There have been important changes to the legislation concerning the provision of Energy Performance Certificates.

Below are the key points in the new legislation:

An EPC must be commissioned before marketing a property..

Unless you already have an EPC available you must commission an EPC from an EPC provider before you first put the property on the market.

An EPC should be made available within seven days of a property first coming on to the market.

You must make reasonable efforts to make sure that an EPC for the property is available within this seven day period. If, despite using all reasonable efforts you cannot secure that an EPC is available at the end of this seven day period you must make sure that the EPC is obtained before the end of a further period of 21 days. Thus, there is an absolute duty to make sure that it is available within 28 days of the property first being marketed.

The front page of the EPC must be attached to any written particulars.

Evidence of commissioning an EPC must be available on request to Trading Standards Officers (TSOs)

The penalty for breaching regulations is £200 for residential buildings.