The Future Homes Standard, renamed the Future Homes and Buildings Standard in December 2021, will complement the Building Regulations to ensure new homes built from 2025 produce 75-80% less carbon emissions than homes delivered under the old regulations. 

Existing homes and certain home improvements will also be subject to higher standards, although homeowners will only be affected if they are planning on making thermal upgrades or building an extension. 

The Future Homes Standard was first announced in the government’s spring statement in 2019, although the full details have yet to be completely mapped out. But we know through the Building Regulations changes that all future homes will need to be net zero ready from 2025 and not require retrofitting. 

Additionally, new buildings such as offices and shops will have to cut emissions by 27%.

We are in a transition period at the moment up to June 15th 2023, but this is not clear cut. If you have planning agreed but the foundations have not been started by 15th June, the new more stringent regulation may well apply.

We have been told that some critical issues will need to be comprehensively documented in the O&M manuals:

• Overheating planning is becoming a critical issue in the planning process and it is advisable that the work to plan for this is part of the design process rather that an end of project adjustment which may be very hard to make.
• Under Part L the requirements in L1A represent a 31% uplift in the assessment standard
• If it is a development with multiple dwellings of the same type, it currently only required certification in a representative sample, now each dwelling will need to be assessed.
• There is also a higher requirement of documentary evidence of the build quality to show that the design was carried through by the builder.  This means photographic evidence of each stage of the build. Each photo will also need to be documented with a signature, date and perhaps a GEO location.  If the requisite documentation is not supplied, then the 'default' value for the undocumented element will be applied and the dwelling will not be compliant.
• Every single dwelling will need to be air tested.   (not just a sample)
• For more details see New building regulations are now in effect from 15th June - O&M Manuals Document Centre (denaploymanuals.co.uk)

It is expected that no new homes will be able to connect the gas network from 2025 as part of the Future Homes Standard. Instead, they will be equipped with energy-efficient insulation and heated by a low-carbon heating source such as an air source heat pump. 

This would mean agas boiler banin new build homes from 2025, but the government's language changed when it published its Heat and Buildings Strategy in October. 

The government said in the Strategy that it plans to consult on whether it is "appropriate" to prevent new build homes from being connected to the gas grid in England from 2025.

The prospective gas boiler ban is yet to be officially confirmed within the Future Homes Standard guidance.