Buying a house with solar panels

oompaloompa

Hi
ive found the perfect bungalow but it has solar panels on. It’s by a company called A shade Greener (ASG) and ive read several reviews complaining about them, even on here there are complaints. The bungalow has still a 14 years lease and I’m not sure of the in and outs of this type of purchase. Ive realised that its not straight forward and the solicitor needs to do an in depth report and i worry about the cost of this. I’m also concerned about any cost for repairs to the panels that I’m responsible for. I dont want to go through the cost of a survey then for the solicitor to point out the bad bits only to realise that ive saddled myself and cost myself a small fortune
It would be a cash purchase so no mortgage problems. But I’m 68 and this will be my last home and I’m worried that i may be making a big mistake

Petriix

I would ask for the price to buy out the ownership of the panels and offer to split this with the vendor.

Scotbot

As a rule of thumb it is 1k per year of the lease so it will be around  14k. They were originally 25 years and there were a lot of issues with the earlier leases, apart from repair costs you could have problems selling it if a subsequent buyer needs a mortgage.
I would assume there will be costs involved down the line and make sure your offer accounts for this

teachfast

The issues reported here were to do with the company allegedly being difficult about removing them for repairs (taking 18 months plus or charging £2k if you want sooner) plus birds nesting and damaging the roof and the company allegedly being unwilling to assist with bird mesh. Also see Trustpilots reviews. 

I would avoid, personally.

trilialit

Due to a solicitor being less than diligent four years ago when I bought my house with leased ASG solar panels on the roof, I only found out the awful truth about this company when I tried to sell the property last year.  The usual difficulties with mortgage, etc. were sorted but my problem arose when my buyer asked a question regarding the insurance held by ASG with specific reference to whether ASG's insurance covered damage to the house/contents caused by the solar panel system. Under the terms of the lease the Tenant (ASG (F7)) is obliged to provide insurance details to the Landlord (homeowner) so my solicitor requested this information.  ASG stubbornly refused to provide anything other than summary sheets for Employers Liability and Public Liability held by ASG Maintenance, a company only formed two years after the lease commenced.  My buyer withdrew from the transaction and on making further enquiries with my home buildings/contents insurer I find that there's no guarantee that should the solar panel system cause a fire or water damage that I'm actually covered.  I was unable to use RECC dispute resolution to solve the problem as ASG have over 60 companies listed with Companies House but only one of them, the actual installer, is registered with RECC and the company ASG (F7) does not have to comply with any of their Code of Conduct standards.  

So I find myself, a single pensioner on a fixed income who is in remission from cancer and needs to downsize for financial and health reasons, faced with the option of trying to take legal action against ASG over failure to comply with the lease or giving up on trying to sell the property altogether due to the fact that I'm now legally obliged to inform any prospective purchasers about this issue. I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy a house that may not be insurable so I'm faced with being stuck for another 18 years until the lease expires in a house that may not be insured.  

I would avoid any dealings with this company .. in my opinion, they are a disgrace to the solar panel industry.