Small detached rental homes: what are the rules?

What the sources do and do not say

Both the national government and later trade publications consistently name 'small detached rental homes' as one of the excluded categories, together with monuments and temporary rentals. This indicates the exception is intended for a specific, limited group of homes for which sustainability measures are relatively expensive or technically difficult relative to the home's size.

A hard surface area limit, a definition based on the number of square metres of usable floor area, or other construction-based criteria have not been published in the sources consulted. Landlords should therefore be cautious about already applying this exception now based on their own estimate.

What you can do now

Map out your small detached rental homes with their characteristics: surface area, year of construction and current energy label. This allows you to act quickly once the final criteria become known, without having invested unnecessarily in the meantime in a home that may still be excluded.

In the meantime, do have a current energy label assessment carried out if the current label is outdated or unreliable: you will need that information anyway, both for the possible Bbl obligation and for your WWS point count.

• Small detached rental homes are named as an exception category, without a published exact size threshold.
• Map out relevant properties now based on characteristics such as surface area and year of construction.
• Follow the final Bbl text before definitively relying on this exception.