22 July 2026

EPC vs Home Report: what's different in Scotland

If you're used to how EPCs work in England, Scotland's system will look familiar but not identical — the EPC there sits inside a bigger document, and it's held on a different register entirely.

The Home Report is the bigger picture

Almost every property marketed for sale in Scotland needs a Home Report, a pack of three documents: a Single Survey (a professional valuation and condition assessment), a Property Questionnaire (seller-provided information), and — the part relevant here — an EPC.

The Scottish EPC itself works the same way

The A–G scale, the current/potential rating split, and the 10-year validity period are identical to England and Wales. What differs is where the certificate lives and who can access it programmatically.

A separate register, with a real restriction

Scottish EPCs are held on the Scottish EPC Register (scottishepcregister.org.uk), not the England & Wales register most UK-wide tools pull from. The public can search it directly by postcode with no login required — but its terms of use explicitly prohibit automated or scripted access, which is why tools built on the free England & Wales government API can't simply extend the same lookup north of the border. Our checker flags Scottish postcodes and links straight to the official register rather than guessing.

What this means if you're buying, selling, or letting in Scotland

The EPC still matters for the same reasons — legal requirement for marketing and letting, minimum-rating rules for private rentals, and useful information on running costs. You'll just find it as part of the Home Report rather than as a standalone document, and any tool checking it needs to route you to the Scottish register specifically.