Condominiums in the Renovation Wave

This policy brief is informed by direct experience of the current operating environment and focuses on areas specific to condominiums.

These should be considered alongside positive retrofit enablers relevant to all building archetypes such as favourable VAT rates on materials.

Recommendation overview
To accelerate deep retrofit in condominiums, ACE-Retrofitting partners call on EU, national and regional policy makers to recognise this critical common and specific building type and shape policy in the following areas.

• Energy Performance Certificates and Standards
• Condominium Data Availability
• Comprehensive Building Audits and Retrofit
• Plans
• Ownership Structures
• Financial Support Mechanisms
• Supply Chain Development
• Support for Owners
• Supply and Demand Linkage

Insight into one of the 8 policy recommendations: Condominium Data Availability

EPC registers and databases with condominium specific data should be available and publicly accessible to meet the needs of city or regional actors developing and implementing condominium retrofit strategies.
ACE partner cities have had challenges accessing data to strengthen the case for condominium retrofit or to develop strategies to allow for more effective targeting. We assume this will be true for most EU countries. The Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) had a Key Implementation Decision to develop and maintain a national database of EPCs and the EU Building Stock Observatory was launched to provide comprehensive building related data at the EU and national levels for a broad range of stakeholders including policy makers.

In Scotland, the Home Analytics database is available to Scottish Government and local authorities and includes EPC data on apartments in condominiums as well as multiple additional datasets allowing for improved targeting of activity. Liège along with other cities have had to build their own condominium specific database as the lack of data seriously hindered targeting. Key information required includes year and type of construction, number of apartments, tenure,
EPC rating and listed building status. Contact info for owners’ associations could also be centralised by local authorities or municipalities although compliance with GDPR would need to be observed.