Sidebar: Energy Reporting: It's the Law
Energy reporting laws have tended to focus on large commercial buildings, public and private, but in some locations they extend to single-family homes. New York State has had a Truth in Heating Law in effect since 1981, requiring disclosure of two years of utility bills to any potential buyer or renter who makes the request. Others requiring such disclosure include Alaska, Nevada, and Montgomery County, Maryland, according to IMT.
Organizations like IMT see the next step for single-family homes in the SAVE Act, a proposed federal law that would account for energy efficiency in appraisals and in the underwriting process—potentially benefiting buyers and sellers of energy-efficient homes and encouraging energy upgrades as well as data collection.
That legislation has a powerful enemy, though, in the National Association of Realtors (NAR). NAR’s environmental policy representative, Austin Perez, told EBN, “There is no need for any kind of a federal mandate for that; it will just slow down home sales and create other kinds of property value reductions. If that information is relevant, the market will provide it.”
