Future Homes Standard: timeline and key dates
Solar becomes a requirement on new homes in England on 24 March 2027 — but the date that decides whether a particular house is caught is the date its building control application went in, and that door closes a year earlier than most summaries suggest.
Two dates decide everything.
The requirement bites on 24 March 2027. But a home escapes it entirely if its building notice, initial notice or full plans application reached the relevant authority before 24 March 2027 and the work commences before 24 March 2028.
So the practical position for a buyer is: a new home completing in 2028, or even later, may lawfully have no solar at all. Whether it does depends on paperwork filed before March 2027, not on when the house was finished.
Higher-risk buildings — tall blocks of flats — run six months behind, at 24 September 2027.
The dates
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 23 March 2026 | SI 2026/335 made — the Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026 |
| 24 March 2026 | Laid before Parliament. Building Circular 01/2026 issued, with the updated Approved Document L volumes 1 and 2 and Approved Document F volume 1 |
| 24 March 2027 | Regulations come into force for ordinary building work. Requirement L3 applies |
| 24 September 2027 | Regulations come into force for higher-risk building work. Applications validly submitted to the regulator before this date, and not rejected, stay outside them |
| 24 March 2028 | Transitional protection ends — work under a pre-March-2027 application must have commenced by now |
The transitional arrangements, in the circular’s own words
This is the part worth quoting exactly, because a paraphrase loses the two-limb structure that matters:
The changes made to the 2010 and 2024 Regulations will not apply to work on a building where a building notice, an initial notice, or an application for building control approval with full plans has been given to the relevant authority in respect of that building before 24 March 2027, provided that the building work to which the notice or application relates is commenced (as defined) on the relevant building before 24 March 2028.
Both limbs must be satisfied. An application filed in February 2027 buys nothing if the ground is not broken by March 2028. Conversely, a scheme that started on site in January 2028 under a 2026 application is outside the standard entirely, however late the homes complete.
For higher-risk buildings the test is different in form:
The Regulations do not apply to HRB work or work to an existing HRB where a valid building control approval application has been submitted to the regulator before 24 September 2027, and the application has not been rejected before, on or after that date.
Note “valid” and “not rejected” — for these buildings the application must survive the Building Safety Regulator’s gateway process, not merely have been sent.
Coverage of the Future Homes Standard has settled on “solar required on new homes from 2027”. For a buyer, that sentence is close to useless, because the homes coming to market in 2027 and 2028 are overwhelmingly ones whose applications went in earlier.
The question to ask a sales office is not “is this to the Future Homes Standard?” It is “when was the building control application for this plot submitted, and when did work commence?” Those two dates determine the answer, and the sales office can find them out.
What arrives alongside it
The same instrument and circular carry more than solar. Approved Document L volumes 1 and 2 were updated together with Approved Document F volume 1 on ventilation — the two are linked, because a more airtight, better insulated home needs its ventilation designed rather than assumed.
The wider standard is also all-electric in effect: the government’s impact assessment notes that a home built to it has no gas supply, so occupiers no longer pay a gas standing charge. That is a real saving that has nothing to do with the panels, and it is one of the few points on which the economics are unambiguous.
The cost, and who is expected to bear it
The government’s final impact assessment puts the additional capital cost of building to the standard, relative to a Part L 2021 home, at a weighted average of £4,350 per dwelling:
| Dwelling type | Additional capital cost |
|---|---|
| Mid-terraced house | £5,690 |
| Semi-detached house | £5,600 |
| Low-rise flats (under 11 m) | £5,300 |
| Detached house | £5,160 |
| Mid-rise flats (11–18 m) | £2,210 |
| High-rise flats (over 18 m) | £1,550 |
Gross undiscounted costs, 2025 prices, relative to the Part L 2021 counterfactual.
Two observations we would make. The mid-terrace is the most expensive dwelling type to uplift, which is consistent with the party wall offsets in Appendix B eating into a narrow roof — see the 40% rule. And the assessment expects these costs to fall over the decade, assuming solar PV costs reach around 60% of their initial level, and heat pumps around 70%, within the first ten years.
On who pays, the assessment is candid: costs sit with developers, private rented sector landlords and housing associations initially, and “private developers over the longer term may pass on costs to owners in the form of higher house prices, at least in areas of high demand.”
What we are watching
- any extension of the transitional arrangements, which is the single change most likely to affect what is actually built
- the first BREL reports showing shortfalls flagged under paragraph 5.78
- whether grid connection constraints limit export on new sites — the impact assessment acknowledges some sites may not be able to export at all
- the devolved timetables in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Sources
- The Building Regulations etc. (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/335)
- The Future Homes and Buildings Standards: Building Circular 01/2026
- Approved Document L, Volume 1: Dwellings, 2026 edition
- Final stage impact assessment: Future Homes Standard
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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