How much do you make from your solar panels?

[rachelfrost]

We’re in the process of buying a house and the buyer claims they earn 2000 a year plus free electricity from the solar panels. Does 2000 a year sound about right?

I’ve got a bad feeling about these panels. The sellers want to keep on getting the 2000 a year in exchange for the free gas and electricity for 20 years after they’ve moved out but won’t give us any details about where they got the panels from etc.

I wouldn’t buy a house with these fugly monstrosities on the roof full stop.

Tell them to jog on.

We get about £1500 a year from ours. They were bought by the previous owners, but included in the sale, at no additional price, the house two doors up sold at the same time, for the same price with no panels and in a very similar condition to our house. It's very odd that they would want to keep them, I'd have thought they would come under the fixtures and fittings?! I think I'd pass.

Nope

Tell them you want them off the roof and the roof made good at their expense

Or find something else

Run away!

unless they are going to knock 40k off the asking price for what they would earn from the panels I wouldn't bother, you wouldn't be able to sell the house in the next 20 years due to the complexitys

Also who owns the roof ? You could counter claim and charge them rent of your roof. Another question, if your roof were to be damaged ( say a slate or ridge tile ) and there is a need to move a panel for the work to be carried out, who would pay for temporary removal / reinstall ?
Don't buy this house.

That is hilarious. There really are some odd people in the world.

Did the Estate agents details make it clear the panels were a separate negotiation? Go back to the EA and complain if they didn't. If they mentioned the panels, one would assume they are in the sale and not separate negotiation. This is just ridiculous. If you buy a house, they become yours. It is part of the attraction of selling a house with them. I do agree though, the old ones are so ugly. I would not buy this house. Yes, rent them roof space. £2000 a year!

the vendors are barmy. That's why the agent wants to steer clear. It is not worth your while trying to meet their demands. Look for another house.

If you want to persist, get a copy of the Land Registry "deeds" of the house and see if there is a charge against it (as may be if the panels are on a lease, which is possible).

If the panels were installed on terms like mine, the FITS payments last for 20 years from date of installation. During that period you will most likely need a new inverter and possibly some other repairs. The newer the installation, the lower the rate of payment. I am on the South Coast and get about £220 per quarter in the summer and £120 per quarter in winter. So around £680 a year. You might get more in Cornwall or depending on age; but although older ones get a higher rate, then have less years remaining. On a recent installation, the payments are so low that the payback period makes it not worthwhile.

As for free electricity, it mostly arrives during the daytime in summer, when you need it least. You can get an immersion diverter to use it up heating your HW cylinder, but when I did the calculation, it would not be a paying proposition because I heat my HW with gas and the cost is negligible.

Second hand panels and inverters are scrap and practically worthless.

When we sold our house earlier this year the solar panels were included in the asking price and the FIT was transferred to new owners. It was actually in our FIT contract that on sale of the house this should happen. It depends on the contract how often payments are made - our was every six months (paid in arrears).
The sellers need to take a reading on the day they leave and then it's just like transferring the gas/electricity bills into a new name.
If the sellers want to take the panels off at their own expense and move them to their new house then this could be possible.

We get around £600/year, from a 4kw system on the FIT from around 2017.

OP, what the owners of the house are proposing is complete la la land stuff. The house will be unsellable/un-mortgageable unless they have full ownership of the panels, & agree to transfer the panels & the FIT tariff payments to you, along with the house.

If they have had them installed under a 'rent a roof' scheme where they didn't stump up the install costs, unfortunately they will need to buy them out from the company prior to sale... Our seller did this, to the tune of £10k or so.

Anything else is madness & i'm astonished their own solicitor hasn't told them this!?

I believe some solar panels are fitted to 'leased roof space' and are not owned by the occupier although any purchaser would be committed to keeping them.
I don't know what happens if you need roof repairs or a new roof.
I think PigletJohn, who is knowledgeable about such things, summed it up concisely.

I would steer clear of this property, or make sure your solicitor is very, very good. The last thing you want is an unsellable or unmortgageable property (and this happens more times than you would expect).

Sorry OP. Walk away.

We own our and make just over 1K a year in FIT payments. What they are proposing is odd. It could make insuring your house a problem. You could be deemed to be sub-letting a part of your property even if if is the roof

Please do not agree to this! I worked for a company installing solar panels when the tariffs were at their highest and had my solar panels installled then. I had the maximum solar panel installation possible under the scheme, and my solar panels are almost ideally positioned. The most I’ve ever earned is about £1700 in FIT payments, and truly I can’t guess how much free electricity I’ve had.
The thing is, though, that the solar panels become less efficient after time, so will return less. The inverter has a much shorter lifespan, and you could be looking at replacing it every 8 or so years. I don’t remember exactly how much these cost, but think it could be in the region of £600.00 (excludinding installation costs).
It would be overly onerous to enter into a long term agreement with the sellers over the solar panels. Tell them you offered to buy the property, seeing that it had solar panels, and the price you’ve offered took this into account.