When do Landlords need to provide an EPC?

Hi Michael

On 9th January 2013 the UK Government transposed the Recast of the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive into UK law under the Energy Performance of Buildings (Certificates and Inspections)(England and Wales)(Amendment) Regulations 2012.

However, there was a date before that where property owners were required by law to have an EPC before marketing their property for sale and to let and from everything I've read, the rules have not changed. In other words, if your property has been let for several years, prior to the original law governing EPC's, it is my understanding that you do not need an EPC now unless you are re-marketing the property for sale or to let.

In other words Michael, I think your Council are wrong too but I couldn't swear by it. If I were you I would ask them to point me specifically to the piece of legislation they are referring to. If it doesn't exist you will probably hear nothing more from them.

I seem to recall the original EPC laws dating back to around 2006/2007 but if somebody reading this could refresh my memory on that I would be very grateful.
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Reply to the comment left by "Mark Alexander" at "29/03/2015 - 10:06":

The EPC legislation changed in Oct 2008 and it was subsequently a requirement to have an EPC carried out for both selling or renting a property. The requirement required that the property is advertised with the EPC details included in the advert (this has varied over time from a picture of the EPC/ EPC graph etc and now it is acceptable to list it as say EPC D55 or whatever the rating is). You were also required to have a copy to be given free on request of any prospective buyers/tenants at the property at the time of viewing and also you were required to give a copy of the EPC to any tenant on move in as part of their paperwork.
This is a legal requirement along with the gas safety cert (if on gas) and also the Prescribed Information for the deposit (If a deposit has been taken).
As of last Thursday, following the Royal assent given to the new Deregulation Act 2015, it appears that prospective tenants MUST be shown a copy of the EPC as part of their decision process - (I have yet to formally verify this last piece of information)

If you have had a continuous tenancy which started before 31 Oct 2008 there is no legal requirement for you to have carried out an EPC and therefore cannot give one! If the tenancy started after this date you should have had an EPC for the property and should also have supplied copies to your tenants. If you have bought the house since this date there will have been an EPC carried out and this is freely available from the EPC Register (https://www.epcregister.com/)
I hope that this helps

Reply to the comment left by "Tim Wragby" at "29/03/2015 - 12:33":

Excellent post Tim and thanks for the further clarification.

Welcome to Property118 🙂
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My grateful thanks to both Mark and Tim. I will now check on the dates my tenants signed their Tenancy Agreements and take up the point with Bury Council.

I will post the response from Bury Council when I receive it.

Nearly all our properties are HMO's or shared houses which we let inclusive of all bills.
If we are paying the bills do we need to give our tenants an EPC?

Nick,
I am not an HMO expert but as far as I am aware there is no differentiation with the type of tenant. I think that the only exception would be if you have lodgers - if you have a property with some form of contract that is not part of your own home then I expect that you will require EPCs.
As said in my earlier post, if you bought after 2008 then the property will have had an EPC issued for the sale as this too is a legal requirement. The EPC lasts for 10 years and is not required to be renewed for each tenancy. You can find existing EPCs on the EPC register (web address above in earlier post) and they can be downloaded free of charge and found via the property's postcode.
It is also worth noting that from 2018 it will be illegal to rent a property rated F or G and from Apr 2016 tenants have the legal right to request that landlords address the inefficiencies to raise the property to a minimum E rating and councils will be able to enforce remedial action.
If you improve the energy efficiency of a property you do not have to re-rate the property at present but we are increasingly finding tenants are more energy savvy and lower rated properties are harder to shift when empty. An EPC should not cost you more than £65 - £75 and can cost significantly less so if you do improve it it is probably worth the cost. It is also worth noting that many EPC assessors will also do a floor plan included in the fee which can be effectively used online to better market you property.

I was wondering about this topic this week, as I completed on a property on Wednesday with a tenant already in situ. Just to be safe I made sure I got him to sign a copy of the EPC anyway with all his other paperwork, but it made me think: was this necessary?

On the one hand, he was already a tenant in the property, so I never actually advertised it.

But on the other hand, I issued him a new AST in my name, so it was a new tenancy.

I'm not sure either way.

Don't forget listed buildings are exempt. Finally an advantage to being listed.