EPC fines, how much are they and how likely are you to get one?

It is a legal requirement to have an EPC certificate if you are selling or renting out a property. Furthermore if you are a landlord your property must now have a minimum rating of E. If you don’t provide a certificate or reach the minimum standard you can be fined.

Your local authority building control department can force you to get one and fine you between £500 and £5,000, currently.

How it works

Your local council is able to issue fines through enforcement action and also keep the proceeds. In some cases councils are actively looking for rental properties that do not have an EPC certificate or where the EPC does not meet the required standard. This is by a mix of sophisticated AI inspired digital investigation, using existing records and good old door knocking. We have come across cases of landlords reporting that council representatives have called round to properties to ask the occupiers if they are renting the property!  

How likely are you to get caught?

At present it does not seem that likely. In May 2022 the website generation rent published the results of a recent freedom of interest request. 101 councils responded and it seems that just 13 of them had issued enforcement notices. Between them they issued 359 notices, with Barnsley council the most proactive, with 181, followed by Bristol with 30.

Given that the publically available data indicates that over 250,000 rental homes currently have an EPC rating of F or G, there seems to be relatively little chance of being ‘caught’.   

Increase in activity

However, it is worth noting that the figures above related to 2020-21, when the country was preoccupied with Covid19 and may not be a reliable indication of what will happen over the next few years.

Indeed it is worth being aware that in late 2021, the Government provided over £10 million of funding to councils, specifically to help them target landlords that did not meet current requirements.

In June Property Industry Eye reported Shane Cook, a member of Caerphilly Council, in relation to their decision to begin issuing fines to landlords whose properties did not meet the minimum standards. While Cllr Cook was keen to point out that the majority of their landlords were willing to engage with enforcement officers, their willingness to issue fines is likely to be a sign that more Councils are beginning to address the issue of none compliance.