EPCs

[wowfudge]

Does anyone know what the law is on EPCs? I know you are supposed to have one if you are trying to sell a place, but there's a house we're interested in which doesn't have one on Rightmove. It's been on the market for over a week.

The other half of the semi (it's an unusual older property) has one on the register and it's dire, so I'd be interested in finding out if it's a draughty pile or a cosy home.

when we went up for sale, we went on rightmove before we had our epc done. i think we went on on monday. epc man came on friday and it wasnt up online till the following week.

Just checked the house we're buying, and that went on rightmove on 20th october, but the EPC is dated 2nd november, so could have been not done yet! They have to have one.

IIRC, a property can be listed as newly available as long as the EPC has already been ordered. So there might be a gap of a few days/week or so between the listing going up and the EPC being carried out and then added to the listing.

The EA selling a property will insist on the seller getting an EPC done.

However, if not, it will be flagged up by a solicitor during their standard enquiries so if the seller hasn't got round to doing it, it will have to be provided at some point during the course of the transaction. It won't necessarily slow things down, it's just one more piece of paperwork to be collated before you can exchange.

This is what the government website says :

You must order an EPC for potential buyers and tenants before you market your property to sell or rent.

In Scotland, you must display the EPC somewhere in the property, eg in the meter cupboard or next to the boiler.

So I was correct that the operative word is order. As long as the order for the EPC has been put in then a newly available property can be listed.

Thank you - I'll ask the agent about it before we go to view. I suspect the house we are interested in will have a better rating (I hope so otherwise we may as well throw cash out of the windows) due to work being carried out more recently than on its neighbour.

treat, as always, with a large pinch of salt - the EPC tells you the area of the property and if you read between the lines it will tell you what kind of heating it has, how old the boiler is and so on. A lot of the stuff about walls and insulation is guesswork, you can tell because the word 'assumed' will appear.

quite a few will suggest improvements such as a back-garden wind turbine or solar panels, and will state in all seriousness that some of these may take well over a century to pay for themselves.

An EPC is a bit like reading a comment on TripAdvisor!

I do understand the limitations, but would like to see some basic info about what has and hasn't been done.

fair enough - ask the vendors if you get as far as a viewing. As mentioned, EPCs are often wrong or 'assumed'. Which I would not possibly equate with 'made up'.