Penthouse Apartment For Sale with Sea views, Jacuzzi and…Energy Efficiency Certificate (EEC)
Following the implementation of a UE directive on Energy Performance of Building, we should soon start seeing ads like the one above as from the 1st of June 2013 because, according to this new law, any owner wishing to sell or rent out his home will need to supply the tenant or buyer with an energy efficiency certificate for the individual home in question.
The Royal Decree implementing the energy efficiency gives the property concerned a general energy efficiency rating and it includes an objective evaluation of the energy characteristics of the building and, for those homes built, documented suggestions for improving energy consumptions. So if the property qualified poorly on energetic efficiency, the certificate will not obligate the owner to carry out improvement works but will merely suggest what could be done to achieve the efficiency. Generally items such as a boilers, windows, lighting, insulation or even kitchen appliances will be considered in this technical report.
The certificate sets out the basic processes to obtain this certification but it does not mention who will be qualified to do, referring their designation to a separate law. In principle, building engineers and surveyors should be able to sign these.
One should not underestimate the impact of the certification because savings on energy consumption between an A-listed property and one in the lowest efficient bracket can be of up to 70%, which can mean easily many hundreds of Euros per year in extra running cost and thus, be critical when choosing one property over another one.
With respect to the cost of getting a certificate, the Government had predicted that between 90 and 250 Euros was reasonable but recently, the Chairman of the Spanish Association for Quality of Building (Asece) estimated that a price of between 250 and 400 euros was “more realistic”.
Finally, the certificate will be valid for 10 years or until there is a variation in aspects of the building that can modify the original certificate.
Leave a Reply