The catchily titled "Home Information Pack (Amendment) Regulations 2008" comes into force on
31st March 2008. The important effect on house builders is to require that where a "new" home is to
be marketed the Home Information Pack (HIP) must include a sustainability certificate, which
is a certified assessment of the home against the standards in the Code of Sustainable Homes.
The intention is that the Code will be used to provide anyone buying a new home with better
information about the environmental impact of their home and its potential running costs. In this
way the Government sees the Code as complementing the system of Energy Performance Certificates for
new homes (which will be introduced in April 2008 under the Energy Performance of Buildings
Directive).
A new Code for Sustainable Homes was published on 29th February 2008. The principal effect of
the new Code was the introduction of mandatory rating against the Code with effect from May 2008.
Designing and building a home to the Code standards will remain voluntary, but from May 2008 anyone
selling a new home will be required to provide information to any prospective purchaser on the
sustainability of the home. There will be two alternatives available to sellers of new homes :-
- Where a home is designed and built and assessed against the Code, a Code certificate will be
provided (in a prescribed form).
- Where a home is not assessed against the Code a statement of non-assessment (a nil-rated
certificate) will be provided (in a prescribed form).
The effect of these changes is as follows :-
- If a property is marketed as a new home and is finished before or at the first
point of marketing, the HIP must include either a sustainability certificate or a
nil-rated certificate.
- If a property is marketed as a new home but is not finished before or at the
first point of marketing, the HIP must include an interim sustainability certificate or a
nil-rated certificate.
Duty to update sustainability information - a new regulation 22A is added to the HIPs No. 2
Regulations, which requires sustainability information to be up-dated. If the new home is not
finished before or at the first point of marketing, and becomes finished after that time, the
person responsible for the HIP must replace any interim sustainability certificate with either a
sustainability certificate (if a post-construction assessment has been carried out), or otherwise a
nil-rated certificate.
There are time limits to this :-
- Once the new home has been finished the responsible person has 7 days from the date the
property is finished to replace any interim sustainability certificate with a nil-rated
certificate.
- Once a post-construction assessment has taken place, the interim sustainability certificate
must be replaced with a sustainability certificate within 21 days from the date of the
assessment.
A nil-rated certificate can be replaced with a sustainability certificate or an interim
sustainability certificate (as appropriate) at any time.
Please note the following :-
- The transitional provisions - although the new regulation comes into force on 31st March 2008
it will affect only those new homes for which applications for building regulations approval has
been received by the local authority after 1st May 2008.
- There is no obligation to get a Code assessment done. Regulation 2 provides for either a
sustainability certificate / interim certificate or a nil-rated assessment to be included in the
HIP.
- The time limits in the new regulation 22A of the HIPs No. 2 Regulations 2007 operate from
when the property is classed as "finished". This is not, however, a point that is capable of
exact measurement, so may be difficult to enforce.
As with so many other aspects of HIPs, the regulations are in some respects opaque and confusing.
Please contact James Halliday
for further information.