House Purchase WWYD

[Snowdrop2016]

We're close to exchanging on a new house and found out last week that the income from the solar panels actually looks to be a lot less than we were led to believe during the viewing.

We'd used this estimated income in our calculations and now think we'll be about £15-20k worse off than we expected.

There have been a few other issues during conveyancing so this is just adding to the stress 😔

We're trying to decide if we should;

1. Carry on and take it on the chin
2. Try to renegotiate a revised offer
3. Pull out and accept that we've lost the money spent to far (£3k ish)

We really like the house and don't want to do anything rash as I appreciate it will have an impact on others in the chain 😢

I suppose the plan of action depends entirely on how much you want the house?

How would you be 15-20k worse off? Is that per year? I thought solar panels earned a very small amount per year (but haven't read into it much).

Yes, how much were you expecting and how has this changed? When were they installed? Is it FIT eligible? Are they owned or leased?

I have solar panels and earn more than the previous owners advised. This is because the FIT rates are adjusted annually.

We get one of the early, more generous FIT rates (2011). As we are at home during the day, we also make good use of the free electricity by running appliances when it is generating.

Whilst it's a nice income and saves some electricity costs, it's not significant enough to have factored into a higher offer when buying the home. It just made the home more attractive to buy.

I can’t see how solar panels make a £20k difference unless it’s an actual solar farm! Or is that e.g. over a 20 year period?