The energy certificate for homes has not been implemented in Spain, even though it has been mandatory for more than a decade. In addition, many of these documents are issued incompletely to lower the price, so the final picture of the energy efficiency of Spanish homes does not match reality. To begin with, the vast majority of advertisements for the sale and rental of homes, both in agencies and on real estate portals, indicate that the energy certificate is being processed. However, this document has been mandatory since 2013 for any property that is put up for sale or rent, so the owners are committing an illegal act. Some due to ignorance; others to avoid the cost of the document before securing the operation. The certificate, which shows the energy efficiency using a letter scale that goes from A (the highest) to G (the lowest), has to appear in any advertisement along with the rest of the information, such as the price, the surface area or the state of conservation. The reality is different. “There is still a high level of non-compliance with the obligation to obtain an energy certificate,” says José María Basáñez, president of the Professional Association of Valuation Companies (Atasa) and of the Tecnitasa group. “We see that it is not being included in the marketing of homes or in rental contracts. Only in the deeds of sale and because the notary requires it,” adds David Paramio, director of Energy Consulting at Tinsa. He explains the reason for this lack of interest: “On the one hand, the citizen sees it as a mere administrative procedure, and on the other, the Administration is not monitoring its application or imposing sanctions.” It is the autonomous communities that are responsible for registering the certificates, as well as supervising compliance with the regulations or imposing economic sanctions, which range from 300 to 6,000 euros. The responsibility for advertising the home without having a certificate is that of the owner who sells or rents. “And, secondarily, the real estate agency that places the advertisement, which could not do so if it did not have the document,” stresses Laura Visier, director of Rehabilitation at UCI (Unión de Créditos Inmobiliarios). The energy certificate has failed in light of the fact that it has had little impact among property owners and that the new European energy efficiency directive requires increasingly more efficient houses. There is no awareness. For Paloma Arnaiz, general secretary of the Spanish Association of Value Analysis (AEV), “the real problem is that people still do not perceive the importance of the energy efficiency of their homes.” Six out of ten property owners are unaware of the energy label of the house they live in, according to a study by UCI. Even more serious is the fact that, despite the fact that more than 80% of the building stock is inefficient, 83% of property owners consider that they live in houses that are moderately efficient or even very efficient. “It has been wrongly presented as a procedure with an associated cost, instead of as a tool to show all the benefits of an energy-efficient home,” says Visier. He adds: “If citizens knew that with an A energy rating they can consume up to 90% less energy than one with a G rating and the benefits in terms of health and comfort that it entails, they would certainly opt for energy rehabilitation.” At Certicalia, a platform where prices can be compared and professionals can be hired and where the average cost of the certificate is around 60 euros, they do not consider this data as a sign of failure, but rather “as a clear indication that there is still a lot of work to be done in terms of education and dissemination.” Another wound that the system is bleeding from are the deficiencies that are being found in some of these documents. “The Administration is not monitoring the quality of the energy certificates or that they are being carried out correctly,” says the consultant from Tinsa, a company that has a certificate control and validation department. The appraiser estimates that between 40% and 45% of these documents are poorly drawn up, so the grade that is being awarded to the homes could be better or worse than it really is. “Since 2013, approximately six million energy certificates have been issued on a stock of 26 million homes and 90% have the worst grades, that is, E, F and G. I think that, in reality, the rating is a little better,” says Paramio, who, given this situation, believes that there needs to be verifiers of energy certificates. Various irregularities are being committed. There are certificates that are issued without a technician visiting the property, which is totally illegal. “The regulations require an internal visit to the property to carry out a precise and correct assessment. Producing the certificate without visiting the property internally does not comply with legal standards and, in addition, can lead to incorrect certificates,” says Basáñez. When issuing these reports, many technicians take the cadastral surface of the home as a reference instead of the habitable surface. “An excess of surface area is being introduced that cannot be certified and this is a very common error,” says Paramio. Another inaccuracy is indicating values that are unknown by default, which can give a rating that is not the real one. “Even if no checks or measurements have been made, the programs allow certificates to be issued, which penalizes the letter and does not respond to reality,” estimates Arnaiz. Another error is not indicating the orientations of the facades or giving incorrect data on thermal bridges, as well as errors in the power, performance or age of the installations, such as boilers.
Prices
Another issue is the prices. “It is a product that the market has denigrated because it has not given it value and does not pay for it,” Paramio complains. “A certificate can be contracted for 45 euros, when it is a question of very complex documents whose value should be around, at least, between 250 and 300 euros,” he insists. At Tinsa they speak of professional intrusion. The current regulations establish that these documents can be issued by competent technicians, that is, engineers, technical engineers, architects and technical architects. But this opens the door to other qualifications such as forestry engineers, surveyors, mining engineers, agricultural engineers, forestry engineers… However, Paramio believes that none of them have competence in building, although the law allows it. The Tinsa group, through its data and validation subsidiary Deyde DataCentric, has just reached an agreement with the Ministry for Energy Transition to create a national database of energy efficiency certificates. This will allow the Government to detect the errors and take measures, such as the rescaling of the letters, that is, the criteria for emissions and consumption by climatic zones could change. This is important to be able to comply with the energy efficiency criteria set by the EU. A fresh start. Follow all the information on Economy and Business on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter