From January 2012 , residential property owners who wish to rent their properties in Hungary will be obliged to provide an energy efficiency certificate, also known as “green card” for their real estate.
Sellers of properties have been required to provide this certificate since 2009, now it is time to go for the landlords, government reckons. Now owners who wish to rent their properties will be obliged to acquire and present the certificate to the renter before signing the contract. The certificate will need to be provided by an auditor, who, of course, for a small fee, will examine condition of the doors and windows, insulation, walls, and energy efficiency of the heating system of the property. After that, they calculate the energy consumption of the real estate and give it a rating from “A+” to “I”. To comply with the regulations and to be called an “energy saving home”, the property has to achieve category “C”.
Properties that have a base area smaller than 50 sqm are exempt from this ruling.
So another serious time consuming and bureaucratic nightmare awaits property owners, but truth be told, this might be good news for the tenants: they do not have to rely any more on the words of the landlord when trying to guesstimate the prices of expected utilities, especially that of the heating bill. It could also be beneficial to the owners, however, since a good certificate would increase the value and therefore it might affect the rental price of the property.
Now, Hungary would not be the incredibly successful and widely respected country as it is, if it didn’t have a loophole in every ruling. This is exactly the case here, too: providing this certificate is only required when the rental period is defined as more than one year long.
I wonder if we’ll ever see a contract for 13 months or more again…
You can check for more details on the site of the Chamber of Hungarian Architects (all in Hungarian).
