Purchasing A House With Homesun PV Panels Installed

livingachilledlife

We are looking at purchasing a property with Homesun PV panels installed, currently about 7 years into a 25 contract rent~a~roof basically.
Everything seems to add up, we get free energy in the day and remained is sold to grid for the benefit of the panel owners.

Homesun has now closed so this is run by Anesco from what I can gather they look after them for Aviva who bought Homesun out in 2011.

Does anyone have knowledge of this? Have you purchased a property and had solar panel contract handed over to you?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

As you say, your scheme is known as 'Rent a Roof'(RAR) on this forum, and elsewhere.

When the panels are generating you can use all, or some, of that electricity without payment. In practice it is not easy to match your demand to the available electricity. Those who have the panels estimate they reduce their bills by £100 to £150 a year.

The owners main source of income is a subsidy - Feed in Tariff - for every kWh generated.

There are many threads on these schemes; do a search for 'A Shade Greener' (ASG) on this forum. They are the biggest firm in this field.

I don't know how advanced you are in your negotiations for purchase of the house. However before you get too far you need to check with your solicitor and mortgage company(if you have one) if they are happy with the lease arrangements for access to your roof/attic etc.

There have been several reports of 'legal' problems and mortgages being refused - that includes ASG. That said it would appear that the majority of RAR houses have been sold without problems

Cardew

shrooms wrote: »

Its not an ideal situation. Just buy another house or get them to take them off. You may have difficulties or certainly less choice of mortgage providers. If the panels were owned by the seller and part of the property thats different and has no down sides.

They cannot 'take them off'. The owner of the house when the panels were fitted has signed a legally binding 25 year lease allowing 'Homesun' to keep the panels on the roof and have access to the roof as and when required.

Any new owner of the house must agree to take on the terms of that lease for the remainder of the 25 year term.