Tag: moving

The EPC Certificate – How Does it Affect You?

When it comes to purchasing or renting a property, it is the person selling the house or the landlord who has the responsibility of obtaining an EPC. However, it’s still important for everybody involved to understand what the certificate is telling them.

Sellers

It is illegal to sell a home without an EPC in place. In order to obtain an EPC you should speak to your estate agent, or for better value for money, obtain one directly from an EPC provider.

Buyers

Ensure that you receive an EPC when you buy the house. Your solicitor should be checking this. Have a look at the recommendations it has and use it to inform you what improvements the property needs. You may even use it to negotiate on price.

Landlords

If you have a property you wish to let out you must ensure that you have a valid EPC in place. Not only that, if you are asking a tenant to sign a new lease you must ensure that the property has achieved a minimum rating of ‘E’. From April 2020, this rule extends to cover all existing leases too.

Tenants

Insist on seeing the property’s EPC before you move in. This not only ensures that it has met the legal requirements, it also gives you a good idea of how much the property will cost to run. This makes it easier to plan your monthly budgets going forward.

Understanding the EPC

The basic premise of an EPC is to show how energy efficient a property is. The main focus is on the Energy Efficiency rating, on page one of the document.

Here you will see two scores, one is the current rating, the other is the potential rating. The EPC will in subsequent pages show you how to get from one to the other.

‘A’ rated is the highest, ‘G’ rated is the lowest. Newer homes tend to have better ratings with older homes tending to have ratings of ‘D’ and ‘E’. The national average for a domestic property in the UK is ‘D’.

These other articles may also interest you

Tips for improving your EPC rating

Biggest EPC Wins

Moving Home Efficiently – Top Ten Tips

Moving Home Efficiently – Top Ten Tips

No-one ever said that moving home was a stress-free enjoyable experience. Most people would agree that it is a stressful, hellish experience.

Death and divorce are probably the only two things that can claim to be more stressful than moving your life from one place to another.

In order to make your move go as efficiently as possible you need two things, a plan and a list of tips to help you get through it. Here is our offering for the latter.

  1. Get the Keys Together

    Most houses have a lot of keys aside from the obvious front door key. There’s the back door key for a start, there might be a side door key too, and a key to the patio doors?

    What about window keys, shed keys, garage keys?

    Not only that, have you got all the copies of these keys? Have you got the keys you lent to the dog-walker, babysitter, in-laws?

  2. Prepare a fact file about your property

    The kind of thing you might find when you rent an apartment for holiday. You can include meter locations, rubbish collection days, alarm codes, tradesmen you frequently use or even your recommended takeaways.

    Why do this? Because it’s a nice touch, and you might also want to ask your vendors if they would do the same for you?!

  3. Find Meters and Fuse Boxes

    If your vendor isn’t going to leave you a nice fact file, ensure you ask ahead of time where the gas and electric meters are, as well as the fuse box. Don’t forget to find out who the energy suppliers are and take a reading as soon as you move in.

  4. Arrange Parking

    Will the removal vans have somewhere to park? Not only to park, but space to unload all of your stuff? Moving home is stressful enough without upsetting your new neighbours.

  5. Get Rid of the Kids and Pets

    Don’t get over excited, you’re not getting rid of them completely! Asking a friend or family member to look after them whilst you move home will make it all that little bit easier.

    Doors are open constantly and your attention is always going to be elsewhere. Not having to worry about a dog or a child running into the road will be an added bonus.

  6. Survival Kit

    Pack a bag with some absolute essentials. Include food, drink and any instructions you may need on the day. If you’re planning on giving the house a clean when you arrive, make sure all your cleaning products and equipment are easier to access.

  7. Label Everything

    Maybe even go the whole hog and invest in a label maker? Make sure every box is labelled with its contents and the room it is to be delivered to in the house. Label the doors in the new house too, after all how is anyone going to know that’s a dining room if there’s nothing in it?!

  8. Pack Early

    Talking of boxes, make sure you have them ahead of time and start to pack as early as possible, putting non-essential items into boxes first. Do you really need to keep your childhood teddies on the shelf until moving day?!

    Anything you can do to make the actual moving day itself less stressful will make the overall experience of moving home less stressful.

  9. Consider Using Professionals

    As someone who has moved home themselves and used professional movers I cannot recommend using the latter enough. If you can afford it of course. Especially if everyone in the house is trying to work full time too.

    A standard removal service for a local move is surprisingly good value. You can even upgrade to a deluxe service where the removal company packs your boxes for you too!

  10. De-clutter Now!

    Think about how much stuff is in your house and then think how much of it you really need. Do you really want to drag that running machine you last used in 2009 from one house to the next?

    Moving home is a fantastic time to de-clutter and throw out or recycle all the things you don’t need.

    Start in the loft/garage/cellar if you have them. That’s where you’ll find the greatest amount of junk!

Need an EPC in Anerley or any other town ion the London Borough of Bromley? Give EPC Bromley a call to arrange an appointment. Most EPCs are completed in less than an hour so we’ll be out of your way in no time.

Renting out your home and need an inventory, we can help with that too.