Energy performance certificates now obligatory for rental contracts in Poland

From 28^th April 2023, in Poland, it will be necessary to attach an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) to each new rental contract. Until now, such a document was required only when selling a property.

An EPC is not required for the following building types:

• churches and other buildings used for religious purposes
• listed as monuments
• commercial that don’t have energy installations (apart from lights)
• residential that are used less than 4 months per year
• detached smaller than 50 sqm
• farms which use less than 50 kwh per sqm per year.

The cost of preparing such a certificate is currently around 300 – 400 PLN, payable by the property owner not the tenant.  Failure to have such a certificate is punishable by fines (5 -20 000 PLN). For rental contracts it is not clear who will be responsible to execute the obligation of having an EPC and possible fines for not having one as no special body has been appointed. For sales the duty is on public notary who prepares sale contract. 

The certificate is valid for 10 years. 

For tenants, the energy performance certificate is supposed to inform them what costs they can expect when it comes to heating or hot water. But is this true?

In our opinion, this is a very questionable issue. First of all, the energy performance certificate is very general, it does not take into account such factors as the tightness of windows or doors, the degree of heating by neighbouring premises, etc., and above all, who likes to live at what temperature. Secondly, nowadays the key issue in the energy costs incurred is its price, which the certificate also does not take into account. Thirdly, energy performance certificates are not easy to read and calculations based on them require skill. Below is an example of a such certificate.

It seems that although the intention was to predict the costs related to heat consumption in the rented property, the tenant will not receive this information anyway or will not be interested in it to a satisfactory degree.

This is just another cost and regulation for Polish landlords to comply with, without adding real value to the tenant. This coordinated trend is taking place across Europe and we fear its just another step towards further regulation and costs for landlords, which may lead to onerous forced renovation costs in future.