Every domestic EPC in England and Wales sits on a public register, so you can look up a property's certificate by postcode or address without asking the seller. It takes about thirty seconds, needs no account, and shows the band, its score and the improvements the certificate prices.
You do not need the seller's permission, the agent's cooperation, or an account anywhere to read a property's Energy Performance Certificate. Almost every home in England and Wales sold since 2007, or let or newly built since October 2008, has one, on a public register. The lookup takes about thirty seconds.
This guide covers domestic certificates in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers under their own rules, so nothing here should be applied to a property there.
Everything below about the rules — what triggers a certificate, how long one lasts, and the minimum bands — is the position as of 20 August 2026. The certificate regime itself is changing, and the last section sets out what is confirmed and what is only announced.
Every EPC in England and Wales is public
An EPC is legally required when a home is marketed for sale or for rent. The seller or landlord commissions it, an accredited domestic energy assessor produces it, and once lodged it goes onto the public register so buyers can compare running costs before committing to anything.
Which has a consequence most buyers never use: you can read the certificate for a house you have not viewed and have not told anybody you are interested in. Nobody is notified that you looked.
Broc's free EPC checker (no account, no email address) reads the register entry and explains it in a buyer's terms rather than an assessor's. What is an EPC covers the document itself.
Been to a viewing?
Put in the address and see what the data says you should offer — sold prices, time on market, seller signals.
The 30-second lookup
- Open the EPC checker and type the property's postcode or address.
- Pick the exact property from the addresses that come back.
- Say who is reading — buyer, landlord, agent, or just curious. The report is shaped to that answer.
- Read the result — current band and score, the potential band with the recommended work done, the element-by-element conditions, the modelled running costs and the costed improvements.
Postcode is usually faster: it returns every address on it, so you do not have to guess how the register spells the street.
Selection is where lookups go wrong. Certificates are per dwelling, not per building, so a converted house is several records rather than one, and "Flat 2" and "2A" can both appear at the same address. If a listing shows a band that does not match what you find, check you are on the same dwelling first.
What the result actually tells you
The headline is a letter, but underneath it is a score out of 100:
- A 92–100
- B 81–91
- C 69–80
- D 55–68
- E 39–54
- F 21–38
- G 1–20
Read the number as well as the letter. Bands are wide: a home at 68 is a D one point below a C; a home at 56 is a D with the whole band ahead of it. Band D is the most common band in England and Wales, so "it is a D" is not a finding — where it sits inside the D is. EPC ratings explained goes band by band.
Three things matter more than the letter. The potential rating is what the property would score with the recommended work done, so the gap is the size of the job. The element conditions describe walls, roof, windows and heating in words, and anything marked "assumed" is something the assessor could not see or be shown evidence for — a question for the seller, not a fact. The recommended improvements carry indicative cost ranges and annual savings.
Those £ figures are model outputs at the rates of the certificate's own year — one lodged nine years ago quotes nine-year-old prices, and nothing on the register updates them. Broc's checker re-prices that same modelled energy use at rates stated as of early 2026, and says which figure is which. Neither is a forecast of your bills on your tariff. Both are produced the same way for every property, though, which is what makes two certificates comparable.
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When there is no certificate on the register
A blank result usually means one of three things.
The address did not resolve. The most common cause, and the easiest to fix. Certificates are sometimes filed under a neighbouring address or a flat numbering scheme that does not match the listing. Try the postcode on its own and read the full list before concluding there is nothing.
The property never triggered the requirement. A home not sold since 2007, and not let or newly built since October 2008, may never have been assessed, and older records can predate the digital register.
The certificate expired and was never renewed.
If the property is on the market and you still cannot find one, ask the agent: a home being marketed should have a certificate. A missing register entry is not, by itself, a defect in the building.
What an expired certificate means
A certificate is valid for ten years from lodgement. After that it is expired — which is worth reading rather than dismissing. (That ten-year life describes today's certificates; the new-style ones announced for 2027 are in the last section.)
If you live in the home, an expired EPC is not illegal, and nothing obliges you to refresh one while you are there. Letting is different — a valid certificate is required to let a home, and the band E minimum below is assessed against one. For a sale, what matters is that a fresh assessment is due when the home is marketed, so a seller with a lapsed certificate has one coming whether they have arranged it or not.
The more useful point is what an old assessment misses: one lodged nine years ago describes the property as it stood nine years ago, and every upgrade since is invisible to it. That cuts both ways. A poor expired certificate may under-rate a home that has quietly been improved — the seller has an argument there they have not made, and should be able to evidence it. A good one proves less than it appears to, because it describes a decade-old building. How long does an EPC last covers validity in more detail.
Turning a lookup into something you can use
The useful part of a certificate is the recommendations table, because of who produced it. This is an accredited assessor's certificate the seller commissioned and paid for, lodged on the government's public register and published there — not your estimate, and not easily waved away as a buyer being awkward.
That gives you a case worth arguing, and it is worth being precise about what that is. A certificate does not entitle anyone to money off and does not set a discount. It gives you a documented, unaggressive way to put a number in the room: it rates the walls very poor, quotes a cost range to insulate them, and that work is ahead of whoever buys the house. Whether that lands, and for how much, is a negotiation.
Work from the figures on the actual property rather than averages — look up the certificate and take the costs it quotes as a dated indication. Check the lodgement year, because the ranges and the savings are modelled at that year's prices, and no line on a certificate is a builder's quote.
Where the rules stand (position as of 20 August 2026)
This is where the subject attracts the most confident wrong information.
- Privately rented homes in England and Wales must already meet band E. That minimum has been in force since April 2020. It applies to the private rented sector, not to social housing.
- The rental minimum rises to band C — or its equivalent under the new metrics — on 1 October 2030. This is confirmed, with one genuine caveat: what counts as equivalent under the new metrics is still completing its Parliamentary passage.
- Certificates themselves are changing. New-style certificates using four Home Energy Model metrics, replacing today's single score, are announced for H2 2027. Announced is weaker than confirmed; timing and detail can move.
- There is no confirmed minimum band for selling a home. If you have read that sellers will need a C by 2035, that came from a 2021 consultation ambition which never became policy. It is not a rule, and no purchase should be priced as though it were.
General information, not financial or legal advice. Broc's scores and recommended ranges are informational guidance generated from data; outcomes vary and no result is guaranteed.
Frequently asked questions
How do I check an EPC by postcode?
Enter the postcode, then pick the exact address from the list that comes back. Broc's EPC checker does this in about thirty seconds, without an account. Take care with flats and converted houses, where each dwelling has its own certificate.
How do I find my own home's EPC?
The same way as anyone else's — your certificate sits on the same public register, so search your postcode and select your address. If nothing comes back, the home may not have been assessed since you bought it, or the record has expired.
Why is there no EPC for the property I searched?
Usually the address did not resolve rather than the certificate not existing, so try the postcode alone and read the whole list. Otherwise the home may never have been marketed since the requirement came in, in 2007 for sales and October 2008 for lets, or its certificate expired.
Is it free to check an EPC?
Yes. The register is public and Broc's EPC checker is free to use, with no account and no email address required. It covers domestic properties in England and Wales only — Scotland and Northern Ireland keep separate registers under their own rules.
Broc
Broc is the badger behind trybroc.io — "broc" is Old English for badger. Where the estate agent speaks in superlatives, Broc speaks in evidence — sold comparables, days on the market, seller-pressure signals — and turns them into a number you can defend.
