Working party issues revised guidance for landlords and tenants over CRC scheme
A property industry working party has published a second edition of its guide for landlords and tenants relating to the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.
The guide explains what CRC is and how it operates. It also deals with:
- Specific issues that landlords and tenants should consider when agreeing the terms of a new lease or varying existing leases
- Four possible methods for both incorporating CRC provisions into leases as well as four further possible methods for accounting for CRC in leases, and
- The procedures for dealing with changes in ownership of a building.
According to Mark Heighton of law firm CMS Cameron McKenna, the guide follows an industry-wide consultation which took place earlier this year and an unsuccessful attempt to try and achieve a consensus between landlords and tenants as to how the real estate industry should respond in incorporating CRC in leases. This meant that industry standard clauses were not feasible at this stage.
The guide examines how the cost of the CRC can be apportioned between landlords and tenants. “It is not possible to give any definitive guidance about this as the legal position surrounding the application of the CRC, particularly in relation to existing leases, remains at best unclear,” it says.
Members of the working party were drawn from organisations including the British Property Federation, the British Retail Consortium, the British Council of Shopping Centres and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.
A copy of the guide can be downloaded here.
