{"id":2396,"date":"2024-07-07T09:19:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T08:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/?p=2396"},"modified":"2024-07-18T08:57:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T07:57:12","slug":"what-to-do-if-you-think-your-energy-performance-certificate-is-incorrect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/what-to-do-if-you-think-your-energy-performance-certificate-is-incorrect\/","title":{"rendered":"What to do if you think your Energy Performance Certificate is incorrect?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are several circumstances within which you might think your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is wrong. You may have moved into a new home and found that you use much more energy than the EPC implied. These circumstances can be frustrating and you may want to seek out ways to complain. It is important that you don\u2019t react quickly and look at all your options.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->This blog looks into what the EPC\u2019s role is and the steps you can take to complain about your EPC.<\/p>\n<h3><b>What is the EPC?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>The role of the EPC is to give you, the homeowner or buyer and idea of the cost of running the heating, hot water and lighting in your property. If you or the previous owner of your property has given incorrect information regarding the heating then the EPC will obviously be incorrect. If you have just moved into a new home and your first bill is significantly larger than you EPC suggests, even after taking into consideration the fuel price increase since the EPC was issued, then your EPC may be inaccurate.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Who do you turn to?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>If you think there is an error with your EPC then there are two agencies you can contact who should take responsibility for the error. The first is the domestic energy assessor who issued the certificate and then the second is the accreditation scheme the assessor is licensed by.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Who should I contact first?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>Contact the assessor first. You can find the details of the assessor on the EPC itself and you can ask them to re-assess your home based on the concerns you have. Your concerns may be that they recorded the wrong appliance on the EPC or that they didn\u2019t take into account another factor. Your energy assessor should take responsibility for the error however if you don\u2019t get a satisfactory response then you can appeal to their accreditation scheme that should also be on the EPC.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Contacting the Estate Agent<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>If you have just bought your home and you feel like it was advertised incorrectly then you might want to contact your estate agents to complain. You will be in a particularly good position if you still have a copy of the original advertisement for the property that has incorrect information about the home and its heating. You should complain in writing first to the agent explaining your situation and their role in the miscommunication. If you don\u2019t get a satisfactory response to that then you should pass your information on to the property ombudsman. The property ombudsman will be able to censure agents and offer you a financial reward if you can prove you have suffered a financial loss as a result of the estate agents actions. Even though the amount you will get is usually not as much as you would hope, you may be able to get enough to help towards high-energy bills or new insulation.<\/p>\n<h3><b>If you want to take it further:<\/b><\/h3>\n<div style=\"float: right; padding-left: 10px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 5px;\"><script async=\"\" src=\"\/\/pagead2googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script><!-- HEA blog 300x250 --><ins class=\"adsbygoogle\" style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\" data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-2370067811734011\" data-ad-slot=\"5331067377\"><\/ins><script>(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/script><\/div>\n<p>There are two other agencies that you can appeal to if your agent is registered with them. They are the RICS agency or the National Association of Estate Agents. Both of these agencies have a complaints procedure and the power to discipline estate agents who are acting inappropriately.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Additional options:<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>If you don\u2019t want to deal with the hassle of complaining, as the above procedures can take a long time sometimes longer than 8 weeks, you can decide to fix the issues you are having with your home. You can look into the options available under the new Renewable Heat Incentive program where the government will issue you with payments to install a renewable appliance in your home. You can add additional insulation in your loft or wall cavity. You can deal with draughts in your home by doing a number or draught-proofing changes in your home. You can install solar panels to help generate your own electricity. There are many options available to you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have you had any concerns for your EPC in your new home or existing home? What did you do to solve the problem? Do you have any extra advice for those going through the same problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are several circumstances within which you might think your Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is wrong. You may have moved into a new home and found that you use much more energy than the EPC implied. These circumstances can be frustrating and you may want to seek out ways to complain. It is important that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-performance-certificates","category-energy-saving"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2396"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2923,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396\/revisions\/2923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.housingenergyadvisor.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}