As property investors prepare for the start of a new tax year, a major landlord organisation is reminding them that another big change in regulation takes place at the same time.
On April 6th 2012 the rules surrounding Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) significantly alter. From this date landlords or their letting agents advertising a property to new tenants must have an EPC prepared for the home within seven days of it going on the market. The previous period was 28 days. In addition prospective tenants must now be shown the complete EPC rather than just a graph depicting the energy efficiency level.
Most landlords will be aware that EPCs are now just as important as health and safety issues and landlord insurance certificates if they want to market their properties legally and David Salusbury, chairman of the National Landlords Association who have highlighted the change, said: “EPCs give tenants vital information about the energy efficiency of their property and also contain an estimate of their utility bills. They also help landlords make informed decisions about how to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties by recommending improvements. Landlords have clearly been doing their bit, with 54 percent recently stating they’d made energy efficiency improvements to their properties in the past 12 months.”
Of course many landlords are still waiting to see what happens with the “Green Deal” which could see them forced into making changes to their properties to improve their energy efficiency in a big way. The big question for many is; will there be loans available via the Government scheme? If the answer is yes then the 54% already saying they have made improvements will be joined by the great majority of the remainder.