The energy inspectors being taken on to carry out work for property sellers who will need to provide energy consumption data for Home Information Packs (HIPs) will not be vetted for criminal backgrounds, it has emerged.

Although Domestic Energy Assessors (DEAs) have the right to enter every room of a property the Department of Local Government and Communities (DLGC) has still not officially chosen any professional bodies that will monitor their activities.

Even once the ‘accreditation bodies’ are set up they will not be allowed to contact the Criminal Records Bureau, with employers depending on the DEAs themselves to provide information about any criminal convictions they might have.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said: “We will insist that those hoping to receive accreditation disclose their criminal backgrounds and carry out the checks.

“But we cannot force them to do this under the current legislation and we cannot ourselves check out their criminal records – even though they will have the same access to people’s homes as Home Inspectors who do the other work on HIPs.”

The Law Society is also unhappy about the situation and Paul Marsh, deputy vice president, said: “It is astonishing that it is not possible to independently carry out criminal record checks on people who will have access to our homes.”