EPCs for rental properties: what's required, and why enforcement is catching up

If you rent out a property in Malta — whether it's a single apartment or several units in the same block — you're required to have a valid Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) in place for each one. It's a requirement that's existed for a while but hasn't always been closely checked. That looks set to change.

The requirement isn't new — but enforcement is catching up

An EPC is required whenever a property is built, sold, or rented out, under the current rules administered by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA). For rentals specifically, this has been on the books for years, but in practice it hasn't always been enforced consistently — plenty of long-standing lets have simply never had one drawn up.

That gap is expected to close. Momentum is building towards actively enforcing the rental EPC requirement rather than leaving it as a rule on paper, which means landlords who've been renting out a property without a certificate shouldn't assume that will keep going unnoticed. Getting an EPC in place now, ahead of any tightening, avoids having to scramble for one later under pressure — or facing questions from a tenant, an agent, or the regulator at an inconvenient time.

Own more than one unit in the same block? The inspection covers the common areas too

An EPC assessment isn't limited to what's inside the four walls of the apartment itself. Part of the process looks at the building's common areas and shared structural elements — the stairwell, the entrance, the shared roof, party walls with neighbouring units — since these all factor into how the property as a whole performs.

If you own several apartments in the same block — say, a small building you've split into rental units, or a handful of flats in the same development — that shared information doesn't need to be collected and worked out from scratch for every single certificate. Once the common areas and shared building elements have been assessed for one unit, that groundwork carries over to the others in the same building.

Which is why registering several units together can work out cheaper

Because some of the work is shared across units in the same building, more favourable rates can generally be agreed when registering multiple EPCs together, compared with commissioning each one separately at a different time. If you know you have several units in the same block that all need a certificate, it's worth mentioning that upfront when requesting a quote — it's taken into account in the pricing.

Even so, every apartment still needs its own certificate

Sharing common areas doesn't mean one EPC can cover multiple apartments, or that units in the same block can simply be assumed to share a rating. Each rented unit needs its own certificate, because in practice no two units in the same block are ever quite identical.

A ground-floor apartment and one on the top floor differ in floor and roof exposure. Corner units have more external wall facing the outside than one sandwiched between neighbours. Orientation affects solar gain differently unit to unit, and glazing, finishes, and upgrades often vary between apartments even within the same building — especially if they've had different owners or tenants over the years. All of that feeds into the individual rating, so each unit is assessed and certified on its own merits.