HomeWise Consumer Guide to Space

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HOMEWISE CONSUMER GUIDE Space: Essential advice for choosing your home Choosing the right home is vital for your quality of life. Having adequate space to do basic activities such as eating, sleeping, washing, relaxing, working, entertaining and storing your possessions is essential. The size of your home is not just about the number of bedrooms even though property continues to be marketed this way in the UK. A far better gauge as to whether a property is right for you and your lifestyle is space – in particular the sizes of the rooms and the total floor area. But this simple measure is not always provided or made easy to understand. This guide provides some straightforward advice that will help you to: • compare homes against one another more easily • make better informed decisions about what you will need from a property • understand what you are getting for your money

1. Determine the floor area Ask the organisation or individual who is selling or renting the home for the floor area of the property. This can also be found on the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), which must be in place before the property is marketed.

HOMEWISE CONSUMER GUIDE

It gives you total floor area in square metres (sqm), circled on the sample EPC below. In addition, it provides a wealth of valuable information to help you assess the property’s performance, such as rating its energy efficiency and carbon emissions and even estimating fuel costs.

1 © Crown copyright, Department for Communities and Local Government


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