Is an EPC Required When Buying a Property?

Buying a home comes with a stack of paperwork, and it's easy to lose track of which documents are legally required and which are just nice to have. The Energy Performance Certificate is one that causes genuine confusion, because the rules around it depend on which side of the transaction you're standing on. If you're in the process of buying, here's exactly where an EPC fits into your purchase, who's responsible for it, and what to do if one hasn't turned up yet.

Is an EPC Legally Required When Buying a Property?

Yes, in the sense that it's a legal requirement for the property to have one available before it goes on the market — but the responsibility for arranging it sits with the seller, not you as the buyer. Under UK law, anyone marketing a residential property for sale must commission an EPC and make it available to prospective buyers, normally within seven days of marketing starting. So by the time you're viewing a property or putting in an offer, a valid EPC should already exist and should have been referenced in the listing.

As the buyer, you're not required to commission an EPC yourself for a straightforward purchase where you'll be living in the property. Your role is really to check that a valid one exists, request a copy if it hasn't been shared with you already, and read it carefully before you commit.

Who Is Responsible for Providing the EPC — You or the Seller?

The seller (or the estate agent acting for them) is responsible for making the EPC available. In practice, most agents include a summary rating on the property listing itself and can supply the full certificate — or a link to it on the national register — on request. If your estate agent or solicitor hasn't shared it, it's entirely reasonable to ask for it directly rather than assuming it doesn't exist; every valid EPC is searchable for free on the government's EPC register using the property's postcode.

There is one situation where things shift: if you're buying with the intention of letting the property out, you become the one legally required to hold a valid EPC before you can market it to tenants. If that's your plan, it's worth reading up separately on your obligations as a landlord — our landlord services page covers what's required before you can advertise a rental, including the current minimum energy rating that most tenancies need to meet.

What If the Property Doesn't Have a Valid EPC?

Occasionally a sale moves forward without a certificate ever being produced — sometimes because the property has changed hands informally, sometimes because an older EPC has expired without anyone noticing, and sometimes simply because it was overlooked. This shouldn't stop your purchase from completing, but it is worth flagging to your solicitor, since a missing EPC can technically leave the seller (or their agent) in breach of the marketing regulations, and it's a document you'll likely want for your own records anyway — particularly if you plan to apply for a mortgage, since some lenders reference the EPC rating as part of their standard checks, and green mortgage products in particular may require sight of it.

If a valid certificate genuinely doesn't exist, someone will need to commission one. This is quick to sort out: a domestic energy assessor visits the property, and for most homes the assessment itself takes around 45 minutes to an hour. Typical costs run from £95 for a studio or one-bedroom property up to £150–£200 for a larger four-to-six-bedroom home, and a good local assessor will have the certificate lodged on the register within a day or two rather than leaving you waiting mid-transaction. You can see current pricing by property size on our booking page.

Do You Ever Need to Commission Your Own EPC as a Buyer?

There are a handful of situations where it makes sense for a buyer to get their own EPC rather than relying solely on the seller's:

The existing certificate has expired. EPCs are valid for ten years, and it's not unusual for a property that's been owned by the same person for a long time to be sitting on a certificate that lapsed years ago. An expired EPC isn't necessarily wrong, but a lender or your own due diligence may prefer an up-to-date one.

You're planning major works. If you intend to renovate, extend, or convert the property shortly after buying, the existing EPC won't reflect those changes, and you may want a fresh baseline rating once the work is done — particularly if you're aiming to improve the property's energy efficiency and want to track the difference.

You're buying to let. As mentioned above, a rental property needs its own valid EPC in the landlord's name before it can be marketed to tenants, regardless of what certificate the previous owner held.

New Builds and Other Special Cases

New build homes need an EPC too, generated as part of the building control sign-off process (via a SAP calculation rather than the RdSAP assessment used for existing homes), and the developer or builder is responsible for providing it before the property is marketed or handed over. If you're buying a new build and haven't been given an EPC alongside your other completion documents, it's worth asking your conveyancer to chase this specifically, since it should exist from day one.

Listed buildings and certain other exempt properties don't require an EPC at all, so if you're buying a listed building and no certificate has been produced, that may simply reflect a genuine exemption rather than an oversight — though it's always worth confirming the exemption applies correctly rather than assuming, since the rules here are relatively narrow. Current gov.uk guidance is the best place to confirm whether a specific exemption applies to your purchase.

Local Support Across Surrey, Berkshire and Middlesex

If your purchase needs a fresh EPC — whether the existing one has expired, the property is a new build missing its paperwork, or you're buying with letting in mind — we're a TrustMark-registered, fully insured domestic energy assessor covering Staines-upon-Thames, Windsor, Slough, Egham, Datchet, Old Windsor, Bracknell and Wraysbury, plus roughly a 15–20 mile radius of TW19. We're licensed by ECMK, Quidos and Elmhurst, and because you book directly with us rather than through an agency, there's no third party adding delay or cost on top. If you're completing on a property in Egham or Bracknell, for example, we can usually turn an appointment around within the week, which matters when a purchase is on the clock.

If you'd like a certificate arranged before completion, or simply want a second, up-to-date EPC once you've moved in, you can check availability and book directly at epcenergyassessor.uk/book-online, or call us on 07850 408160. We'll get you a fixed price based on the size of the property upfront, carry out the visit at a time that works around your move, and have your certificate lodged on the register within 24 hours.