EPC lookup
The EPC tells you what a home really costs to run, and its certificate holds details the listing often leaves out: the official floor area, the construction, the recommendations. HouseLens finds the certificate for the verified address and shows it as you browse.
Every home marketed for sale in England and Wales needs an Energy Performance Certificate, rated from A down to G, and the full certificate is public on the government's EPC register. Most buyers glance at the letter and move on, which wastes the most useful free document in the process. The certificate records the measured floor area, the building's construction and glazing, how it is heated, the current and potential scores, and the assessor's costed recommendations for improving it.
The floor area is the quiet hero. Listings describe rooms; the EPC records square metres measured by an accredited assessor. That number is what lets you compare a £450,000 cottage against a £450,000 new build honestly, and it is the figure HouseLens uses to calculate price per square metre against nearby registered sales.
The gap between current and potential matters too. A D-rated home with cheap, easy wins left on the table is a different purchase from a D-rated home that has already had everything done. The recommendations section tells you which one you are looking at, and roughly what the remaining improvements cost. Our guide explains what each rating band means in more depth.
Running costs are the obvious part: the certificate estimates energy costs for the home, and the difference between a C and an F on a family house is real money every winter. Two less obvious angles are worth knowing. Some lenders now offer preferential rates or cashback on efficient homes, so the rating can touch your mortgage as well as your bills. And if you are buying to let, rental properties currently require a minimum rating of E, with tighter requirements long under discussion, so a marginal certificate is a due-diligence flag rather than a cosmetic detail.
An EPC is valid for ten years, and that cuts both ways: a 2017 certificate might predate the extension and the new boiler the listing is proud of. Check the assessment date against the story the photos tell. If the work is recent and the certificate is old, the real rating is probably better than shown, which is a negotiating point for the seller, not you.
You can search the register yourself for free on GOV.UK: find the service called "find an energy certificate" and search by postcode, then pick the address. The catch when you are browsing listings is that Rightmove and Zoopla hide the full address, so you are left guessing which of fourteen houses on the street you are looking at. A wrong match means a wrong floor area and a wrong price per square metre, and you will not know.
That address problem is exactly what HouseLens solves. It recovers the listing's address and confirms it against the EPC certificate before marking it verified, then shows the rating, floor area and energy details on the listing itself. When it cannot be certain, it says so and shows the most likely candidates rather than guessing.
Selling rather than buying? Check whether your own home has a valid certificate with our free EPC checker; if yours has lapsed, you will need a new one before marketing.
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