Heat Stress and the Home: Why Residential Conveyancers should now Pay Attention

For residential conveyancers, climate risk has come to mean flood, subsidence and coastal erosion as these are the main physical climate risks contained in environmental and climate searches. However, heat stress is now emerging as one of the more significant physical climate risks affecting the home, not least because in extreme cases it can become a matter of life and death.

The Law Society’s Climate Change and Property Practice Note, published in 2025, together with its Supplementary Technical Note, helps bring this into sharper focus.  It states that: “Climate change is anticipated to cause a rise in average summer temperatures, an increase in maximum summer temperatures and lead to higher frequency and longer lasting heatwaves”.

The Practice Note recognises that climate change may raise material issues in property transactions and that conveyancers should be clear with clients about what they are, and are not, advising on.  

Why Heat Stress Matters for your Client

Heat stress is important because it is not simply a comfort or amenity issue. The Supplementary Technical Note explains that most definitions of heat stress focus on human health, but that higher temperatures and prolonged heatwaves will also affect homes, infrastructure, business operations and wider systems. 

The Supplementary Technical Notes explains that prolonged temperature increases will affect how people live and work and will require adaptation to property itself.

In its words: “…increases in temperature over prolonged periods will affect how people live and work. Changes in temperature will require adaptations to property including to building design and site planning, alterations in construction methods (including potential changes to foundations, building materials, insulation, ventilation air conditioning etc.).”  

For the residential conveyancer, the point is that, where heat exposure is flagged, it may have implications for occupation, running costs, adaptation works, future saleability and, in some circumstances, lender or insurer perception. It may also matter because the risk is serious in human terms.

The Supplementary Technical Note says: “It is estimated that there are approximately 2,000 heat-related deaths each year in England and Wales. This number is expected to increase to over 7,000 by the mid-century”.  

The Need for Better Heat Stress Data

A practical point though is that heat-stress data is not available on a definitive individual-home basis at conveyancing stage. What is available, and very useful, is area-based heat stress data which can indicate that a home lies in an area where overheating-related issues are expected to become more significant over time. Actual overheating risk will then depend on factors such as orientation, glazing, shading, insulation, ventilation, thermal mass, room layout, surrounding greenspace and any cooling measures already in place.

Heat-stress data should therefore be used as a screening or flagging tool, not as a definitive statement about the condition or thermal performance of the individual home.

Used properly, it helps answer the question: is this home in an area where overheating exposure may become more material over the likely ownership period? It does not answer the separate question: will this specific home overheat in practice? That second question requires a more property-specific assessment.  

Considerations for Conveyancers

For residential conveyancers, the prudent approach is a layered one:

- First, if climate or environmental search material flags medium / long-term exposure to heat stress, that should not be ignored.

- Secondly, if the issue appears material, the client should be encouraged to consider whether the home may be more susceptible to overheating having regard to factors such as orientation, extent of glazing, shading, insulation, ventilation and the layout of key rooms, especially bedrooms and top-floor rooms. Where no property-specific assessment has yet been undertaken, further advice may be appropriate from a surveyor, retrofit professional, architect or building services specialist.  

This is familiar territory for conveyancers. It mirrors what we already do with other environmental flags. We identify the issue, explain what the report does and does not show, and signpost the client towards further specialist follow-up where appropriate.

Technical Guidance on Heat Stress Available

It is also worth noting that there is technical guidance available in relation to heat stress and homes. The Supplementary Technical Note refers to significant overheating risks in homes as UK temperatures rise and notes that research has identified a greater risk in some dwelling types and locations, particularly in Southern England.

It also refers to the need for adaptation in homes and to the wider implications for homeworking, care at home and indoor air quality. Alongside this, Approved Document O and methodologies such as CIBSE TM59provide a recognised framework for assessing overheating in homes and considering mitigation measures such as shading, ventilation and reduction of solar gain.

Understanding your Duties

There is another reason why this matters for conveyancers: compliance with the duty to warn. 

Where a medium- to long-term physical risk is capable of affecting a client’s future enjoyment, safety, running costs or marketability, it is  difficult to say it is irrelevant to residential conveyancing advice.

From both a client service and compliance standpoint with the Practice Note in mind, commissioning a climate search which considers the medium- to long-term risk of heat stress, and which recommends practical steps to better understand and mitigate that risk, makes a great deal of sense. It helps the client make a more informed decision, and it helps the conveyancer show that the issue was considered and addressed in a sensible and proportionate way.

The right approach, then, is neither to ignore heat stress nor to exaggerate it. The right approach is to use good area-based climate data to screen and flag potential exposure, explain its limits, and recommend home-specific advice where the circumstances justify it. 

About the author

Stephen Sykes is a solicitor and Managing Director of Terra IQ Limited. He is a former Chair of the United Kingdom Environmental Law Association, remains an Honorary Member of the Association, and led UKELA’s response to the draft climate-risk practice note during the consultation period between 2023 and 2025.