Fraudulent EPC

[JonnyT]

Hi,

My Daughter moved into a rental with her boyfriend and are having major issues in the Bedroom with damp. The Ceiling and walls at the North facing end are soaking and water drips onto the bed.

The letting agent came round and told them to turn the heating up and to buy and use a dehumidifier.

I went round today and looked in the loft. The property was rented to them with an EPC rating D and it stated there is 150mm of insulation in the loft space.

First of all it's mostly boarded and the joists are 100mm so 150mm is physically impossible. I managed to look under one exposed area next to the loft hatch and found 50mm of insulation. This actually pulled out, it was only 8 inches long tucked under the boarding. Shining my phone torch under the boarding showed zero insulation so it appears the exposed area was purely for show.

Therefore it is highly unlikely that the property would even achieve the minimum E rating as required to rent.

What should my Daughter do next? I've suggested gathering more photographic evidence, including unscrewing a board etc to see what if anything is under it, then going back to the letting agent / Landlord for redress, though I doubt they will get anywhere as the Landlord just doesn't want to know.

[monabri]

We had an EPC carried out a few months ago at a flat we own. I was surprised at how poor the "survey" was - basically a chap turned up, measured the rooms, asked a few basic questions, sucked his teeth and then went away only to issue a report the next day recommending spending many many thousands of pounds to improve the EPC rating by a few points with a payback period of many years.. example:



Even taking the lower bound estimate of £4000, annual savings to the Landlord's tenant are going to take nearly a century to recover...note, the saving is to the landlord's tenant. If the Landlord is (trying to) run the property as a business, the pay back period is ludicrous! Note, spending this outlay only predicted to improve the rating by 2 points and still not to a level where the landlord cpould rent it out post 2025.

If you think rents are expensive now....there is going to be a real shortage of rentals in a few years time and when something in demand is rare, it will cost more.

Another example, differnt property (not mine)




Cost to Landlord to save his tenant £24 a year = £4000 (lowest cost). Payback in 166 years.

You can see why Landlords are reluctant to spend such large sums of money (especially when it is their tenant who is making the saving).

[DrFfybes]

Similar tale here - when I actually read the report about 18 months after we moved in, I noticed "low energy lighting to all fixed points" which obviously included the 17 x 50W halogen downlighters and 7 x 50W 1980s brass effect spotlight fittings.

There was a lot of "assumed" in the report, he either didn't actually look in the loft or the vendors removed the insulation before our surveyor visited, and checking the report he suggested spending £30k to save £1800pa.

Apparently replacing our double glazing would cost £1400 and save £65pa - there are 20 windows so a bit of a random figure, and his £6k estimate for digging up and insulating the floors was only about 20% of the estimate we actually had, although the £122 saving was probably about right as the builder said "compared to all the other heat losses in here just get some decent underlay".

Apparently initially you should complain to the assessor, who didn't work for you so will ignore you, and then there is an eccreditation body you can contact.

However IF you suspect the EPC was fraudulent in order to achieve a rating permissible for renting, then that is a very different scenario than the usual slapdash indifference that you get because the assessor know nobody will bother to read it. I would suggest paying £40 for another assessment if you want to actually take legal action against the alndlord/agent for the extra heating costs incurred from misrepresenting the property when advertised.

The Ceiling and walls at the North facing end are soaking and water drips onto the bed.

Condensation generally has nothing to do with the EPC and little to do with insulation - it is nearly always due to inadequate ventilation.

Paul

[monabri]

Apparently replacing our double glazing would cost £1400 and save £65pa - there are 20 windows so a bit of a random figure, and his £6k estimate for digging up and insulating the floors was only about 20% of the estimate we actually had, although the £122 saving was probably about right as the builder said "compared to all the other heat losses in here just get some decent underlay".

The Ceiling and walls at the North facing end are soaking and water drips onto the bed.

Condensation generally has nothing to do with the EPC and little to do with insulation - it is nearly always due to inadequate ventilation.

Paul

£1400 to replace 20 windows ... (how many decades ago was that?). I doubt you'd get 1 pane of double glazed glass for £70 nevermind the rest of the window + fitting cost.

As for tenants heating the flat - our current tenant is currently spending a full 90p per day (inc VAT) on heating (including water to the shower). He complained that the walls felt damp and there was mould growing.

[modellingman]

You have posted on Legal Issues (Practical) so the focus here should be on the legal aspects, rather than the physical. Interesting though these latter are, there are other boards suitable for such discussion.

The first thing to note is that there is currently a requirement that let properties have an energy efficiency rating of E or better. There are some exemptions to this requirement but given that the landlord has provided a certificate with a rating of D, it is unlikely that an exemption will apply in this case.

The obvious course of action to take is to commission your own EPC. Dependent on where you live the cost of this should be in the range £50-£100. Don't be too surprised if the rating comes out differently. The assessment scheme gets changed from time to time and, in my experience, anything to do with rules and regulations for buildings is always subject to a degree of interpretation (and differences in interpretation) by the relevant assessor/tradesman (heating engineer/electrician/EPC assessor/etc).

However, if the second assessment comes out with a very different result (and one below E) then you will have some grounds for taking action.

Enforcement of the "E or above" requirement is down to your local authority. They have the power to issue enforcement notices to the landlord, publicise the failure to comply and issue penalty charges to the landlord. See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-pr ... d-guidance for more information. The local authority should probably be your first port of call, perhaps even before you commission a second EPC.

"Fraudulent" is a serious term to be using in this context. If you are going to make those sort of accusations then you will need to take care they don't backfire on you or your daughter.

modellingman

Moderator Message:
As noted above:

You have posted on Legal Issues (Practical) so the focus here should be on the legal aspects, rather than the physical. Interesting though these latter are, there are other boards suitable for such discussion.

Off-topic discussion should be avoided please, or posts may be removed. (chas49)

[dealtn]

What should my Daughter do next?

Move somewhere else?

[JonnyT]

Great idea, but when you are six weeks into a one year AST not a great one.

[mc2fool]

Great idea, but when you are six weeks into a one year AST not a great one.

Except if the "property was rented to them with an EPC rating D and it stated there is 150mm of insulation in the loft space" and that's not so then the contract is void, surely, 'cos the one year tenancy was agreed based on the information given, no?

[Lootman]

Condensation generally has nothing to do with the EPC and little to do with insulation - it is nearly always due to inadequate ventilation.

As for tenants heating the flat - our current tenant is currently spending a full 90p per day (inc VAT) on heating (including water to the shower). He complained that the walls felt damp and there was mould growing.

Yes, any tenant claiming that their implied warranty of habitability has been breached should first ensure that they are not contributing to the problem. On a few occasions, when called in by tenants about damp, I discovered that they had failed to ventilate properly, specially in bathrooms. Or were drying laundry by hanging it all over the unit.

Obviously if there is water pouring through the ceiling, that is another matter.

[Arborbridge]

Hi,

My Daughter moved into a rental with her boyfriend and are having major issues in the Bedroom with damp. The Ceiling and walls at the North facing end are soaking and water drips onto the bed.

The letting agent came round and told them to turn the heating up and to buy and use a dehumidifier.

I went round today and looked in the loft. The property was rented to them with an EPC rating D and it stated there is 150mm of insulation in the loft space.

First of all it's mostly boarded and the joists are 100mm so 150mm is physically impossible. I managed to look under one exposed area next to the loft hatch and found 50mm of insulation. This actually pulled out, it was only 8 inches long tucked under the boarding. Shining my phone torch under the boarding showed zero insulation so it appears the exposed area was purely for show.

Therefore it is highly unlikely that the property would even achieve the minimum E rating as required to rent.

What should my Daughter do next? I've suggested gathering more photographic evidence, including unscrewing a board etc to see what if anything is under it, then going back to the letting agent / Landlord for redress, though I doubt they will get anywhere as the Landlord just doesn't want to know.

I would think the EPC was the usual slapdash affair rather than fraudulent. The often make assumptions which are quite untrue - I know, I've had several done myself. However, if there is a clear statement that there is 150mm of insulation in the loft and there isn't, then you have good grounds to make the landlord install the insulation, or alternatively use it as a leverage towards leaving the place early on the grounds he has broken the contract. I would anticipate a long battle getting the deposit back. The alternative is to see if it's possible to mitigate the problem and make the most of a bad situation by using plenty of heat and a dehumidifier. If one is drying washing inside, a dehumidifier is a godsend, as is plenty of window opening.

The sad news is that even if the landlord installs insulation there is no guarantee that it will solve the damp problem. I have two identical flats: one has damp, the other doesn't. The one who keeps the place dry tells me the bedroom gets damp overnight just through their breath, and if they didn't run the dehumidifier daily, condensation would be running down the walls. The other flat is wet because he cannot afford the heating or to run the de-humidifier. It's all about airing and heating - unless there is water coming through the roof, of course.
I was brought up in a thirties house utterly without insulation, yet there was no damp problem - so what does that tell me?

Good luck with whatever you do next. The only cheerful news is that this is likely to be at its worst at the moment with temperatures so low.

Arb.

[monabri]

Over on the otehr thread, I put a link to the .GOV website where one can check that the EPC is actually genuine..here's the link to the .Gov website

https://www.gov.uk/find-energy-certificate

[brightncheerful]

An EPC rating is only valid at the date of assessment/inspection. That the life of an EPC is normally 3 years (i thinK) for redidential property and 10 years (I know) for commercial property is a separate issue.

[hiriskpaul]

I got a survey done for a rented house in a relative's estate. It came back as an F, but the survey was terrible. It said double glazing should be installed, but it already had double glazing and the loft should be insulated. It was to 150mm. When questioned the surveyor said that he did not have access to the loft and as he could not verify the insulation he had to assume there wasn't any. Essentially, if there is no evidence of insulation , they have to assume the worse. This prompted me to ask our own builder to write a letter on his headed notepaper saying that he had installed underfloor insulation when he did a lot of work for us.

If what the surveyor I used said is true, it seems to me that claims of 150mm loft insulation that does not exist would be fraudulent.

[monabri]

Surveys for EPCs are carried out by a "qualified energy assessor"...that's what it says on the EPC document I'm holding in my hand. Qualifications and training is required to become such an assessor - a 5 day course (example).

https://energy-trust.co.uk/training-cou ... -assessor/

https://epchome.co.uk/epc-energy-assessor/

The EPC states

" if you are unhappy about your property's energy assessment or certificate , you can complain to the assessor directly. If you are still unhappy after contacting the assessor, you should contact the accreditation scheme"

The assessor's name, office telephone number, email address are stated along with the accreditation scheme contact details ( company name, assessor ID number and telephone number).

Both residential and commercial EPCs are valid for 10 years. There are differences between assessment of the two ( reflected by having different training courses).

[dealtn]

Great idea, but when you are six weeks into a one year AST not a great one.

Assuming that is a reply to me (I don't know as you didn't quote), can i ask why?

If I moved in somewhere and the contract wasn't being fulfilled why would I want to stay another 44 weeks suffering under that contract which would be deemed as false? Why would I want that landlord?

I think staying is the option that is "not a great one".