Mis Sold Solar Panels

Reed_Richards

This news item may be of interest (if you haven't already seen it): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49566130

Sterlingtimes

The eight panels were massively overpriced, perhaps at £10,000 and the price should have been £4,000. The over-pricing alone would not form part of a legal claim. Had you paid £4,000 plus interest then your annual income would have been about £250 FIT and £125 in electricity savings, i.e. £375. Your payback would have been something like 10 years.

So the seller's representation here is that that will appear on the piece of paper you retain plus any supporting documentation. Your claim is that you were sold a system that would give you a £20,000 profit by year 10 and that amounts to gross misselling. If you do not get progress then you may be able to contact the ombudsman. It may be that you claim is time-limited, perhaps 7 years.

Ectophile

One big advantage of talking to a real lawyer, rather than random strangers on the internet (or even random strangers at Citizens Advice) is that lawyers have access to a vast library of case law.


If any case gets appealed up to the High Court, then it sets a precedent for future cases. This can then form part of any later claims.

zeupater

Ectophile wrote: »

One big advantage of talking to a real lawyer, rather than random strangers on the internet (or even random strangers at Citizens Advice) is that lawyers have access to a vast library of case law.


If any case gets appealed up to the High Court, then it sets a precedent for future cases. This can then form part of any later claims.

Hi

Agree .... however, the legal entity that provided 'massaged' information & made a very high margin sale no longer exists in the form that it did when the sale was made, so there's no direct claim related to the sale .... as mentioned, it could be advantageous to look to the lender as if they had a direct business relationship with the provider, but this could simply be considered a service provision at reasonable agreed market rates which could be offered to customers from which the lender didn't have any direct sway on the buyers' purchase decision.

The question would logically revolve around whether the lender 'sold' an unnecessary service to the buyer (ie mis-sold a term loan) in which case the answer would likely be 'no' as the buyer made a conscious decision to buy goods on finance as opposed to self funding ...

I'm aware (from media articles) that there are a number of similar cases that have been reported over the past few years, but apart from the potential for the lender to provide relief on the interest rate as a good-will gesture, I'm not aware of any other successful approach ... it may be worthwhile looking into this directly with the lender, but I'd suspect that as the chances of success simply depend on the lender's 'good-will' and that the interest rate is probably in line with what would have been competitive at the time, then the likelihood of an individual getting an outcome which they would consider to be a success would be pretty low.

As mentioned, it's a typical case of the buyer needing to perform their own due diligence before taking decisions involving the provision of goods & services that they really don't fully understand, or at least understand to a level which would be appropriate to the considerable £sums involved ...


HTH
Z

Ectophile

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Agree .... however, the legal entity that provided 'massaged' information & made a very high margin sale no longer exists in the form that it did when the sale was made, so there's no direct claim related to the sale .... as mentioned, it could be advantageous to look to the lender as if they had a direct business relationship with the provider, but this could simply be considered a service provision at reasonable agreed market rates which could be offered to customers from which the lender didn't have any direct sway on the buyers' purchase decision.

The question would logically revolve around whether the lender 'sold' an unnecessary service to the buyer (ie mis-sold a term loan) in which case the answer would likely be 'no' as the buyer made a conscious decision to buy goods on finance as opposed to self funding ...

I'm aware (from media articles) that there are a number of similar cases that have been reported over the past few years, but apart from the potential for the lender to provide relief on the interest rate as a good-will gesture, I'm not aware of any other successful approach ... it may be worthwhile looking into this directly with the lender, but I'd suspect that as the chances of success simply depend on the lender's 'good-will' and that the interest rate is probably in line with what would have been competitive at the time, then the likelihood of an individual getting an outcome which they would consider to be a success would be pretty low.

As mentioned, it's a typical case of the buyer needing to perform their own due diligence before taking decisions involving the provision of goods & services that they really don't fully understand, or at least understand to a level which would be appropriate to the considerable £sums involved ...


HTH
Z

I think you're missing the whole point of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.


If you buy something on credit, then the credit company is jointly liable with the retailer for any problems with the product or service. If you have a valid claim against the retailer, then you can make the same claim against the credit company.


It doesn't even matter if it was the fault of the credit company. They are still jointly liable.

zeupater

Ectophile wrote: »

I think you're missing the whole point of Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.


If you buy something on credit, then the credit company is jointly liable with the retailer for any problems with the product or service. If you have a valid claim against the retailer, then you can make the same claim against the credit company.


It doesn't even matter if it was the fault of the credit company. They are still jointly liable.

Hi

No problem with that apart from the point made that the "credit company is jointly liable with the retailer for any problems with the product or service" .... what needs to be realised is that the 'sale' took place ~5 years ago and therefore it's likely that any 'standard' expectation of quality would have expired for most products/services ...

What we're left with is effectively a supplier that no longer exists charging far in excess of market price for something a number of years ago and justifying their price through 'assuming' a number of variables such as energy price inflation, energy usage, home occupancy & relevant usage patterns .... I'd suggest that there's a likelihood that plenty of instances of 'if'', 'say' & 'assume' would be on any estimate of returns which were supplied and that's where the mud starts to become more than a little sticky ... it's not a case of quality of goods & services supplied, just expectation of returns at the price paid and the period that the finance runs, which would probably be pretty hard to prove any original supplier liability unless there's a written form of performance/returns guarantee ...

If you check back to 2013/14 there were plenty of posts on these & other boards for 4kWp systems which should have been ~£6k costing around 3x that figure over a 10 year loan term with similar claims of returns based on assumptions of >1000kWh/kWp per year, energy inflation averaging ~15% for the 20years of the FiT payment & self consumption savings based on 50% (some at 100%) of predicted generation ... the issue was/is that if the anticipated returns were based on 'if we assume' & 'based on recent increases' then the foundations for any claim became/become very shaky .... and that takes us right back to due diligence & 'caveat emptor' as previously mentioned .... put it this way, in the same position, having been burned once on the decision I certainly wouldn't consider compounding the situation by instructing a solicitor without having first done a shed-load of research & then carefully reading the solicitors' terms & conditions and charging schedule, even if I was 'told' it was on a a 'no win no fee' basis ...

HTH
Z

Hexane

zeupater wrote: »

"credit company is jointly liable with the retailer for any problems with the product or service" .... what needs to be realised is that the 'sale' took place ~5 years ago and therefore it's likely that any 'standard' expectation of quality would have expired for most products/services ...

In this case what was sold was a promise of a profit of tens of thousands of pounds over a 20 year period... not 5 years. Classic case of mis-selling, very comparable to all the banks recently forced to pay out billions over loans and insurance sold 30 years ago, never mind 5.

zeupater

Hexane wrote: »

In this case what was sold was a promise of a profit of tens of thousands of pounds over a 20 year period... not 5 years. Classic case of mis-selling, very comparable to all the banks recently forced to pay out billions over loans and insurance sold 30 years ago, never mind 5.

Hi

I don't disagree ... apart from the evidence that exists that can be brought to the party. If there's any form of written returns guarantee or the estimate of returns establishes something along the lines of the savings over a period 'will be' £x then that's one thing, however, if the estimated savings are based on 'if' these future variables are used and they turn out to be correct 'then' the return will be £x and any ombudsman would likely consider it to be entirely different circumstances.

Regarding the comparison to banks & mis-sold insurance ... the issue there is that the banks sold the insurance directly without adequately checking whether the insurance sale was actually needed or valid - for instance, the consumer may have already had cover within other policies in which case both forms of insurance couldn't be called upon (ie no payout if required), or the terms of the insurance didn't actually cover the particular consumer's situation (eg self employed etc) with the sale therefore being invalid .... that's what the ppi scandal was effectively over, providers selling a service without conducting their own due diligence to determine suitability to the consumer and that's what they've been taken to task over, so different in almost every respect.

If this instance is similar to many others that were reported at the time (& since!), it's likely that the offer of sale was made by the supplier at a price with potential 'savings' being supplied on a purely projected basis using a set of variables that (as previously mentioned) would have been explained to the prospective customer at the time and that's where the issue arises ... the savings are pure projections of a future position if a particular set of circumstances are applied. Above this, the supplier will likely have 'introduced' the consumers to a finance provider, with credit agreements (loan) being made directly between the customer & the financier before release of funds. From memory, the terms normally reported on this and other sites was around 5%-6%APR over a 10 year term, so not unreasonable in itself ....

Effectively, as we're talking about returns, if there's a direct comparison to be made it would logically be with an investment product and by now everyone should be aware that the value of investments, and the income or capital entitlement which may derive from them, if any, may go down as well as up and is not guaranteed, so investors may not get back the amount originally invested ... effectively another way of saying 'caveat emptor' ...

What I'm really trying to convey is that the position is likely less clear-cut than some may initially think, therefore, although any request for recompense from the financier may be successful, it's extremely likely that any expectation of a significant £outcome would be overambitious, especially so if solicitors are involved.

HTH
Z