Energy Performance Certificate ~ Display Energy Certificate ~ EPC ~ DEC in Liverpool, Manchester, Lancashire

Energy Assessment Consultancy Services

• Domestic Energy Performance Certificate
• Home Information Pack
• Home Condition Report

Domestic Energy Performance Certificate

What is a Domestic Energy Performance Certificate?

An Energy Performance Certificate, commonly known as an EPC, is a document that indicates the relative fuel efficiency of your property. You will probably already have seen forms of Energy Performance Certificates when you have been buying white household goods, such as fridges and washing machines. The relative energy efficiency of these goods is indicated by a colour coded sticker. Briefly, here’s what you’ll find in the Report’s several sections:

The EPC will be issued after an inspection, typically lasting an hour, by a qualified Home Inspector or Domestic Energy Assessor. The certificate will contain the following information:

• Details of your property, its address, date of report and property size in square metres;
• A table with headline performance ratings calculated in terms of the average energy use per square metre of floor area, and its "environmental impact" based on carbon dioxide (C02) emissions;
• A table providing indicative costs to light, heat and provide hot water, making standard assumptions about occupancy, heating patterns and the location of the property. This will make any one property easy to compare with another. Energy use will include the energy used in the home and the energy it takes to deliver the fuel to your home. Service or maintenance costs for energy devices are not included.
• A summary of the property's energy performance features, with walls, roofs, floors, windows, heating systems, hot water systems and lighting rated as very poor, poor, average, good or very good.
• Recommended measures to improve the home's performance ratings. These may typically include putting a 160mm jacket on the hot water cylinder, upgrading loft insulation to the recommended 250mm thickness, fully filling wall cavities with fibre, or installing a more energy-efficient boiler. It will not state the cost of these improvements - which will vary according to the cost of local labour and the materials used - but it will contain estimated annual cost savings.

What is the benefit of having an EPC?

The EPC is a main component of the Home Information Pack, which in turn is a compulsory element of home sales. These can be bought through estate agents, but can be cheaper when bought through independent suppliers.

An EPC will measure overall energy efficiency using specialist software, which takes account of the size of the property, its structure, insulation, heating, hot water, lighting, ventilation, the number of windows and the type and quantity of fuel used. Not all of us use our homes in the same way so to allow direct comparisons, energy ratings will be calculated using "standard occupancy" assumptions. This will assume that during winter the home is heated for nine hours each weekday and 16 hours each weekend day, with the living room at 21C and the rest of the house at 18C.

How can Bladen Consulting help you?

We have qualified Domestic Energy Assessors that can produce you an Energy Performance Certificate. We pride ourselves on delivering quality reports in a timely manner. If you have a need for an EPC and would like to discuss your requirement in more detail please call our customer advisor on 0845 839 1094 or 07771 811994.

Home Information Pack

HIP is the acronym for Home Information Packs. Home Information Packs are required as part of a Government scheme to simplify and hopefully speed up the process of buying and selling property. It is estimated that about £350 million is lost every year due to property purchases that are unfulfilled because the buyers find problems with the house before completing the purchasing process. Since June 2007, every seller in England and Wales wishing to put a property for sale on the open market must provide a Home Information Pack.

What exactly is in a Home Information Pack?

The Home Information Pack is a collection of documents. It has to include these essential, required documents:

• An Index - A list of the Pack’s contents.

• A Sale Statement - A short version of the terms of the sale.

• Evidence of Title – Proof of ownership of the property.

• Standard searches – Water and drainage searches will tell you if there are any liabilities regarding sewers or mains, for example, if public pipelines run close to the house. Other searches will tell you if the house is good standing with the local authority.

• An Energy Performance Certificate to be produced by a Licensed Home Inspector or a lower qualified Domestic Energy Assessor. This will rate the energy efficiency of the home from A to G, just like fridges. It will also include tips on how to make it more efficient.

• Common hold information (where applicable)– Common hold refers to the parts of the property (usually on the outside of the main property unit) that have two or more owners. It is the same as ‘Law of Tenement’ in Scotland, or ‘Condominium’ in America. This section will only appear if there is common hold attached to the property, but if it does appear, it should include a copy of the Common hold Community Statement.

• Leasehold information – Tells you who owns the land your property is in. Again, this section will only appear if the property is in leased land. If so, this section should include a copy of the lease, as well as information on service charges and insurance.

• New Homes Warranty – You will only see this section if the home is a new build.

• If the home is physically incomplete, a report will be included giving details.

A Home Information Pack can also include the following optional, authorised documents. These documents are up to the seller to include, but most are expected to do so:

• A Home Condition Report – This section was not included in the original Home Information Pack Regulations of 2006, but is included as an authorised part of the HIP. The Government considers this document particularly important, and hasencourage its inclusion.

• Other searches – These will vary from case to case, and may include a Building Survey, surveyor assessments of specific house defects, and others.

How would a Home Information Pack benefit me?

As a Seller:

If you are the seller, the advantages of a HIP are not immediately obvious, other than the fact that failure to provide one carries a fine of £200. In any case, choosing a Provider registered with the Association of Home Information Pack Providers (see webpage below) would be best. There is no official set price for HIP Provider services as they depend upon the size an age of the property and the search requirements but prices range from £300 to £600 and should be similar from all providers. The cost is one that is already paid whenever you buy a property, the cost just moves to the seller, therefore if you are also buying as well as selling there should be little overall difference in your total bill. You may even find it to be lower as estate agents build in the cost of the HIP to their selling fees.

If you were to include the optional Home Condition Report in your HIP, the fact that you have been confident about the condition of your property and are prepared to show this to potential buyers, saving them the cost of their own survey and ensuring that when they make an offer it will not need to be renegotiated when the survey results arrive, should be a real selling advantage. A further consideration is also the time saved in the selling process by taking out the buyer’s survey requirement and the possibility of the buyer then pulling out. The saving in time and certainty should be an advantage for the seller as well as for the buyer. A Home Condition Report should cost between £250 and £500 depending upon house size and age.

As a Buyer:

There are several clear advantages for you as a buyer:

• Speeding up the process – It’s one of the main reasons for having all this important information easily available in one place.

• Transparency – HIPs have solved a potential problem in property purchase, that important information about the home might not be available to you until after the sale terms are agreed. Everything you need to know about the property is outlined in the HIP, which prevents nasty surprises.

• Better service standards – Agents providing Home Information Packs are required to belong to an approved redress scheme. This means the customer is able to complain to an independent industry body if not satisfied with the service.

Home Condition Report

What is a Home Condition Report?

It will show you any urgent or serious defects, and also give you a general overview of the rest of the house. Only qualified Home Inspectors are accredited to produce Home Condition Reports. A report should contain a number of sections, as shown below:

• Section A – Describes the Home Inspector’s terms, and what parts of the house he or she will not inspect. Also, this section describes how each inspected part will be rated.

• Section B – General info about the house. This section would be of special interest to the bank in cases where the buyers are taking out a mortgage.

• Section C – Legal info for conveyancers and others. Also, health and safety points that are not really ‘defects’.

• Section D – Lists all the parts of the home that are inspected from the outside, such as windows or chimneys, with a rating of their condition. There would be descriptions of any serious or urgent problems.

• Section E – Same, but those parts inspected from the inside, such as ceilings, along with reporting signs of damp anywhere in the house.

• Section F – A visual inspection of electrical and other services. Bear in mind that the Home Inspector will not test any of these, just report on their condition.

• Section G – Outbuildings, such as garages and sheds, but not swimming pools or other leisure facilities.

• Section H – The energy report, and, if appropriate, how the house can be made more energy efficient.

How is this Report useful to me?

As a seller, a home condition report will help market your house, help you set and prove that you are selling your home at a realistic price in this increasingly competitive market. It might also help you assess the cost/benefits of having further work done prior to the sale. A real benefit of having a home condition report is that the buyer’s offer should not be renegotiated as result of their survey and so the sale is likely to progress quicker and much less likely to fall through.

As a buyer, a Home Condition report being made available by the seller will very quickly show you the actual condition of the property enabling you to confidently make a realistic offer. There will be no unexpected survey surprises and you can generally rely on the sale progressing without any need to renegotiation.

How can Bladen Consulting help you?

We have qualified Home Inspectors that can produce you a comprehensive Home Condition Report. We pride ourselves on delivering quality reports in a timely manner. If you have a need for a HCR and would like to discuss your requirement in more detail please call our customer advisor on 0845 839 1094.