Solar panels

dartilov

A work colleague came to see me today in a bit of a state regards their new solar panels.


In short, they have signed a contract with a company, they were unaware of the T&C's, I know, but the company had them sign a tablet version with just a box saying that this was "just to agree to the contract being drawn up" and that "the contract will follow".


It now appears that, to me at least, that this was the contract and the salesperson just said otherwise and made the version on the tablet bigger, just to show the signature box.


They have now had a letter stating that they will pay a finance company for the panels and that they will still be paying an electricity bill, which they naively thought would disappear and be negated by the panel electricity.



The company are saying they had 14 days from installation which has now expired so it's tough.
The fitter of the panels (sub contractor, I am guessing) said 30 days to cancel.
Trading Standards have told them 90 days and with this the lady emailed the company who stated it was 14 days and this was made crystal clear.


I have asked her to contact TS again, reconfirm the 90 days is correct and then write this in a letter to the company. They will still be within this 90 days, if true, from installation.


Is there any other advice or knowledge that I can pass on?


Thanks in advance.

dj1471

She needs to start by asking for a copy of the contract, as she still doesn't know what she's signed up to.

Proving that she wasn't shown the contract before signing will be difficult or impossible.

I can't see why she'd have any right to cancel after installation has taken place. How soon were the panels installed after signing the contract? She would need to give explicit consent to waive the 14 day cancellation period if they were installed within 14 days.

Solar panels were never going to provide enough electricity that she wouldn't have to pay for it anymore, where did that idea come from?

pinkshoes

dj1471 wrote: »

Solar panels were never going to provide enough electricity that she wouldn't have to pay for it anymore, where did that idea come from?

Some do! My parents produce enough electricity with theirs for free usage during the day then selling back any excess to the grid which near enough covers night usage.

Op, are you saying the ONLY T&Cs they received were AFTER installation? This seems very unfair.

ComicGeek

pinkshoes wrote: »

Some do! My parents produce enough electricity with theirs for free usage during the day then selling back any excess to the grid which near enough covers night usage.

It won't be that case every day though. If it's a large enough system then it could produce enough on average across the year (mine does), but it won't always produce enough per hour/day/week to offset the electricity supply completely.

My system is producing about 17 kWh on a sunny March day and only about 3/4 kWh on a very cloudy March day.

shaun_from_Africa

ComicGeek wrote: »

My system is producing about 17 kWh on a sunny March day and only about 3/4 kWh on a very cloudy March day.

As you say, it all depends on the system and where in the UK you are.

My setup is 4.0kW and from between November and late Feb it produces an average of 5kWh per day but the rest of the year is far higher with good days averaging 20kWh and on very good days it can go up to about 26kWh.



with the generation payment and the feed in payment as well as the money saved because I can turn off my gas boiler can easily cover my night time electricity usage.