EPC Certificate Cost

Posted to our Off Topic corner on the 16th of October 2024.

We recently put a property up for sale and had to get an EPC (energy performance certificate) as our property didn’t have one.

Here’s what I discovered:

1) They are valid for 10 years but only need to be renewed when the property is put up for sale or rent.

2) EPCs don’t need to be renewed in the middle of a tenancy, they just need to be valid when the tenant signs the tenancy contract.

3) Government guidelines state that rental homes currently (as of 2024) must have a rating of E or better before being rented out. There are limited exemptions.

4) There is no minimum score for those selling a property but the home must have a certificate before the contracts are signed.

5) The surveyor took 20 minutes to complete the EPC check on the two-bedroom property we put up for sale.

6) We went with an independent company and they charged us £65, this is £30 less than what the letting agent wanted to charge us to use their preferred company.

7) The surveyor looked at the following items when he visited the property:

• How many walls were external and how many were shared with neighbours (there’s more heat loss through external walls)
• The type of windows (double or triple glazed are best).
• The type of floor and any insulation (concrete, suspended timber etc).
• Boiler (condensing is best).
• Heating controls and the system in general.
• Hot water storage systems.
• Cavity wall insulation.
• Loft insulation thickness.
• Lighting (energy-saving bulbs are best).
• Green energy (such as solar panels, wind turbines etc).

Our property was given a C rating and the surveyor told me this was primarily due to the shared walls (it’s a mid-terraced house), the double-glazed windows, the condensing boiler and the loft/wall insulation.

I was told that to achieve a higher score, we would need to insulate our floor which is concrete and has no existing insulation.

I used Bark to find a surveyor, fill in this form to find an EPC surveyor near you.

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