Bought a house with unregistered solar panels - advice please?

jools61

Re: Solar panels on a new build house - When I contacted the electricity supplier Eon to register for the FIT, was told an MSC certificate is needed, plus the info on the type of solar panels. Was then told by Eon they had no record of the solar panels being registered. The house was purchased a year ago as a shared ownership property. Wasn't given an information pack about the solar panels, so was unaware of this. The housing association have taken over responsibility for the property from the builder. The person I spoke to at the HA said I'm not allowed to claim for the electricity they generate. They've refused to supply the information I need and they won't give an MSC certificate or register the panels. Reason given quote:"Following on from your conversation earlier today it has been advised the reason you are unable to claim any cash back is due to the developer grant already applied to the property and the Government will not allow two lots of grants to be made available to a customer".
I was never made aware of these facts when purchasing the house. Can anyone advise me if anything can be done about this?

rogerblack

You can't always claim FIT on panels on a house you move into.
Were you at any point told you could?

jools61

The salesperson didn't go into detail about claiming FIT. It wasn't something we asked about at the time.

jools61

Update - have asked daughter what was said at the time, her reply is that the salesperson said "you will save hundreds" with the solar panels. That is what I thought I remembered her saying too.

rogerblack

You could indeed save hundreds in electricity over the years.
Or approaching a couple of hundred a year - if you really tried. £100/year is probably more at the high end for most.

Martyn1981

I'm a little confused regarding the ownership of the house. The thread title says 'bought a house', but you mention joint ownership with the HA?

You also say "I'm not allowed to claim for the electricity they generate." Does the HA retain ownership of the property at the moment, and therefore, presumably, ownership of the FiT contract?

[Edit: Or is no FiT contract allowed full-stop due to this developer grant / double funding issue?]

The hundreds saved, probably refers to the leccy savings from the reduced import.

Mart.

jools61

Martyn

1. Bought a 25% share of the house, the HA owns 75%. But was told upon purchase would have all the same rights as an owner. That doesn't seem to be the case considering all the other problems as well.

2. There doesn't seem to be any FIT contract. The solar panels havn't been registered, which I think would be necessary for one.

I'm inclined to think they just put the solar panels on so they could claim it was an eco home to get government funding. This was also used as a selling point, but we have been misled into believing we could save money. Now people have moved in they don't want to know.

ed110220

jools61 wrote: »

Martyn

1. Bought a 25% share of the house, the HA owns 75%. But was told upon purchase would have all the same rights as an owner. That doesn't seem to be the case considering all the other problems as well.

2. There doesn't seem to be any FIT contract. The solar panels havn't been registered, which I think would be necessary for one.

I'm inclined to think they just put the solar panels on so they could claim it was an eco home to get government funding. This was also used as a selling point, but we have been misled into believing we could save money. Now people have moved in they don't want to know.

Unless they specifically said you would receive a FIT payment I'm not sure how you could have been mislead. If they said you would "save money" that would imply that you would benefit from not having to buy as much electricity due to your solar generation, not that you'd receive money from electricity export as FIT. If they'd said you'd earn money from the panels it would be a different matter.

thenudeone

jools61 wrote: »

1. Bought a 25% share of the house, the HA owns 75%. But was told upon purchase would have all the same rights as an owner.

Why don't you let the HA know that you don't like the look of the panels and as "owner", you're thinking of removing them. See what they say.

However, I suspect that the HA's legal people will have made sure that they remain eligible for any feed in tariff and that you are legally obliged to leave the panels in place and probably also allow access for inspection, maintenance and repair as well.

jools61

In reply to ed110220 - that's probably debatable. Some might argue that if they used the solar panels as a selling point, but failed to point out the true facts in the sales literature, then with holding relevant information is misleading advertising.

Fact is we have nothing in print about the type of solar panels. That's a problem because when the housing association's guarantee runs out we become responsible for the maintenance of the panels ourselves. There was an info pack from the company that fitted them and it was never made available to us. We are the purchasers and the sales literature stated we would "enjoy all the benefits of home ownership". That isn't the case if the HA is with-holding these documents.

the nudeone - thanks, but no can do. Not allowed to make any alterations without their permission. Honestly can't see them saying yes to that idea!

Martyn1981

jools61 wrote: »

Martyn

1. Bought a 25% share of the house, the HA owns 75%. But was told upon purchase would have all the same rights as an owner. That doesn't seem to be the case considering all the other problems as well.

2. There doesn't seem to be any FIT contract. The solar panels havn't been registered, which I think would be necessary for one.

I'm inclined to think they just put the solar panels on so they could claim it was an eco home to get government funding. This was also used as a selling point, but we have been misled into believing we could save money. Now people have moved in they don't want to know.

Hiya jools. Don't pretend to understand all the grants here, but if I'm getting the gist, then the property when built (including the panels) received some sort of 'developer grant'?

Therefore the property cost was a little lower?

Regarding PV income - the FiT part is supposed to help repay the capital outlay/investment for the system. If the panels were included in the build, which received a grant, then that would explain the double funding issue - perhaps?

This still leaves you with the two remaining income streams, the export earnings and import savings.

Export - You could try to contact some of the smaller companies like GoodEnergy, Ecotricity (I'm really not sure!) and see if they'll purchase your export, but I suspect it will be too small, and any annual/monthly contract fee may make this uneconomic. If you have a hot water tank, you could consider installing a diversionary device to heat water instead of exporting.

Import savings - assuming that the install is 'normal' then you should see bills reduced by perhaps £120 pa (£80 to £160) for a 3 to 4kWp system.

So to sum up, if due to other funding, the cost of the house was no more than normal (despite the PV panels) then not getting the FiT seems reasonable, but you'll still have lower running costs.

However, if, you feel the cost of the house was more than it would have been without the panels (?), then I appreciate your concerns.

Mart.

PS Appreciate you don't have the literature on the system, but can you say how many panels there are, or give the make and model of the inverter, as this should allow a guesstimate of the system size. M.