Government consults on EPCs – how accurate are they and do they improve energy efficiency?

The Government has launched a consultation into EPCs.

It wants to hear from sales and letting agents, and is in particular looking at the quality of EPCs; their availability; and whether they encourage action to improve energy efficiency.

The call for evidence has been launched by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

It follows findings that some EPCs are unreliable for older homes, while a mystery shopping exercise in 2014 found EPCs varied markedly – on 29 homes, almost two-thirds had a variation spanning at least two EPC bands.

There is also concern that, with minimum standards now being set for rental properties, some landlords and letting agents are ‘gaming the system’ by, for example, making it look as though the property has more insulation than it actually has.

The consultation on EPCs, covering England and Wales, closes on October 19.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729853/epcs-call-for-evidence.pdf

The Government has also issued an update on minimum standards in private rented homes. Its summary of responses to an earlier consultation was also published yesterday, showing that of a total of 198 responses, just five were from letting agents and 13 from landlords, while 36 were submitted from a climate action campaign.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729753/domestic-rented-sector-minimum-level-energy-eficiency-responses.pdf

In a separate consultation, estate agents using drones to create photos or videos for property listings may have to start using apps to register their flight plans.

The Government is consulting on a range of measures to prevent the misuse of drones, including on-the-spot fines and the ability to seize them if necessary.

Under the proposals, agents and anyone using a drone weighing more than 250g would have to register their flight using an online management system to monitor any traffic.

There are also proposals to introduce minimum age restrictions and to expand the 1km flight restriction around protected aerodromes.

Currently, drone users cannot fly over 400ft and anyone using them for commercial purposes, such as estate agents, requires permission and a licence from the Civil Aviation Authority. This consultation closes on September 17.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/drone-legislation-use-restrictions-and-enforcement

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16 Comments

  1. smile please

    In over 10 years EPCs have been around and the thousands of sales and let’s I have been involved in.

    To this day I have only ever had 1 person ask to see the full EPC.

    It’s a complete waste of time and money.

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    1. Typhoon

      Could not agree with you more. The government seem hell bent on supposedly reducing the cost of moving for the consumer. Abolish these totally useless instruments and it will wipe off millions £s annually from the consumers’ moving bills.

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    2. Ostrich17

      Smile Please

      Same here – it was probably the same individual, pretty sure he was involved in some “green deal” enterprise !

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      1. Deltic2130

        I have never, ever been asked for one and have had nothing but complete disinterest when I have foisted one upon a tenant. On the day of their introduction in 2007 I was on BBC breakfast discussing their introduction and stated clearly that they were a complete waste of time and would make no difference. 11 years on I stand by every word. I’ve had no interest at all from tenants, one house given a 3-band differential by two different assessors, assessors that have guessed certain key figures, an assessor telling me to dig out the foundations and retro-fit underfloor insulation (on a 1950s terrace!), two assessors giving me different reasons for only achieving B instead of A, and overall a continued belief that none of the measures suggested are saving any polar bears.

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        1. The_Maluka

          Could not agree more and why include lighting when it is impossible to buy incandescent bulbs and even if fitted they have a very limited lifetime?

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  2. eltell

    I believe EPC’s were introduced to comply with EU legislation. Perhaps post Brexit these useless certificates can be dropped – but I’m not holding my breath!

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  3. PeeBee

    How accurate are EPCs?

    Here’s the most commonly used term on the chuffin’ things;

    “(assumed)”

    NEED WE SAY MORE??

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    1. The_Maluka

      “Assumed” and nearly always incorrectly.  I had nearly 100 photographs of a flat roof being insulated which were all rejected as they were over three months old.

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      1. CountryLass

        And presumably the energy assessor could not look into the loft to check?

        I think my favourites are;

        Loft insulation (in a listed building with no loft)

        Cavity wall insulation (in the same listed building)

        Double glazed windows (see above)

        We only had the darn thing done so that we could give it to the Tenants so that they cannot argue if we serve notice on them in future! And so we could get it marked as exempt.

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  4. PeeBee

    THANK YOU EYE, by the way.

    Clearly the Government care so little about the industry’s opinions that they haven’t even bothered to notify us directly about this “consultation”.

    But for your article I – and I’m guessing a good many of your faithful readers also – would have been as oblivious to it as 99.99999999% of people are to the document.

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  5. Anonymous Coward

    I thought that everyone knew that it was NEVER about the consumer – it was a cheap way for the government to get the data it needed to comply with its own CO2 targets…   In fact it was our Labour Government back in 2005-2006 (particularly John Prescott) that pushed the European Union into energy ratings for properties.

    That’s why the only thing left was the EPC when HIPs collapsed back in 2008. BTW – I thought HIPs were a really good idea.

    I do believe that the country needs to have a measure of the energy efficiency of its housing stock and I am not bothered that they will sometimes be a bit inaccurate as the errors smooth out when you average millions of EPCs together.

    But please, the reason for them was not to try and persuade people to upgrade their properties – they’ll do that for themselves because using LED light bulbs is waaay cheaper than the old incandescent bulbs by a huge margin and modern boilers are waaay cheaper to run than old ones because they can be up to 98% efficient in ideal conditions.   Given the price for gas and electric these days, it’s no surprise that occupants are upgrading for cheaper running costs.

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    1. CountryLass

      I had mixed feelings about them. The basis was good, it was when Lenders said that they wouldnt take a surveyors report done by the seller’s side, and buyers solicitors said that the searches would be invalid if they were over 3 months old that it lost it’s usefullness…

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  6. aSalesAgent

    EPCs have almost no value, however they are inexpensive (from my point of view), have not caused delays or headaches for my offices, but keep thousands (?) of people in work. I say leave them be unless the government is going further with minimum requirements for sellers/landlords.

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    1. CountryLass

      It’s the minimums that I object to. Some of my Landlords don’t have several thousand pounds lying around to get a new boiler, or new windows etc, and in a couple of cases I suspect the rental house has a newer boiler than the Landlords house!

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  7. HITMAN

    EPCs were kept in an attempt to cover up the mess the government caused when HIPs was introduced, all the poor people who paid for training to enable them to produce HIPs, were slightly compensated for there efforts.

    I don’t know and tenants or buyers that have ever looked at them.

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    1. PeeBee

      HITMAN

      I can see where that train of thought comes from – but I would suggest that the truer picture was that HIPs were rushed in wayyy prematurely, purely to introduce the darned EPC, in order for the Government-of-the-moment to score their Kyoto Protocol brownie points.

      The second they were established the HIP became surplus to requirements – apart from the obvious revenue streams that they created for the Government – but it was feared that the reduction in transactions would cost them more.

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