Last Saturday the new regulation for energy certificates was published. Basically as from the 1st of June 2013, when building, selling or renting a house, The owner must show a copy of an energy certificate to the prospective purchaser or tenant. Country properties form no exception to the rule although there seems to be an escape for holiday houses.
In the real Decreto 235/2013 the exact obligations are stated. We will give you an outline of the most important consequences in this article.
Certification
The certificate has to be drawn up by an approved technical architect. Based on the energy consumption of the house per m2, the property will be assigned a rating from A (high efficiency) to G (low efficiency). Insulation, cavity walls, double glazing and the use of solar panels for water and electricity for example will give you a higer rating.The technical architect of your choice will visit your house, measure it and will, amongst other things, take note of the structure and technical details of the property, the way of heating and cooling and the energy efficient measures you’ve taken. You are free to contract a qualified technician of your choice. The certificate will be valid for 10 years and comes with a series of recommendations to upgrade your property.
Costs
The cost of the certificate depends on the size of the house. We’ve been comparing several prices and it starts from around 300€ for a 100 m2 house and goes up to around 700€ for a 500 m2 house. Please note these are indications. We recommend you to contact a few surveyors to compare which one will work out best for you.
Effects of ratings
The most important effect of these certificates is that it gives the purchaser insight in the energy consumption and running costs of a house. They will get an extra criteria to compare houses on. A lowly rated house can still be sold without any problem. The vendors will not be obliged to take measuments to improve the energy efficiency of their home.
Exception for Holiday Houses
There are several situations mentioned in which the new regulation is not applicable. Holiday houses for example seem to be released from the obligation to provide an energy certificate only and if they are used less than 4 months per year and have an energy consumption of less than 25% of the expected yearly usage. The vendor or landlord has to state this in an official notarized declaration. Monuments and free standing houses smaller than 50m2 are also excluded. We recommend you to consult your lawyer to see whether one of these exceptions are applicable for your house and which measures you would have to take to justify this.
Fines
If you are not able to provide a copy of the certificate when asked by a prospective purchaser or tenant they can make a complaint at the consumers-delegation of the Junta de Andalucia who will then fine you. In the future this delegation will probably take random samples to see whether vendors and landlords are complying with the law. In any case, as from the 1st of June 2013 vendors will have to hand over the certificate at the notary to be able to sign the deed.
Oscar Ernstsen | 18th April 2013
