Will Scottish homes need to be ‘C’ rated to sell by 2024? – have your say!

Last December the Scottish Government established targets for owner occupied homes through its consultation ‘Energy Efficient Scotland- Improving energy efficiency in owner occupied homes’. The headline is a bold move to ensure that all homes sold in Scotland from 2024, and onwards, have a ‘C’ rating on their Energy Performance Certificate (EPC).

Elmhurst has spent time reviewing the proposals made within this consultation and has previously published a draft response. In addition to this, The Elmhurst Scotland Conference held at Hampden Park earlier in the year provided a significant spotlight on this consultation (amongst other things), with lively Q & A sessions helping us to further understand the proposals and review our own draft response.

Due to the COVID-19 situation the Scottish Government extended the deadline for responses by 2 weeks with the deadline  now set for today (9th April 2020).

Within the consultation the Scottish Government states:

“We are proposing that energy efficiency standards should be introduced for owner-occupied housing, and that they should be legally binding.”

“We said all homes should reach at least an Energy Efficiency Rating of Band C, where it is technically feasible and cost effective to do.”

The Headlines of the Consultation: A legally binding standard will ensure all owner-occupied homes have similar standards that private and social landlords have to adhere to. The new standard will apply at the point of sale or the point of major renovation (More than 25% of the surface of the building envelope undergoes renovation or the renovation is higher than 25% of the value of the building, excluding the value of the land upon which the building is situated). While not all properties will be able to meet an EPC band C, it should be required to get as close as reasonably possible before it can apply for an abeyance.

Summary:

Elmhurst has listened to members, and debated the issue at our excellent Scotland Conference, where we heard from Patrick McCurdie from Scottish Government, who gave more details around the questions set out in the consultation. The Q & A sessions also helped everyone further understands this significant proposal.

Stuart Fairlie, Technical & Operations Director at Elmhurst, commented: “Elmhurst welcomes Scotland’s vision for the proposed changes and believe it is a big step towards improving Scottish homes, making them warmer, cheaper to run, and  overall, more energy efficient. We thank all of our members who have helped us form this consultation response. If we are to meet our challenge of improving people’s homes, then we mush begin to look at the owner occupied sector. Elmhurst understands that there is only a short amount of time left, but would advocate for any members that can, to respond.”

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View Elmhurst's final consultation response here.

You can view the Scotland consultation details here.

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_{Article published: 09/04/20}