Guide
The TM44 report, the register, and who has to hold it
Updated
The duty is not really to have an inspection. It is to be the person holding a valid, lodged report when someone asks, and to pass it to whoever takes the building on after you.
What makes a report valid
Gov.uk states an inspection must be carried out by an energy assessor who is a current member of an accreditation scheme, and that all air conditioning inspection reports produced on or after 6 April 2012 must contain a valid reference number, which can only be generated once the report has been lodged on the Energy Performance of Buildings Register. The report also records the accredited assessor's name, the name and address of their employer or the name they trade under, the date the inspection occurred, and the name of the government approved air conditioning accreditation scheme they belong to.
What is in it
- Efficiency
- How efficiently the system is likely to be running, with suggestions for improving it.
- Faults
- Anything the assessor identified during the inspection, together with the actions suggested to deal with it.
- Maintenance
- Whether the equipment is being maintained adequately, again with suggestions where it is not.
- Controls
- Whether the installed controls and their settings are adequate, which is where cheap savings usually hide.
- Sizing
- How the installed system compares with the building's cooling load, and whether it is carrying capacity you are paying to run.
- Summary
- The findings pulled together with the key recommendations, which is the page most people read.
Nothing in the regulations compels you to carry out what the report suggests: gov.uk puts it plainly, no legal requirement to act on the recommendations. That surprises people, and it is the honest answer: the duty is to obtain the report and keep it. Acting on an oversizing or control finding is a commercial decision, and often a profitable one, but it is not a compliance obligation.
The three duties on the person who controls the system
- Ensure an inspection has been done in accordance with the requirements and timetable of the regulations.
- Hold the current report. Gov.uk requires the most recent report from an energy assessor to be kept, and adds that it should be somewhere safe so it can inform later inspections or go to a new owner or manager.
- Hand it over to any person taking over responsibilities for controlling the system.
Who counts as the controller
- Gov.uk describes the controller as the person who controls the system's technical functioning, not someone who does no more than adjust the temperature or whose only responsibility is to adjust the controls.
- The owner will usually control the system even where day to day operation is contracted out to another person or organisation.
- Where the occupier takes total responsibility for a building and its services, for example under a full repairing and insuring lease, gov.uk states the occupier controls the system.
- The three month trap. Inherit control with no report in the handover pack and gov.uk sets a three month deadline from the date you took over, not a fresh five year cycle. It applies on acquisition, on a lease assignment, and on an FM contract change.
Taken on a building and found nothing in the handover pack? That is a three month clock, not a five year one. Get quotes now and see what happens if Trading Standards ask first.