No energy certificate — enforcement orders and penalties

If an energy performance certificate is missing where the law requires one, or has passed ten years, the supervisory authority can order the building's owner to fulfil the duty — and couple that order with a financial penalty (vite). Boverket is the supervisory authority under the Act (2006:985) on energy performance certificates for buildings. There is, however, no charge triggered automatically by a date passing.

How the process runs

1. The deficiency is detected. Certificates are registered in Boverket's register, which makes a missing or expired certificate visible to the authority in a way a missed ventilation inspection is not.
2. The owner is contacted and given the opportunity to put it right.
3. An order. If no correction follows, an order can be decided.
4. A penalty. The order may be coupled with a financial penalty, payable if the duty is not fulfilled within the deadline.

Situation	Consequence
Certificate missing or older than ten years	Order to produce a certificate, may be coupled with a penalty
Energy performance not stated in the advertisement	The duty remains; responsibility lies with the owner
Certificate missing at a sale	The buyer may have one produced at the seller's expense within a time limit — see energy certificates when selling

We state no penalty amounts. They are set in the individual decision, and second-hand general figures are not something we can substantiate.

What does it cost to ignore the certificate?

There is no fixed fine. The cost arises in two stages: the penalty in any order, and the fact that you must produce the certificate anyway — the duty does not disappear. The most expensive variant in practice is the deficiency surfacing mid-sale, because the certificate then has to be produced under time pressure and the buyer may additionally have the right to have one produced at your expense. In money terms, a certificate ordered at a calm pace is always the cheapest outcome.

The register makes this duty different

It is worth understanding why the energy certificate stands out among the property owner's inspections. The data sits with a public authority, in a register, searchable — unlike ventilation control, where the information exists only in the owner's own report and where no national register exists.

The consequence is simple: a missing energy certificate is the easiest deficiency for an authority to detect, and the easiest for you to check yourself. You do not need to search binders to know where you stand — the data can be looked up.

How to put it right

1. Inventory per building, not per property. One property designation can hold several buildings, and the certificate applies to the building. See building or property.
2. Sort by expiry date, not by size. The building whose certificate expired in 2019 is a bigger problem than the one expiring next year.
3. Order from a certified energy expert and group the orders geographically — see what drives the price.
4. Put the expiry date where you track the other inspections, so the next ten-year limit is not a surprise either. See the annual calendar.

Steps 1 and 2 are what energy certificate handling in Emphyx and regulatory compliance do: read the data from the certificate and from Boverket's open register and place it per building, so the list of what is missing can be produced rather than guessed. No software can do step 3 for you.

If you own a single building this is not an inventory but a phone call. Check the date on your certificate, and order a new one if it is approaching ten years.