NEW REGULATIONS |
| Posted by Administrator (admin) on Mar 15 2008 at 12:20 PM |
New regulations coming into force for new homes
The Housing Act 2004 (Commencement No.11) (England and Wales) Order 2008 was made on 13 March and comes into force on 6 April 2008. This completes the application of HIPs to all new build properties. The HIP duties currently apply to all types of property sale, including the sale of new homes but excluding homes built under the most recent Building Regulations (i.e. Regulation 17C of the Building Regulations 2006). It has been previously announced the intention to extend the HIP duties to these properties from 6th April, when the requirement under the 2007 EPBD Regulation for all new homes to have a SAP-based EPC on construction come into effect, and the Order achieves this.
Key facts
- From the 6 April 2008 all new homes will require an EPC and Recommendation Report when physically complete.
- The EPC will be based on the SAP rating which is currently required to comply with Building Regulations. This demonstrates that new homes meet the targets for energy performance that are part of the Building Regulations.
- The EPC must be produced by an Energy Assessor who is accredited for On Construction Energy Assessment. The EPC is based on SAP rather than RdSAP which is used for existing homes.
- When the home is physically complete, an EPC should be produced and given to the owner of the home. Building Control will not issue a completion certificate until they are sure this has been done.
- If you are marketing a home off-plan, you will need to have a PEA (Predicted Energy Assessment) in the HIP to provide to potential buyers. Once the home is physically complete the PEA in the HIP should be replaced with an EPC and Recommendation Report.
- PEAs should be based on the predicted SAP rating for the home. This will be available from calculations done at the design stage and is a number between 1 and 100. A spreadsheet template is available to be able to represent the rating in a graphical form for potential buyers.
- Each building within a development will require its own EPC (although reports can be cloned for identical dwellings and will not need to be inspected individually).
- (www.home-information.info)
