Jan

New energy efficiency and electrical rules ‘too complex for landlords to understand’

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Peers have criticised updated energy efficiency legislation as being too difficult for homeowners and landlords to understand.

The Building Regulations (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2021 make changes to provide a “meaningful and achievable” increase to the energy efficiency standards for buildings.

These include a new way of measuring energy efficiency, changes in the regulation of on-site electricity generation to ensure it is appropriately installed, changes to address the risk of overheating in new residential buildings and provisions in relation to ventilation standards in new and existing buildings where building work is being carried out.

But the House of Lords’ secondary legislation scrutiny committee complained that the explanatory memorandum that goes with it, “assumes an extensive understanding of the current building regulations and how they are being developed and does not provide a proper stand-alone explanation of the full effects of the instrument or how the changes are expected to operate”.

Complex and technical

Peers were forced to get extra information from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, and felt strongly that members of the public should not have to consult other sources of information, especially when the subject was so complex and technical.

They have urged the department to revise the memorandum.

Committee member Lord German says: “For an explanatory memorandum to fulfil its purpose, it must provide Parliament, those affected by changes in the law and the wider public with a clear and accessible, stand-alone explanation of the effect of an instrument and how it is intended to operate.

The Building Regulations (Amendment) 2021 fail on this point and need to be revised accordingly.” The new building regulations take effect on 15th June.

Read the Lords report in full.

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