payback time $1,500 energy assessments before you sell

We should have seen this coming................
http://www.news.com.au/national/governments-switched-on-energy-move/story-e6frfkvr-1225827485299

The cynic in me says that this is now payback time for all the free $1,600 and then $1,200 roof insulation that we've been happily stuffing into the roof spaces of our PPORs and IPs. :rolleyes:

I personally don't care because I'm still a subscriber to "buy & never sell". Perhaps this will weasel it's way into properties "offered for rent" as well??:eek:
 
I hope you don't have to do that *every* time a house is rented out. That wipes out 1/3 of a year's rent on a cheap property (and is a fair slab of the sale price too) and defeats the point of renting out a house - might as well just leave it empty. And this is from someone who went to great lengths and expense to make a house as energy efficient as possible - feels like being charged twice.

Definitely something that should be 'optional'. You want to rent, you want energy efficient, rent the rated house not the unrated one.

What's wrong with just making owners fill out a form? Insulated *check* dual flush loo *check* .. the average joe wouldn't know a passive solar house from an AV Jennings special anyway, they just want the one with the right number of bedrooms close to the right school that they can afford.
 
the inspectors are going to be very busy if its every property and every time its sold or rented?!

a nice business opportunity for some but a extra cost for others.

energy ratings on properties has been in force for years overseas so i guess we are just going to copy and follow.
 
New builds need rating (in SA at least, not sure about aus-wide) - 6 star energy assessment is built into the price now and a whole bunch of green addons are compulsary and not rebated. Seen the raw cost of a solar HWS? Ouch!

I wonder if new builds need this assessment too?

I'd support this a bit more if you had, say, 5 or 10 years to get an assessor out and you were obliged to improve the house to a 3 or 4 star standard (whatever is reasonable, most older houses are very hard to improve significantly) or something using an interest free green loan and then you got some kind of benefit (like total tax deductability of said green improvements over X years) but just paying to get the rating and not doing anything about a totally crap rating sounds like just makework for assessors and no benefit to anyone else.

Tenants/owners are really not as interested in the energy rating of a house as, say, whether it has an airconditioner or not and if the carpet is a nice colour. And the cost ...
 
A similar scheme has been introduced in Queensland where you have to have an environmental report available on properties for sale.

Fortunately (don't you love bureaucrats!) the instructions state that if you don't know the answer to a question to leave it blank.

I wonder how many completely blank forms there are out there?
Marg
 
I'm all for Carbon emissions reduction but now I can see what the opposition meant about tax payers will be the one paying for it, not large companies with factories pumping out toxic smoke 24/7.
 
Tenants/owners are really not as interested in the energy rating of a house .

Well, not quite true for some of us. As a current renter and also currently looking to buy, the energy efficiency of the property is high on my list of priorities. Everything from north facing (reduces electric light usage) to the hot water system is put into my checklist.

Energy efficiency is just that - efficient - it saves heaps of money over the years.
 
A similar scheme has been introduced in Queensland where you have to have an environmental report available on properties for sale.

Fortunately (don't you love bureaucrats!) the instructions state that if you don't know the answer to a question to leave it blank.

I wonder how many completely blank forms there are out there?
Marg

It's actually quite helpful for potential buyers. At least I find it so - even if the sellers leave some blanks buyers can see for themselves what is in the home.
http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/resources/form/sustainable-housing/declaration.pdf
 
So how much of this tax... oops payment, flows through to the government?

Will private inspectors do the job or will it be government agencies/contractors?

If they get more than PAYE taxes as a result of this, then I'd say it's more a revenue raising exercise.

And I'd like to know why an assessment would costs $1,500. Surely it's not that much of a long and complicated process doing an assessment on a residential property.

The best comparison I can think of is a depreciation report and that costs much less.
 
What about for new 'green energy rated' homes that the builders / developers deliver... should the owners ask for a formal letter of all these 'ratings' to bypass this energy certification?
 
Well, not quite true for some of us. As a current renter and also currently looking to buy, the energy efficiency of the property is high on my list of priorities. Everything from north facing (reduces electric light usage) to the hot water system is put into my checklist.
We'll be doing that when we build next. Right now we take what we can afford - in an area like this with no cheap houses for sale anymore and nothing for rent, having an energy rating does absolutely nothing. I've only ever seen one eco-friendly house for sale here - it had EVERYTHING - and it took far longer to sell than all the other 'normal' houses and sold for less than median when it did. It had quite an unusual floorplan.

You put most of this stuff down on the paperwork when you sell anyway, I really don't see why it can't just be another (free) form when you rent a place out. I could tick almost all the boxes on my old house ... except solar hws (too expensive) and orientation. All the living areas are on the south and the bedrooms/bathroom are on the north ... waste of a block with a 100m north-facing aspect.
 
Is it true that ACT have had this assessment for years, as in the article?
How much does it cost to be done there?
Thx,
JB
 
The cynic in me says that this is now payback time for all the free $1,600 and then $1,200 roof insulation that we've been happily stuffing into the roof spaces of our PPORs and IPs. :rolleyes:

And the cynic in me makes me think this is only the beginning of what this government has in store for us :mad:.
 
Well, not quite true for some of us. As a current renter and also currently looking to buy, the energy efficiency of the property is high on my list of priorities. Everything from north facing (reduces electric light usage) to the hot water system is put into my checklist.

Energy efficiency is just that - efficient - it saves heaps of money over the years.

under a user pay system, the consumer should bear the cost
 
And the cynic in me makes me think this is only the beginning of what this government has in store for us :mad:.

agreed. it's awesome for the govt, they can fulfill environmental targets whislt handing the bill to rich greedy landlords.
 
Little confusing... so it seems the person renting out an IP would pay for it then, and not the landlord?

Does anyone know how this would work for units in a strata title? All the units should have the same rating unless some types of major work had been done to an individual property (not sure what you can do to change energy efficiency in a strata group to your IP).

Really hoping its not something the landlord would have to pay everytime a new tenant moves in... that could be dissasterous.
 
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