Commercial property owners without an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) should obtain one as soon as possible or face the risk of having to obtain EPC’s under tougher criteria included in the Building Regulations update on the 1st April 2014, warns CBRE Bristol.
The planned changes will see current energy efficient benchmarks being raised. As a result, it will be harder for buildings without an EPC at present to achieve the better ratings if they do not undertake an EPC assessment before 1st April under the tighter criteria.
Henry Parkinson, Senior Director at CBRE Bristol, commented: “Buildings currently without an EPC certificate that are likely to seek to obtain one in the near future due to changes in tenants or ownership could find that the rating drops into the next band.”
“Long term this is likely to have a significant impact on the property sector, as from April 2018 the new Energy Act will make it unlawful to rent out or sell a property which does not reach a minimum energy efficiency standard of E. Therefore any F and G rated assets are at risk.”
Data produced by the Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates that around 18% of commercial property in the UK currently falls below the minimum EPC standard. This equates to approximately 600,000 assets.
Henry continued: “As an EPC certificate lasts for 10 years CBRE is assisting clients with building stock that has no certificate or a poor rating. We have been able to help either with improvements to building efficiency or simply by replacing poor quality EPC certificates that do not accurately reflect the property in question. Anyone worried about a building that falls into this category should seek advice now to avoid falling foul of the new requirements.”
Building Regulations were originally introduced in the 1980s and have evolved over many years to tighten up requirements. There are further updates planned for 2015.
