UK getting left behind as Europe embraces property log books
Six years after the Conveyancing Association first called for logbooks to be introduced in the UK, there are concerns that the UK is now falling behind other European countries.
From January this year digital property logbooks have been compulsory in France for all new-build housing and also for existing homes undergoing renovation work with a significant impact on energy performance.
Since 1st January homeowners in new or retrofitted homes have been required to have a Carnet d’Information du Lodgement (CIL) the French name for logbooks.
For new-build, the French ‘carnets’ have to be supplied by developers. CILs are required to contain construction information, a materials record, certification as well as operating, maintenance and servicing instructions for any equipment installed.
Government support
There are various French commercial providers of CILs and a free one – CLÉA – provided by a government housing standards organisation Qualitel.
Nigel Walley of the Residential Log Book Association (RBLA) said, “Its good to see an element of targeted mandation by the French Government. New-build and Retrofit are two areas where we are exploring this for the UK.”
This news emerged as the RLBA joined the advisory board of a major pan-European project – DemoBlog – to investigate the role of property logbooks in delivering building standards across new build and retrofit.
Registration and regulation
The one area where the UK is ahead is in registration and regulation. The RLBA’s Register of Logbooks, was one of the original requests to the RLBA by the Ministry of Housing to support the fight against property fraud.
Nigel Walley emphasises, “The European project partners have expressed a lot of interest in the role and value of the RLBA Register of Logbooks in the UK and our self-regulatory process.
“There is no equivalent in Europe yet, but we have been asked to demo the Register to the French Govt who are now considering one.”
This strikes me as another example of policy-makers and lobbyists looking to load work onto new-builds – a very easy target – and then pretend that their work here is done. But most developers I know already provide documentation packs and O&M manuals at handover, and of course with new-build warranties the buyer gets 2 years of aftercare for which the developer is responsible.
The Residential Log Book Association and indeed other trade bodies and the Government should really be thinking about how to force the owners of millions of existing properties to provide more information when they look to sell. The EPC is completely unfit for purpose when you consider the amount of upgrade work that will be needed over the next 25 years, as owner-occupiers and landlords are going to be forced to undertake a mass programme of Fabric First insulation and ventilation and the replacement of their gas heating systems.
I am being controversial, but really, all owners need to educated and offered carrots and sticks to provide far more information about the fabric of their buildings and the equipment when they come to sell their properties. How about a minimum of a full structural survey and an As-Built SAP assessment for starters? And a requirement to pay an inventory clerk to list all the property’s equipment and retrieve User Guides and even Data Sheets, which are often available off the web? “Caveat emptor” is all very well, but we should make greater demands of Sellers when they presume to sell an asset worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and think they can get away with providing just an EPC and filling out the cursory inventory forms requested by solicitors.