Buying a house with rent a roof solar panels - first time buyers

[EMc12345]

Hi,

I am at a bit of a loss and could use some advise. Me and my husband have found a great house that we love. We just had a baby and needed to find a much bigger house asap as currently living in a tiny house in the middle of the city.

The problem is that after viewing the house and making the offer, I noticed there were solar panels. I queried whether these were rented or owned and the estate agent had no idea there were even solar panels on the property. They were clueless so they went back to the owner for answers. Took about 3 weeks to get a response and we are told the panels are rented and there are 6 years left on the lease. Ok no problem, I asked them to get us the proper documentation for the solar panels. In the meantime we are told the seller wants to accept our offer.

Again this took ages to receive and once we received the docs we realised that there are actually 12 years remaining on the lease (installed in 2016), not 6 years as we were previously told, and the maintenance providers are freetricity (who I have since googled and seem to have awful reviews online).

As first time buyers were are feeling naive to the process and want to make sure we are not making a mistake. So my question I suppose is, has anyone been in a similar situation and had any issues getting a mortgage, incurred any unexpected costs or had issues selling their house further on down the line? Any tips, advice etc is welcome!

Thanks for reading.

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Updated by MNHQ
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I looked into this a bit when I saw a house I liked which had solar panels. I found this blogpost useful: https://www.leadingpropertylawyers.co.uk/should-i-buy-a-house-with-solar-panels/

Ultimately I decided not to offer on the house because I would have needed to do a loft conversion to get the space I want and that seemed too complicated with the panels.

Good luck!

I have a house with solar panels and can’t see how this is a negative (unless you want a loft conversion). With the cost of electricity being so high, you get all the benefit without having had to pay the original outlay. I will miss them as I am moving but am now worried buyers don’t see them the same way.

I'm interested in a house with solar panels but I've told the EA to get the vendor to find the buy out price and then I plan to ask them to knock that off the asking price. I've no interest in taking on leased panels.

I would not buy a house with solar panels on it. Heard too many horror stories about dodgy suppliers and complicated agreements.

Ah well you haven't come across Octopus then, they are so helpful and are the only company to pay a decent amount for the electricity. Not sure what we would all do without them.

We have solar panels in our house and a few years ago we added a battery and our electricity bills were about half that of a property our size.

We like them so much were going to have them installed at our new property.

Solar panels if they were owned by the seller wouldn't put me off, but leased ones definitely would. However the thing that would really set alarm bells going was the way the vendors responded to the request for more information about them (they've put their house on the market and they take ages to respond to a perfectly predictable question, and then they try and fudge the lease duration until they get caught out by the paperwork... really?! Red flags are unfurling for me all over the place by now!)
Unless you can get all money that you would have to pay to freetricity over the next 12 years knocked of the price then I would run. In fact given the reviews you've found of freetricity I'm not even sure that would be enough! Bear in mind the predicted lifespan of solar panels is only 25 years, so if you come to a point where you'd want to sell 5 years after buying you might be stuck with dud solar panels on your roof that would be very expensive to remove.

I save hundreds of pound a year with mine. Had them 5 years and had no problems whatsoever

I have 4 batteries. Has saved us a fortune. I would always have solar now. It’s a no brainer

I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. I've read a few bad reports. Difficulty reselling and so on.

Really. Are absolutely fantastic and saves hundreds of pounds each years. We also export back to the grid and get roughly £900 back each year. Never had any problems and are house is electric only.

We do own ours though

Yeah we had a battery fitted as well couldn't believe the difference of me moneywise

@EMc12345 Do not let the need to find a bigger house in a certain timescale cloud your judgement - do not purchase this house.

Thanks everyone for your input. I have decided to withdraw our offer on the house. Something just doesn't sit right with me, the way we were lied to about the lease term and how difficult it was to get the documentation. Just not willing to take any risks as a first time buyer!

We have panels on our roof. They aren’t leased, the company is leasing our roof.

literally the only issue with them would be if you wanted to do a loft conversion. And I’m not sure even that would be a problem.

they’ve been up since 2015. We’ve had no need to have dealings with the company at all. We get all the electricity from them. They’ve saved us a fortune. The only thing we can’t do is sell the electricity. As the panel company is already getting that benefit. (Even if we use it all, based on old style feed-in tariffs, not smart meters).

this set up wouldn’t stop be buying a house with a similar set up at all. I’d look favourably on them tbh.

I think you’ve made the right decision in pulling out, OP, for very sound reasons. Being lied to and the length of time to respond are indicative of nightmare sellers. I am house hunting at the moment and houses with leased solar panels are an immediate ‘no’ for me after I Googled an article about the downsides. More expensive conveyancing, can’t do a loft conversion on your own roof and no clarity over what happens if a roof needs repairing, plus dealing with difficult solar companies, to name a few downsides. Also making the house harder to sell for these reasons, so I’m steering well clear personally!

Many of the older lease arrangements don’t allow addition of batteries.

Same here.
The roof is the part leased, not the panels, we own them at the end of the period.
Whatever electricity they are making at any given point is used by us first, any leftover goes to the leaseholder.
When buying, we had to make sure our mortgage provider allowed them (most do) and it was a bit of a pain sorting out the paperwork- we had to get a written form from a shade greener transferring ownership from the old owner to us to complete. The only reason it was awkward is solicitors aren't always experienced in what's needed.

do you have specific evidence to back up your wild statement?

I have (not rent a roof) panels and you are welcome to buy my house and claim the payment from them instead of me. Yes it is that simple.

Recent news coverage on the topic of lease schemes
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13907521/solar-panels-Shade-Greener-ASG-unsellable-despite-asking-price-plummeting.html