Scottish Government Guidance
Guidance for Section 63 Advisors
The Building Standards Division have issued guidance for situations where an EPC is being produced for a building that already has an Action Plan.
The Advisor must determine that the building under assessment has not changed materially since the last assessment and there are no changes implemented that would result in the current Action Plan and EPC data no longer being representative. Where the Advisor produced the previous Action Plan, this provision can be addressed by written confirmation from the building owner. Where the Adviser has not previously carried out a site inspection, this would be required to validate the data used for the new Action Plan.
Where a building has an existing EPC and a corresponding Section 63 Action Plan but the building owner has elected to implement improvements unrelated to those recommended in the Action Plan, the Advisor must determine the current EPC and Action Plan are no longer representative and carry out a new assessment. If the new assessment shows the building now meets 2002 standards the process outlined can be followed to create a final Action Plan to record the exemption.
This process references the new EPC assessment, which confirms the exemption, and provides a statement on the Action Plan to this effect using the 'alternative measures' section. The steps below assume the Assessor has started a new Action Plan based upon the new EPC assessment and has run the prescribed measures to generate improvement targets.
1. Go to General / General Information tab.
* In 'Project details', choose 'Alternative Scenarios' as stage of analysis.
* In 'Section 63 details', enter the date of certificate from the exempting EPC as the Actual completion date.
* In 'Building details' enter the RRN of exempting EPC.
2. Go to General / S63 Alternative Measure tab.
* In 'General' tab, create new record name "Building now exempt as it meets 2002 standard.
* In the Description box below, enter text to record actions "Building now exempt as it meets 2002 standards. RRN of exempting EPC now recorded on Action Plan. Actual Completion date recorded as date of certificate for exempting EPC."
* In 'Alternative measures' tab, create a new measure titled "Building now exempt as it meets 2002 standard. Refer to cited EPC RRN."
* In 'Prescribed measures' tab, untick all boxes in the 'select prescribed to include/exclude in your alternative scenario' column.
3. Go to main 'Ratings' tab.
* Run 'Section 63 Assessment for Alternative Measures'. This will report zero savings for both targets under 'Alternative Measures'.
* View S63 Report. This will show the information input above is recorded.
4. The xml from this amended assessment can now be lodged to the register as the final Action Plan.
A reference/copy of the Action Plan and the Referenced EPC should be provided to the building owner as confirmation that no further action is needed to meet a duty under the current S63 regulations.