EPC and SAP Reports
Calculating the energy efficiency of your home can help to get your property on the market in a nick of time. Lease Planners have an expert team on hand to organise EPCs and perform SAP Reports.
Qualified DEAs Producing EPCs and SAP Reports in London, the South East and East Anglia
Our DEA inspectors are fully accredited and experienced in producing great EPCs and SAP Reports that will measure your home’s energy efficiency. They’ll estimate the cost effectiveness of your energy consumption over a three-year forecast period.
Measuring the energy performance of a property on the market is both a legal requirement and extremely important for all involved parties to be made aware of. Furthermore, a great EPC rating on a building is an excellent marketing hook!
What’s an Energy Performance Certificate?
An Energy Performance Certificate or EPC is an official rating given to a dwelling to determine how much energy it produces compared to how much it wastes unnecessarily.
EPCs also take the cost effectiveness into account, mainly in terms of how much you’re spending on energy bills. By taking into the environmental and financial costs, the certificate is designed to measure the overall energy efficiency of the property.
An EPC produces an alphabetical grade for the building’s energy efficiency, from A to G.
- A is the best rating and indicates that a property wastes almost no significant amount of energy, though this is statistically rare to achieve even for buildings designed to be as energy efficient as possible. The average EPC rating in the UK is a D grade.
- G is the worst possible rating. For rental properties, this counts as a fail grade, since rental properties have to have at least an E rating to be considered eligible for the property market.
- EPCs can also tell you what your potential rating could be if improvements were to be made. For example, D-ranked property can be boosted up to a B with better insulation.
What Happens if my EPC Grade is Too Low?
Don’t worry, a bad EPC rating is not always a death knell – in fact, most marketed properties only need any kind of valid Energy Performance Certificate, regardless of grade. However, a good EPC rating definitely helps with the marketing, as it communicates to potential buyers that they will not have to sink tonnes of cash into energy bills in order to stay comfortable. However, a rating of higher than E is legally required for rented properties.
We can provide recommendations for how to improve your score if your energy performance is not as good as it could be. Once improvements are made to reduce energy expenditure, reapplying for another EPC is easy and straightforward, especially with us!
Major factors and preventative measures that can contribute to improving energy efficiency include:
- Adjusting the amount of insulation throughout your property – Adding some extra layers of insulation material inside lofts, walls and conservatories (or in some cases, removing a few layers) can reduce your energy consumption.
- Replacing your boiler – Simply having a newer, more reliable boiler installed can surprisingly improve your home’s overall energy efficiency.
- Installing brand new power generators – Investing in more environmentally-friendly energy sources such as solar panels while cutting back on older appliances like electric heaters can pay off in the long run.
Who Can Carry Out an EPC Assessment?
A registered Domestic Energy Assessor, or DEA, can perform an EPC Assessment. They will upload your unique EPC code to the government database, which finalises the process.
Residential EPCs
Domestic dwellings deserve thorough, high-quality EPCs. We understand the importance of delivering a fast and efficient service, especially for landlords renting places out to tenants.
Commercial EPCs
Non-domestic EPCs are for those wishing to market a shop, restaurant, warehouse or any other kind of commercial property. Our DEAs carefully consider the differing needs of publicly-accessible properties to establish fair and accurate EPC ratings.
SAP Reports
Standard Assessment Procedure, or SAP calculations, take the information gleaned from EPCs in order to assess the energy efficiency of the property and provide guidance for any improvements that could be made. SAP Reports primarily focus on CO2 emissions and how best to reduce them, on both an individual and national scale.
Is an Energy Certificate a Legal Requirement?
An Energy Certificate is legally required for any property on the market, though as said previously, most properties do not necessarily require a “good” rating – the only ones that require a rating above an E are rented buildings, including those with pre-existing tenants.
Copies of the EPC documents and its results must be included in all advertising materials for the property if it is to be marketed legally and effectively. The penalty for failure to produce a compliant EPC is usually a hefty fine from the local authorities, especially for commercial property owners. So you see, it pays to have a professionally-graded EPC!
Buildings NOT Required to have an EPC Rating:
Most marketed properties need a valid EPC rating. However, there are some types of buildings that are exempt from the MEES (Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards). Properties that do not have to conform to MEES may have grades of E or lower. These include:
Places of religious worship, Temporary residences, Holiday lets, Short leases, Very long leases, Social housing schemes, Barns, stables and other agricultural buildings, Properties with risk of severe devaluation due to poor EPC grades.
Why Choose Lease Planners for Your EPCs or SAP Calculations?
Lightning-Fast Turnaround – We aim to provide a fast and efficient service, with the whole process taking around a week to complete, should everything go smoothly. After you have booked with us, we will complete all necessary visits and checks on your property within 2-3 working days, then complete CAD (computer-aided design) production and send off the drafted floor plan documents over the course of a further 48-72 hours.
Competitive Pricing – We aim to be the most competitive lease planning organisation on the market and are always willing to adjust our prices to best suit our valued customers! We keep our prices completely transparent and fair to your needs.
Relevant Experience – We have experience in producing compliant EPCs and SAP Reports, to the continued satisfaction of our clients. EPCs are incredibly vital for property marketing, so you need a dependable company.
Great Relationships with Clients – We have worked alongside many esteemed organisations in various business sectors, such as solicitors, property developers, estate agents and marketers. Our catalogue of past professional clients includes: Savills, Hopkins Homes, Berkley Group, Winkworth, Portico, Catalyst… among many others.
Quality Customer Service – The quality of our customer service is renowned throughout London, Suffolk and beyond. We have been warmly noted for our responsiveness, efficiency and attentiveness to our customers’ needs and queries, leading to many recommending us as a first point of contact for anyone needing assistance with floor planning!
