Certificates imminently, EAT has learnt. After we broke the news this morning, Nick Salmon announced that he would revive SPLINTA, the highly successful anti-HIP lobbying group.
Communities and Local Government has issued no press briefings or other information, but has held meetings with EPC providers to discuss the changes, which look set to including having a full EPC on all marketing, including the internet.
However, according to part of the presentation by CLG which we have seen, the changes are due to come into force ‘from April / July 2011’. However, the document does not specify in what order the changes will apply or give actual dates.
The changes will include:
An EPC must be either available or ordered before any property is marketed for sale or rent, and enforcement offices will have powers to check that the EPC has been commissioned.
The full EPC, apparently as opposed to the summary graphs, must be provided when supplying property particulars.
The ‘responsible person’ (usually the agent) must use ‘reasonable efforts’ to ensure that the EPC is available within seven days of the start of marketing, rather than the current 28 days.
The EPC must be attached to all written particulars for marketing purposes.
Finally, the changes make the agent liable to prosecution if the EPC rules are broken.
However, an immediate issue is that if agents have to give immediate web access to the full EPC, there could be data protection issues, since the full EPC will give the full postal address of the property. This would also allow agents more scope to compete for the instruction in the first place.
There are also implications for IT systems and contractual arrangements.
Kristian Wass, a partner in energy firm and EPC provider Tudor Edward and who also owns Hudson Moody estate agents in Leeds, was at the CLG presentation, given by Peter Matthews. He said that it was astonishing that there had been no announcement yet from CLG about the changes, given their impact on agents. He said: "I spoke to Mr Matthews after the presentation and specifically asked whether the full EPC would have to go on internet marketing, and he replied that it would affect 'all marketing'. I think that logically, they have decided that this could not include For Sale or letting boards, and probably not newspaper advertising, but would certainly include the internet. I imagine that this could be achieved by a link through to the full EPC.
"We were told that the changes are coming in largely to tighten up on non-compliance in the commercial sector. In the residential sales sector, we were told that compliance is about 78%, but that it is much lower in the commercial sector - my guess would be 20-25%."
Nick Salmon said this morning" "The requirement to put the full EPC with sales particulars is a ludicrous waste of time and money. It should be perfectly obvious that a low EPC rating against a higher potential rating indicates that improvements to energy efficiency could be made but this only becomes relevant when a purchaser becomes seriously interested in the property. To have a multi-page EPC document attached to a single page of property details is complete overkill and will waste tons of paper, printing ink, administrative time and postage charges.
"If CLG is serious about this ridiculous proposal there is no doubt that SPLINTA will be revived to fight the measure."
Another estate agent told EAT: "Consumers are not interested in EPCS anyway, but if these changes start in April, when were CLG going to bother to inform us? I really don't think they've thought this through."
These important changes affect all agents, whether sales or lettings and whether in the private or commercial sectors. We will, of course, bring you updates as soon as we can.
