Belfast Property News: EPC Planned For NI

Northern Ireland Energy Performance Certificates

Property Owners in Northern Ireland may be in for a shock, for not only do they have to contend with a falling property market, over subscribed rental market but to top it off the Northern Ireland Executive are introducing a requirement to provide an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) when you sell or rent out your property.

Unlike the HIPs introduced in England the requirement in Northern Ireland extends to all property on or coming onto the market after the end of June 2008.

There are a few exceptions to the June deadline which are that new buildings won't have to provide an EPC until the 30th September and that properties being rented out have until December 2008 (check other dates/exceptions).

Editorial

The Northern Ireland Executive could not have chosen a more inappropriate time to introduce this EU Directive. It has its upside, it will provide work for people training new accredited assessors, it will provide new jobs within the housing market and it will provide substantial VAT receipts for the Treasury, which one must assume filters back to the Northern Ireland Executive introducing the measure.
However, there is also a substantial downside to this measure, it takes effect as of the end of June, yet there are no enough trained assessors in Northern Ireland to process the property currently on the market, a serious concern as this directive covers houses currently being marketed.

The information seminars arranged by the Finance Ministry were unable to inform us as to why the measure was rushed in, the penalties for non-compliance, whether there would be a grace period, who breaches were reported to, who prosecuted breaches and in which tribunal etc. No-one at the 'Information Day' seemed to know very much, not even the cost of the EPC. The closest were could come to a figure was the Finance Department website, which states around £100 although insisting the market would set the price.

We have sought clarification from the Department of Finance and will update our readers in due course. More information is available on Department of Finance website.