The Future Homes Standard: why the date you apply matters more than you think

The Future Homes Standard is now confirmed, and for anyone thinking about building a home it's worth understanding — not because it's alarming, but because the timing has a real price attached.

What it is

From 24 March 2027, new homes will have to be built to a much higher energy standard: in practice a heat pump rather than a gas boiler, solar panels, better ventilation and improved fabric, with no home reliant on fossil-fuel heating. It's a good thing to be building towards — lower running costs, a home that won't need retrofitting in a decade. But it costs more up front. The government's own impact assessment puts the premium at around £4,350 per home (2025 prices, a weighted average across the measures).

The transitional relief — and the catch

There's a window. If a building control application — a building notice, initial notice or full plans application — is submitted before 24 March 2027, and construction actually starts before 24 March 2028, that home can still be built to the current (2021) standard. Meet both conditions and you avoid the additional cost.

Here's the part people miss: the relief applies building by building, not to a whole site. Getting one early application in doesn't shelter an entire scheme. On anything with more than one plot, each home's timing has to stack up on its own — which takes careful programming, not just an early submission.

Why it's a genuine reason to move

If you're weighing whether to start now or next year, this is a concrete, dated reason to get on with it. It isn't a scare tactic — the greener standard is worth building to, and eventually everyone will. But if you're going ahead anyway, roughly £4,350 a home is a real number, and the way to keep it is to have the application in and be on site inside the window. Miss it and you build to the new standard, at the new cost.

Programming a build around exactly this kind of deadline is part of what we do. If you're planning a home and want the timing to work in your favour, see how we build or our guide to what it costs to build — and take your own building-control advice on your specific project.