Workshop on legal considerations for energy efficiency upgrades of multi-owner apartment buildings

The Heating & Cooling Strategy describes, inter-alia, the challenges to upscaling energy efficiency upgrades of private buildings and suggests that different building ownership forms require different approaches to drive energy efficient upgrades. The Strategy, specifically, recognises the issue of split incentives as a key barrier in deterring owners from making energy efficiency investments in apartment buildings, a significant segment of EU's residential building stock. In particular, the legal framework of condominium and rental laws is a contributing cause to the issue of split incentives in many Member States which discourage parties from entering into agreements that facilitate energy efficiency upgrades. Complex governance processes, national rules regulating multi-level decision making procedures, varying incentives between individual owners and misalignment of incentives between tenants and owners are all contributing factors.

This workshop aims to:

• discuss in detail legal, management and administrative obstacles in multi-owner buildings
• identify good practices that help overcome identified issues across Member States
• draw policy recommendations on how to revise existing condominium and rental acts to make them more conducive to energy efficiency upgrades and investments in apartment buildings.