Buying a house with solar panels-no warranties

movingon

Hi
I am in the process of buying a house with solar panels fitted in 2013 by MyPlanet. It transpires there is insurance to cover responsibility for the ten year guarantee should the supplier go out of business, but this is only effective if the original warranty or contract is passed over to the new buyer, and a fee paid within 30 days. The problem is that the current owner cannot find this paperwork, and the insurer (HIES) wont honour the insurance without it.

My OH wants to walk away from the purchase, because we know nothing about solar panels and inverters, and he feels the risk is too great. We are almost at Exchange and I am too stressed, and dont have enough facts, to be able to make an objective decision.

Would you buy this house in this situation?
Thanks for any advice

TheValheru

Could you not contact the insurer and ask if they will issue you with a new insurance policy for the solar pannels rather than having the current policy transfered?

Exiled_Tyke

I presume the solar panels are owned by the house owners and are not part of a rent a roof scheme?

In which case as long as you are not paying an absurd excess for the panels you should get benefit from them no matter how long they last. The feed-in-tarriff payments will transfer to you and you will get some savings in electric (especially if you learn to use them properly (e.g. put the washing machine on when the sun is at its best)). If the system does fail then it's a decision to repair or do without. Inverters are expected to last at least ten years and will cost a few hundred pounds to replace (costs may continue to come down as they have done in the past). If you have details of the equipment installed then others may be able to give more precise information.

All in all, the panels should not have added to the price of the house (if they have you could try to negotiate a reduction for the lack of warranties) so I can't see it as being a reason to scupper the sale. An if anything does go wrong there are some great people on here to give advice.

movingon

TheValheru wrote: »

Could you not contact the insurer and ask if they will issue you with a new insurance policy for the solar pannels rather than having the current policy transfered?

No, new insurance cannot be issued after the fact the supplier/installers have gone bust

movingon

They are owned not leased, and a FIT payment is made to the homeowner. There are ten 250 watt Solar World panels and a 2.5 inverter made by Afore

Yes the cost of them was factored in the agreed sale price. They were fitted in December 2013

EricMears

movingon wrote: »

They are owned not leased, and a FIT payment is made to the homeowner. There are ten 250 watt Solar World panels and a 2.5 inverter made by Afore

Yes the cost of them was factored in the agreed sale price. They were fitted in December 2013

If you've paid extra for the panels on the understanding that the installation has a ten year warranty but it now transpires that there is no warranty then you should certainly try and negotiate a price reduction perhaps a quarter or a third of the additional sum you agreed to pay for the panels. Incidentally, just how much extra did you agree to pay for the system ? If you were buying a similar brand new system today, it would probably only cost around 3 to 4 thousand pounds - though wouldn't net you anything like the FIT payments that the older system will.

The seller is probably a lot more stressed than you ought to be (but you really shouldn't be stressed very much).

I agree with ET that even without a warranty, the panels are worth having and the worst case scenario is that if the system should fail you'll still have the house and a couple of thousand pounds worth of panels is probably very small beer compared to value of the house.

pinnks

I had my 3.5kWp system (14 panels) fitted June 2013 at about £6k; the second system, 1.75kWp 7 panels, in March 2014 for about £4k.

FiTs are currently 16.3p per kWh generation tariff for the older system and 13.9p for the smaller but the latter is at the reduced rate as it took me over the magic 4kWp total generation capacity at which point the rates drop. Export tariff is 4.9p per kWh for half of what you generate.

So, a December 2013 system will be in the region of 15p per kWh generation tariff (someone will have the exact figure if you want it). Depending where you live and which way the panels face you could generate about 2,300kWh per year or about £400 and save perhaps £100 on electricity import from the grid, again depending on how you live and how you consume leccy.