Since October 2008 anyone selling or renting out a property has been required by law to provide prospective tenants with an Energy Performance report (EPC); holiday lets have been up until now excluded.
An EPC is issued following an inspection of your property by a qualified Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA). The DEA will determine the energy efficiency of the property and rate it from A to G (with A being the most efficient). Currently surveys start from around £30 depending on the size of the property and the assessor used.
According to Residential Landlord it appears that there are new Government guidelines due to come in force on 30th June 2011 stating “that any holiday lets which are let out for more than 4 months a year will require an EPC when first rented out”. Furthermore, all property advertisements will have to contain the EPC rating from July 2013.
This would mean that any property newly put on the holiday let market from June this year will require an EPC and that all holiday lets will need an EPC by July 2013.
The good news is most EPCs last for 10 years, the bad news is failure to comply could result in a £200 per day penalty.
Thanks for the great feedback David.
After your comments I phoned around a couple of large survey companies. They were insistant that holiday lets would be required to have EPCs. I contacted the Building Standards Team within the Scottish Government and they confirmed your findings that EPCs will not be required in Scotland.
They commented that the reasoning was that holiday home guests would not be interested in whether a property was energy efficient or not, however the Scottish Government did want holiday let landlords to start thinking about energy efficiency of their buildings. In view of this a consulation document will be issued shortly with view to deciding about EPCs for holiday let around January 2013.
Please note that EPCs are NOT, repeat, NOT, required for holiday letting properties in Scotland. I have that in writing from the Scottish Government.