Key aspects of the Certificates include (see also article 7 of the EPBD):

• They shall be available when buildings are constructed, sold or rented out - so they are applicable to existing buildings as well as new ones.
• They should be accompanied by recommendations for cost-effective improvement of the energy performance including reference values such as benchmarks
• For public buildings the Certificate has to be publicly displayed (note: the definition of "public buildings" is unclear and implementation may differ between Member States)
• Certificates cannot have a validity of more than 10 years, and some Member States may apply shorter periods.

Author:  Roger HITCHIN (BRE)
Date:   07/04/06