Selling your Solar Panels - Lightsource

jimjames

Rather oddly we received a letter from a company called Lightsource Renewable Energy offering to buy our solar panels for a cash sum and they then take the FITs. So just the same as the rent a roof schemes.

I'm not sure how many people would be interested in a lump sum rather than keeping the FITs themselves but the bit that puzzled me was how they got our name and address. I will call them tomorrow to ask but as far as I'm aware although the FIT register is public and has postcode there is nothing that gives the property or the owner's name is there?

tunnel

Don't you fancy asking them for a quote? Be interesting to find out how much they're willing to cough up to buy out peoples FiTs from them.

jimjames

tunnel wrote: »

Don't you fancy asking them for a quote? Be interesting to find out how much they're willing to cough up to buy out peoples FiTs from them.

I will do, just curious how they got the (wrong) contact information. Once I get their fantastic offer I'll let you know

zeupater

jimjames wrote: »

I will do, just curious how they got the (wrong) contact information. Once I get their fantastic offer I'll let you know

Hi

Are you not really jacobjacobite then ? .... :D ... seriously though, I'd also be pretty interested in discovering how they got hold of your (/our ?) information without misusing granted access rights to at least one database, however, take care with your personal security and disclose nothing which they wouldn't already likely know or have access to ...

Z

Martyn1981

tunnel wrote: »

Don't you fancy asking them for a quote? Be interesting to find out how much they're willing to cough up to buy out peoples FiTs from them.

Heard about this elsewhere a while back, and the offer made was approx 1/3 of outstanding FiT + export.

Doesn't sound like a lot to me, but then I suppose you've got the money up front, the leccy savings, and no maintenance/inverter costs.

Mart.

michaels

I wonder if there is anything in the agreement about metered rather than deemed export and battery installation....

zeupater

Hi All

Can't really believe that there are many systems which have already repaid their original capital, so 'most cases' would probably not be fully in accordance with fact or reality and, of course, most wouldn't even consider replacing their inverter unless it failed ....

Before selling a new product a salesman must first sell a concept, followed closely by a sense of demand .....

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Hi Sean, thanks for the reply. But I'm somewhat bemused by the above comment. It almost seems back to front.

Surely if money is tight, then a long term government backed, guaranteed return, is better than a smaller cash in hand lump sum.

The wealthy, can cope with future problems, whereas the less wealthy may prefer financial security/predictability?

If installed in late 2011 / early 2012 with a very good price, and great generation, so perhaps £2k pa, then I suppose this is theoretically possible*. But the point is irrelevant, the issue is the loss of an amount annually, v's a one off lump sum. Whether a system has (or hasn't) paid for itself is entirely unrelated, though I appreciate that some may fall for it as a sales trick.

But I can't imagine a worse financial decision than blowing £2k pa (£42k over the next 21 years) on a cruise! I could even be cheeky and point out that on-site generation is environmentally friendly, whilst a cruise is possibly the least environmental 'thing' one can do ..... but that would be a little naughty ...... so I shan't.

Did you point out to your client that they could probably have taken out a bank loan for £13.5k and then paid it off in 8 years or so with their FiT income, whilst still retaining the final 13 years of income for themselves? [Based on ~3.5% interest rate as detailed on this site under the loans section.]

Edit: Just noticed a funny coincidence. £2k pa for 13 years (in 2016 money) would finance an additional 2 future cruises, if your client so wished! Whilst purely a fun mental exercise, it appears your deal was get one now, lose 2 later, possibly the worst BOGOF offer this MSE site will ever see.

* Assuming £8k price and 4,000kWh pa generation. An earlier 2011 install, allows for 5 years income, but would probably have cost closer to £12k, requiring 6 years to pay off.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Sean, just to say, that whilst I haven't been particularly kind in my response, I do appreciate you giving some information, and to a degree, entering the lions den.

Given the controversial nature of this product I couldn't thank your post in case it seems like an endorsement, so am thanking you separately, simply for explaining and engaging. Though I must be clear and state that I don't think the deals are fair nor balanced at this point in time.

Cheers.

Mart.

ed110220

I don't want to sound negative, but this sounds like a terrible idea for most people. Having panels owned by someone else on your roof for a long, fixed period is well known for being potentially problematic if you want to sell your house. Even if the problem can be fairly easily solved, many buyers are poorly informed anyway and can be put off by anything 'unusual' that raises doubt in their minds.

If you really needed the money surely it would be much better to get a further advance on your mortgage and use the FIT payments to pay that off? I'm pretty sure you'd have FIT money left over from the repayments.

Now I can't speak for everyone but selling a source of income cheaply or borrowing a lot for a cruise or something similar is generally a bad idea if we're talking from a moneysaving point of view, with a few exceptions such as if say your health was failing and you felt you wanted to do it while you still could.

Ed

Martyn1981

Hiya Sean, felt more comfortable thanking that post as we're now chatting.

I don't think there is anything wrong in what you are doing, but at this stage, and I'm trying to be polite, you will be 'finding' those more easily persuaded, or tempted by the money.

That's not a criticism, just a point in time.

Moving forward, I guess it'll get a bit harder to persuade folk, so better offers may be needed.

I haven't thought this through properly, but gut feeling, is that a 50:50 deal, representing half of the remaining monies (in today's money) seems a bit fairer. So in the examples discussed, and my theoretical 20 years remaining at £2k per year, I can certainly see why someone might consider £20k (literally a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush).

The question there is, is a 100% profit over 20 years (index linked) a good enough deal for the investor, especially given the maintenance issues. I simply don't know?

Hopefully you can see that I'm not attacking the idea, just haggling over the deal ...... so to speak. Which at the moment doesn't appear to me to be in the PV'ers best interest. But that's the nature of any deal/contract, we can't all win, but we can all walk away content.

All the best.

Mart.