The landlord of an office in the Thames Valley ran into trouble when a building the company owned was threatened with obsolescence.
So reports commercial property consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton, warning of the risks of cutting corners on buildings maintenance and repairs. Increasingly, building obsolescence (the possibility that it can no longer be let before end of life because of changes in legislation or technology) is now sometimes attributed to poor energy performance as well as general building condition - although the two are clearly related.
Creeping energy legislation, most notably the 2011 Energy Act, means the poorest-performing buildings could be threatened with obsolescence by 2018, when the rules of the act come into force. That, at least, is what property consultancies, buildings service companies and some facilities managers are reminding clients.
The act places considerable pressure on owners of poorer performing buildings. These have a poor Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating - F or G - that will probably need to be brought up to E or higher. It may not be possible to let them out unless this is done, says consultant WSP. It research suggest that nearly a fifth of the UK commercial property market is affected.
Companies with a large portfolio could be particularly badly affected, notes Jaime Blakeley-Glover, director of Public Sector Advisory Services at Lambert Smith Hampton. "It depends on the scale of the problem. Clients with 800-900 properties in that situation should do the necessary work earlier than 2018 because conducting 800 EPCs at the same time is costly," he adds.
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