The Great 'Get Paid To Generate Energy' Hunt

jovi_girl

we have for about 3 to 4 months been waiting to have our free solar panels put up by a company called Home sun, the only problem being our secured loan company SPML have refused , apparently they need the contract worded to benefit them , no other banks /building societys have done this and Home sun have bent over backwards to accomodate them but they keep pushing to their benefit,
we are being denied a saving in our £700 to £800 a quarter electric bills, a neighbour is saving a fortune unlike us I have made a complaint to thier complaints department but they did not help, it seems thery only have problems with this company it seems they want to make sure if our home is repossesed their companys would benefit in some way, despite us never missing a payment ,
I did speak to a solicitor who said they cannot stop us benefitting and from making a profit on our home, and she had never heard of such a thing, I would be grateful if anyone else could offer some advise,plus this is a goverment backed scheme, this is a first posting so forgive me if anything I've done is wrong, I just dont know who to turn to now
everyones talking about having them fitted and thier opinions on them, but we cannot even get that far

Cardew

jovi_girl wrote: »

we have for about 3 to 4 months been waiting to have our free solar panels put up by a company called Home sun, the only problem being our secured loan company SPML have refused , apparently they need the contract worded to benefit them , no other banks /building societys have done this and Home sun have bent over backwards to accomodate them but they keep pushing to their benefit,
we are being denied a saving in our £700 to £800 a quarter electric bills, a neighbour is saving a fortune unlike us I have made a complaint to thier complaints department but they did not help, it seems thery only have problems with this company it seems they want to make sure if our home is repossesed their companys would benefit in some way, despite us never missing a payment ,
I did speak to a solicitor who said they cannot stop us benefitting and from making a profit on our home, and she had never heard of such a thing, I would be grateful if anyone else could offer some advise,plus this is a goverment backed scheme, this is a first posting so forgive me if anything I've done is wrong, I just dont know who to turn to now
everyones talking about having them fitted and thier opinions on them, but we cannot even get that far

Welcome to the forum.

PV installation is a Government backed scheme, but not the activities of Home-Sun and the other so called 'rent a roof' companies; their schemes are a commercial arrangement between yourself and the company.

The difficulty is that the 'rent a roof' companies will have legal right to the use of your property's roof for the next 25 years and that will be binding on any new owner.

Without rehearsing the arguments in other parts of this forum, many people think that such an arrangement will be detrimental to the future value of the property. Other don't!

Therefore, particularly if the property is heavily mortgaged, it is not surprising that objections are raised.

Just a further point, you say your neighbour is saving a fortune, well it depends how you define a fortune!

Few people will save more than £100 a year from these systems and if it is Home sun they are possibly asking for you to pay them a lump sum or a monthly fee.

Personally I think their deal is disgraceful!

zeupater

jovi_girl wrote: »

we have for about 3 to 4 months been waiting to have our free solar panels put up by a company called Home sun, the only problem being our secured loan company SPML have refused , apparently they need the contract worded to benefit them , no other banks /building societys have done this and Home sun have bent over backwards to accomodate them but they keep pushing to their benefit,
we are being denied a saving in our £700 to £800 a quarter electric bills, a neighbour is saving a fortune unlike us I have made a complaint to thier complaints department but they did not help, it seems thery only have problems with this company it seems they want to make sure if our home is repossesed their companys would benefit in some way, despite us never missing a payment ,
I did speak to a solicitor who said they cannot stop us benefitting and from making a profit on our home, and she had never heard of such a thing, I would be grateful if anyone else could offer some advise,plus this is a goverment backed scheme, this is a first posting so forgive me if anything I've done is wrong, I just dont know who to turn to now
everyones talking about having them fitted and thier opinions on them, but we cannot even get that far

Hi jovi girl

I'm actually surprised that more lenders don't take this approach. Effectively, when you take out a mortgage you take on the financial risk by investing equity in the property and borrowing money against the value of the property. The lender will normally see your equity as a financial buffer to protect their own interests in the event that you default and they need to sell quickly, therefore at below market value. There is a belief that many hold where 'rent-a-roof' schemes could, for various reasons, reduce the attractiveness of a property to potential customers and therefore potentially reduce the resale value. It seems that your lender agrees with their point of view and are attempting to protect both their own and your financial interests. It could be that the position is a standard one for the lender for all of their customers , but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't based directly on the equity ratio in the property as the lower the customer equity, the higher the potential risk to the lender.

I don't know whether you've come across them, but there are two threads on 'rent-a-roof' schemes currently running on the forum which are worth checking out thoroughly ....
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2072787
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2637431


HTH
Z

jovi_girl

Home sun do not charge you anything other then £100 for the surveyor who checks your roof and loft space, this is returned once all the works been done,
our neighbour had thousands of lights out for 6 weeks over christmas for charity and he is a frugal man and kept readings which indeed showed he had saved 1/3, we do not have a large mortgage in fact the loan secured is more then half way paid and is a minimal amount, in fact less then £19,000,
apparently this company is not lending to any new customers and it seems they are trying to over ride any of our wishes despite only having a minimal amount owed to them our property is worth around £220,000 ( or was ) has anyone else had any problems with them as i am serious about taking this further and have been told we could claim any savings etc as compensation, but I would be happier just having the panels fitted we have looked into this scheme, that is indeed goverment backed, and arte happy with what we have heard we live on the south coast and get optimum sunlight and our roof is facing the correct way anything that saves on our £700 to £800 electric bills would be great we are in fact in a bungalow and have had so many checks on our electric that we need some news thankyou for your lovely welcome i am hoping to learn a few lessons on saving money

Cardew

Jovi girl,
Have you written to your secured loan company SPML and asked?

Looking on the internet it seems that they do mainly 'bridging loans' not mortgages and perhaps there is something in the financial legislation that makes the standard Home-sun contract difficult unless it is a mortgage.

The only advice is don't get involved in a legal case over something with such minimal savings and doubtful value - it only makes lawyers rich. Their answer will be 'pay off the loan and you can do what you wish.'

furndire

I think someone has made a huge exaggeration on the amount of money to be saved on electric bills!!!!!!

Cardew

furndire wrote: »

I think someone has made a huge exaggeration on the amount of money to be saved on electric bills!!!!!!

Someone with a 2.8kWp Home-sun system posted this in Nov(Nov mind you!). - he paid £500 and was paying £5 monthly

I am noticing savings of around £15-£20 per month on my electricity as well as sending 20 ish units per day back to the national grid. On my workings i calculate that to be 60p a day working out at around £180 per year plus a deduction of £180 - £240 per year of my electricity bill. All in all a sound £500 investment as my money will easily be re-couped within 24 months

Stupidity like that still convinces some people.

Jovi's neighbour states that for 6 weeks over Christmas he had thousands of lights and has saved a third of his electricty.

Jovi-girl,
I am sorry but your neighbour is just talking nonsense.

For a start solar PV produces nothing after dark - it uses sunlight so wouldn't have lit a single one of those thousands of lights.

Secondly in December and January even the biggest systems produce very little electricity even during the day.

On a 2.8kWp system you really will do well if you save £100 a year.

furndire

Our system produced a grand total of 1 kw today, and somedays in winter, zero, nada ziltch.
For the month of January, we have made from the FiTs payment less than £50 - electricty saved would be negligible (I'm happy with my system, paid for by me, as I get the FiTs payment).

Me thinks in a few years time there will be a "we were mis-sold" scenario coming up - we were promised £££££££s.

There are ethical firms out there, but you need to be very very careful.

Someone with a 2.8kWp Home-sun system posted this in Nov(Nov mind you!). - he paid £500 and was paying £5 monthly - that's laughable - where is he living s of France?
Jovi, have a look on page 2 systems in detail here -
http://www.uksolarcasestudy.co.uk/
I know they are further north than you, but they are genuine amounts of money being generated by the FiTs payments, not by savings in electricty.

zeupater

Hi All

Well the final solar pv panel benchmark prices for spot sales within Europe for 2010 have been published .....
http://www.solarserver.com/service/pvx-spot-market-price-index-solar-pv-modules.html

Looks like european manufactured crystalline panels (poly/mono) have been subject to price reductions again ..... another 2.2% in December alone, therefore closing the year 13.8% cheaper than the previous year.

In the same period Sterling has strengthened against the Euro by around 6%, therefore supply contracts for 2011 should reflect both the lower panel prices and currency movement, resulting in approximately a 17.1% reduction throughout the supply chain.

Many MCS installers are now well on the installation efficiency 'learning curve' and should be taking far less time to complete each installation. Considering that much has been made about the 'investment risk' recovery keeping initial prices high in the new industry, it must now be about time that any capital investment has been recouped, therefore removing another potential block to consumer price reduction ......

Who will be the first of the large MCS pv suppliers to slash their prices in 2011 ..... or will they simply remain true to form for a legalised cartel and just greedily pocket the profit ??? ..... MCS, MeritoriousClimatologySolutions ??? (Heroes) ... or ... MoneyCoveredSnouts ??? (Zeroes) .... we'll soon know

HTH
Z


(Post #500 on this thread ... is there a prize :beer:)

Dave_Fowler

I agree with those who are saying the expected (or claimed) generation figures are very exaggerated. For the month of December my 2.96kWp system generated 44 kWh - i.e. less than £4 off my electric bill for the entire month.

Dave F