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EPCs & ME(ES)
- roz083
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 23 hours ago
Energy Performance Certificates are sort of like those nutritional information boxes on your food, except they’re for your house. They are intended to give a standardised summary of a property’s energy performance so that potential occupants can anticipate how the property will run… but do they do the job?
What are they and why do I need one?
Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) use a sliding rating scale from ‘A’ (most efficient) to ‘G’ (least efficient) to indicate how much a property costs to run based on a scoring system from 1-100 points. The national average is a rating of ‘D’ which is between 55-68 points - a score of 100 would mean that there is no energy cost at all!
EPCs are valid for ten years and do not need to be re-certified if changes to the property are made, though many people opt to do so once major works have been completed. They are issued by Domestic Energy Assessors, or DEAs, who will also include recommendations for how to increase a property’s rating, known as its potential score. DEAs use something called a Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) to assess a range of features in the property, from insulation to glazing and beyond. An EPC costs between £65-£120, and once completed are logged on a public register which can be found here.
The government is partway through a consultation period on how to improve EPCs, whose use can be limited in light of new technologies, renewable energy, and more readily available data.
EPCs - what next?
The overhaul to EPCs will include a transition away from the single cost metric currently used to four main headlines: energy cost, fabric performance, heating system and smart readiness. The original consultation also included energy use/demand and carbon metrics - the carbon metric has been retained for non-domestic properties, and both metrics are retained on a non-headline basis on domestic properties.
Heritage properties were previously outside the scope of EPCs, but will now need a valid certificate of their own and will be bound by the same rules as non-heritage properties, as well as short-term lets and HMOs. For sellers, an EPC will need to be in place during the marketing stages of the property sale, rather than at the point of purchase as before. The updates to the EPC scheme should come into place in October 2026, when the government will also be publishing its consultation on socially rented properties.
MEES and you
The energy industry loves an alphabet soup and another acronym that might apply to you is MEES, which stands for Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard. MEES applies to privately rented properties and, amongst other things, currently means that most properties must have a minimum EPC rating of ‘E’ in order to be let out. Landlords are required to fund improvements up to £3,500 where a property does not achieve an E rating, and any exemptions to this are valid for five years only.
As MEES ties in with the EPC scheme, there was a consultation on how to improve energy efficiency in privately rented homes around the same time. One of the biggest changes resulting from this consultation is that from October 2030, properties must have an EPC rating of ‘C’ or above if they are to be made available for rent. There is also a higher cap on payments towards improvements of £10,000 - given there are around 2.3m privately rented homes with an EPC of D or below in England, there is a lot of work to do in this area.
Many of the people we speak to are not aware that privately rented properties can be eligible for the Warm Homes Local Grant, which in this instance would be applied for by the landlord but based on the circumstances of the tenant (such as income, receipt of particular benefits). You could find more information here. If you are a tenant, you might also want to find out more about one last acronym, DHS - this is the Decent Housing Standard, which previously applied to social housing only. As of 2035, the DHS will be in place and applicable to all rented properties whether they are private or social tenancies.
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