Agents wondering what logbooks are useful for other than being digital records of bricks and mortar now have their answer.

The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has revealed that it’s part of a consortium that has won a government grant to explore how tech can be used to speed up the retrofitting of the nation’s five million-plus privately rented homes to comply with the looming EPC rules.

The consortium, which includes the Energy Saving Trust (EST) which provides energy advice; Trustmark, which certifies retrofit assessors and installers; and the Coventry Building Society, is part of a push to see all rented properties in the UK reach a minimum EPC ‘C’ rating by between 2026 and 2028.

This will depend on whether they are existing tenancies or new ones, but the onus will soon be falling on agents and landlords to begin preparing the project work to ensure properties comply with higher EPC ratings.

Financed via the Government’s Green Homes Finance Accelerator, the consortium will look at ways of joining up the dots digitally to make it easier, simpler and faster for landlords and agent to complete the necessary upgrade work.

Specifically, work carried out during approved retrofit work on properties will be shared via digital logbooks with the different players within the sector including lenders, the Home Buying & Selling Group (HBSG) and The Lettings Industry Council (TLIC).

Trusted

Nigel Walley of the RLBA says: “We see the RLBA’s role as making the connections between the various strands of work going on in property retrofit, buying, selling and renting with logbooks sitting in the middle between all of them”.

A key HBSG initiative that will be included is the Property Data Trust Framework (PDTF) standards which are intended to ensure property data can be exchanged in a trusted and verified format.  Nigel Walley adds: “Our member logbooks are on a path to being PDTF compliant and this will help us bring the PDTF into the retrofit and surveying sectors.”

The first part of the project will report back in September with further project stages subject to another round of tendering.