EPC’s & MEES – Saving the World

Home » EPC’s & MEES – Saving the World

The Climate Change Act 2008 has profound implications for many owners of Market Halls. Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) and Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) have applied since 2015 and (wait for it…) it is now unlawful to grant new leases for buildings with an EPC rating of less than Standard E. As from April 2025 an EPC certificate must be registered online for all buildings. To compound this further the compliance standards will become more stringent and rise to Grade C in 2027 and Grade B in April 2030. The cold, draughty Market Hall may soon become a thing of the past. Good news, but read on…

So why the legislation? The UK Government is committed to reducing energy consumption and hence carbon emissions by 80% before 2050. The EU (which then included the UK) took a bold stance when promoting the Kyoto protocol in 2005 – unlike the USA, China and India which have never ratified it. A lot of the world is not green yet. Saving the world is commendable but poses a problem for Councils with a large stock of social housing and commercial property and struggling to balance their budgets. The good old days of not worrying about ‘costs in use’ i.e. heating and lighting for Market Halls by simply dumping rising costs onto a service charge are dead and gone.

How to introduce EPCs for existing buildings is a legislative problem which in all fairness has been pretty well thought through. New builds are simply required to meet the standards but how to ensure existing buildings are upgraded is a real problem. There are ‘get out’ clauses such as an exemption for historic listed buildings which would be ‘unacceptably altered’ by compliance. Also for those where compliance works would be more expensive than energy savings anticipated over 7 years – the nattily-named ‘7-year payback exemption’. But exemption claims need to lodged online, or else.

As for any legislation affecting existing tenants there are lease implications which have been anticipated. A lease renewal cannot be refused because the property is sub-standard, nor can a Tenant prematurely terminate their lease because a landlord fails to comply. This could add another level of complexity to often-contested service charge demands levied by landlords. If existing Tenants don’t contribute to compliance this can result in a two-tier rental and service charge structure. Pity the poor Market Manager who has to unpick that problem.

Help is at hand though. A registered Energy Assessor using Government-approved software can calculate an existing performance standard then go on to identify the most cost-effective improvements to ensure future compliance. These include roof overcladding, draught lobbies and the offset effect of PV panels and airsource heatpumps. Then it is down to a Quantity Surveyor to estimate the costs and practicality. The problem still remains of how cash-strapped Landlord can afford the works but there are emerging ways of doing so at very modest cost – contact Quarterbridge if you’d like to discuss with our Energy Assessor.