If you are buying, selling or letting a property in Spain, you will need an energy performance certificate. It is Spain’s equivalent of the EPC (certificado de eficiencia energética), and it has been compulsory since 2013.
The obligation itself is simple. In a sale, the seller has to hand over the original certificate. In a letting, it is attached to the tenancy contract. What catches people out is that there is not one document but four: the types of energy performance certificate differ, and the one you need depends on what you own.
Here is how each one works, and which applies to you.
The four types of energy performance certificate
Which one applies depends on whether you are dealing with a new build, a home or a commercial unit. Taking each in turn.
Certificates for a whole building
The first thing to check is that the whole building is in a single use. If it is not — flats above, a shop at street level — each use needs its own certificate.
Certifying the building in one go is usually the cheaper route, and you will need it if the building requires a Building Evaluation Report (Informe de Evaluación de Edificios, IEE), the periodic condition report Spanish councils ask for on older buildings.
The procedure changes with the case: whether it is a new build, and what the building is used for. A block of flats and an office block are not assessed on the same points. In an office building, for instance, lighting consumption weighs in the calculation.
Where the building is residential, the assessor gathers information on the property, its building services and its surroundings, and inspects as many of the flats as possible. It is a job for a suitably qualified professional, which is why owners usually go to a firm of architects in Málaga that does them routinely.
Certificates for individual homes
If the building has not been certified as a whole, each owner arranges their own energy performance certificate. As above, that is compulsory before you sell or let.
Certifying a single flat or house looks at what is particular to it: orientation, size, and any refurbishment work already carried out. That last point matters more than owners expect. Work that changed the windows, the insulation or the heating system changes the rating too.
Plenty of owners still do not know who is entitled to issue one. It is not the estate agent and it is not the seller: it has to be a suitably qualified professional — an architect, a technical architect or a building engineer.
Certificates for commercial premises
A commercial unit needs its certificate before you apply for the opening licence (licencia de apertura), the permit that allows you to trade from the premises.
Fees tend to run higher than for a home, and the assessment weighs different things: the lighting load, and how much natural light the unit gets, on the assumption that the artificial light stays on for most of the trading day.
If you are setting up a business here, our work in retail architecture is a useful place to start.
Certificates for new build
New builds, and buildings that have undergone major refurbishment, need a certificate of their own to comply with the law. It assesses energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
Here you need two certificates rather than one. The first goes with the project design and is submitted to the council with the planning permission application (licencia de obras), as an initial estimate. The second is issued once the works are finished, and reflects what was actually built.
One caveat before you sign
An energy performance certificate is a legal requirement, not a survey. It gives you a rating. It will not tell you whether the pool is registered, whether that extra storey ever had planning permission, or what a refurbishment is going to cost you. Those are separate questions, and a technical due diligence is where they get answered.
If you are buying, selling or letting on the Costa del Sol and are not sure which of the types of energy performance certificate applies to you, ask us. It is a short conversation, and it saves a good deal of trouble at the notary.
