Energy Performance Certificates may not be required each time a home is sold in future.

That is because the shelf life of an EPC has now been extended to ten years.

So, if a property sold today with an EPC comes back on the market within the next decade, a compliant EPC will already be in place.

The suspension order of HIPs and the amendment of the EPC regulations has an explanatory memorandum which says at Clause 4.7:

"The provision in regulation 11 of the EPB Regulations 2007 for an EPC to be valid for a period of three years in cases where a duty under section 155(1) or 159(2) of the Housing Act 2004 applies is revoked. This means that the validity period of EPCs for sales of residential property is, under regulation 11 as amended, now ten years. This is consistent with the validity period for EPCs for all other types of transactions covered by the EPB Regulations 2007."

Confirmation of the news has led to despair among Domestic Energy Assessors, who are predicting a decimation of their numbers and workloads.

It is also widely predicted that estate agents will go back to doing their own floorplans – work that had increasingly been done by DEAs.