Buying a house with solar panels

[jgm]

We viewed a house today which ticked lots of our boxes. When I got home and flicked through the photos again I noticed there are solar panels on the roof. The vendor never mentioned these. I will do some googling but what questions should I be asking / what pitfalls should I be looking for?

Ask them if they own the panels? What feed in tariff they are on? Who pays it(feed in tariff) as it will come to you? When they were installed? Warranty? Is the installer still trading?

Thanks Wendy, lots to research by the sound of it

Potentially lucrative too, certainly helps with your energy bills.. it's only really complicated if they were put on the roof as a rent-a-roof type thing as you wouldn't legally own them. Estate agents don't really understand the value so depending on the size of the system you could be saving lots of money.. how many panels are there?

I lived in two houses with splat panels. Made zero difference to my life. Not sure what the point of them umis.

@Wendygoesfar there's 18 - funny the vendor never mentioned them, could have been an oversight or maybe they are rent-a-roof. Will be asking Monday!

We have solar panels, installed a few years ago, with a battery to store up excess energy overnight. We bought them outright, no rent-a-roof. This summer we’ve scarcely used mains energy; they’re great! I say this only to point out that they aren’t always a drawback.

wendy’s advice is sound. Some older schemes were rental; newer feed in tariffs aren’t as high as older rates (and are paid by the EU, so who know what’s happening next year). They need periodic cleaning, and panels decline in efficiency over the years.

They should face due south for max efficiency and any overshadowing trees etc should be cut back if possible.

Oh and we have an app to monitor the yield and energy usage .

That's quite a decent size system, surprised they wouldn't mention that as it would probably cost upwards of £7k to install.. you would certainly make a dent in your energy bills though without a storage battery it would only save you costs if you consume energy while it's being generated (during the day). It'd be worth asking the vendors what their bills are like..

We have them. Our's were installed when the tariff was really high so we get about £2k per year from them plus very low electric costs in the summer.

Wouldn't even know they are there.