02/10/2008 by Stuart White.

 Your local Energy Assessor will contact you within 24 hours of your order to come and visit the property for about 30mins. Energy Assessors are generally flexible and can come anytime.

I’ve just lifted this from a HIP provider’s website - based in the Manchester area with an 0161 code. I’m not giving them any publicity but this really devalues Domestic Energy Assessors.

1. A survey can not be done at Night or dusk as photos have to be taken to back up the site visit. These clearly need to show the Central Heating flue and other recorded details.
2. Approx 5 external photos and 5 internal photos are required as back up.
3. All rooms have to be measured.
4. Even the smallest flat will take 30 minutes to survey and 2 bedroom flats can take up to an hour each.

Clearly this company do not know what business they are in.

I just hope the public wake up and realises that its the EPC provided by the DEA that’s the real value in a HIP - not its retail price. Monkeys and Peanuts fits somewhere.

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02/10/2008 by Stuart White.

Well 2 days into the new legislation and the phone’s been reasonably active.

I took a call from a landlady with 8 flats - all close to each other and looking for some help and guidance as to when she should get her portfolio surveyed. Sadly, she lived in Devon and had found the site on Google and failed to notice that I only cover part of Hertfordshire - yet I was down in Cornwall last week - if only she had called me then. She wants to get all of her properies done at the same time to reduce her costs - but of course 8 flats might be more than a day’s work - one was a 3 bed flat and they can be trickier to do. Some were occupied so notice might have to be provided - not an easy issue to resolve.

I suggested that she use DEA local to find a local assessor in Devon. 

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