By law you should receive an EPC in the following cases:
Buying a home:
All sellers of homes need to ensure that they provide an EPC, free of charge to potential buyers.
Buying a newly built property:
Buyers of newly built properties should receive an EPC, free of charge.
Renting a property :
If you are interested in renting a property, the landlord must make an EPC available to you free of charge. However, you don’t need an EPC when you are thinking of just renting a room with shared facilities rather than renting the whole property.
How long is your EPC valid for?
EPC's are valid for ten years, so the 1st EPC's to be issued will expire in July, 2017. To check whether yours is still in date, or to retrieve it go to www.epcregister.com
If you are not in one of the above categories
Even if you don’t fall into the above categories, you can still apply for and receive an EPC from an energy assessor. This may be because you want to know how energy efficient your home is, and make improvements suggested by the recommendation report.
What happens if you are not given an EPC?
If you are not given an EPC when you are entitled to it, you should contact the trading standards department of your local council. Trading standards officers have the power to issue a fixed penalty notice of £200 for domestic properties where an EPC is not provided. If you are buying a newly built home and an EPC hasn’t been provided, you should contact the building control department of your local council.
All buildings require an EPC with the exception of:
Places of Worship
Temporary buildings (planned to be used for less than 2 years)
Stand alone buildings with a total used floor area of 50m2 or less that are not dwellings
Industrial sites or non-residential agricultural building with low energy demands