An environmental pressure group claims that a high proportion of agents may be failing to display EPC information on their property details - although the group's research is old, restricted to one city and relies partly on portal listings rather than actual details.
Back in May and June last year Manchester Friends of the Earth reviewed property advertisements on the Rightmove website in the Greater Manchester area, on estate agents' websites and in estate agents' windows, to assess the proportion of homes on sale and for rent with details which included the EPC information.
In January this year a further review of a sample of rented property ads on Rightmove was conducted.
The main findings of this research have just been released and claim:
- in May and June 2013 only 40 per cent of rented property adverts in the Greater Manchester area on Rightmove included EPC information. In the January 2014 sample, this had increased very slightly to 44 per cent;
- in the 2013 survey just seven estate agents out of 241 had EPC data for all their properties and nearly half of all estate agents reviewed had EPC data for less than 20 per cent of their properties for sale;
- the agents' own websites gave more information than their shop windows - over half the 30 estate agents visited had no EPC ratings on any of the details in their windows.
The local FoE claims this apparent lack of promotion of EPC details is down to lax enforcement and even laxer legislation. The group says duty to enforce the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations is given to local Trading Standards. However the Energy Performance of Buildings (2012) Regulations do not give Trading Standards a duty to enforce the display of this information in adverts or property details.
The FoE wants agents to voluntarily display the information at all times and for this request to be backed up by legislation if necessary.
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