A Shade Greener .. Insurance issues 31 March 2021 at 5:02PM in Praise, vent & warnings 2 replies 346 views

trilialit

A Shade Greener has to be one of the most uncooperative, unethical companies I've ever come across and appears to have no accountability to any governing body. My house has leased solar panels installed by the previous owner and owned by A Shade Greener. I'm a pensioner on a fixed income in remission from cancer and need to downsize for both health and financial reasons. Due to poor solicitor advice when I bought the property I was unaware until recently of the potential problems in selling a house with solar panels.

I found a buyer and all the usual problems with mortgages were sorted out but on seeing the actual lease my buyer requested clarification on a few points, one of which was "does the solar panel company's insurance policy cover damage to the property if it's caused by their system". He was concerned about the possibility of legal disputes arising should such an event occur. There's a clause in the lease saying the Tenant (ASG (F7)) will supply the Landlord (homeowner) with details of their insurance so my solicitor requested that from them. They sent summary sheets showing Public Liability and Employers Liability insurance in the name of another ASG company (ASG Maintenance) which were irrelevant and despite repeated requests from my solicitor and from myself to provide more information to answer my buyer's question they steadfastly refused to do so.

They also refused to answer the insurance question with a simple yes or no answer or to do anything to help the situation despite knowing that the house sale was about to collapse because of this issue. I even offered to compensate them for the FIT payments for the remainder of the lease if it could be terminated but they wouldn't agree to that either.

For that sole reason my buyer then withdrew from the house purchase despite loving the house and waiting six months for the sale to go through.

A Shade Greener are listed as members of the RECC (Renewable Energy Consumer Code) so I contacted them in the hopes of resolving the problem via their dispute resolution team. However, it turns out that there are over 60 different ASG companies and none of them involved with my lease are registered with the RECC so they have no requirement to follow any code of conduct.

So, despite the fact that they refuse to comply with the lease I'm now left with a house that is probably unsellable as I'm now legally required to inform any future buyers of the problem plus I don't even know if it's properly insured. Has anyone else encountered this problem and, if so, do you have any advice?

liggerz87

Sorry not much help but if you have house insurance phone them up and ask if they can help about the solar panels

trilialit

liggerz87 said:

Sorry not much help but if you have house insurance phone them up and ask if they can help about the solar panels

Thanks for your reply liggerz87. I did contact my insurance company directly and they said it's a grey area and all I could do is to take out maximum insurance, including accidental damage and legal expenses, and then prepare for a legal battle if there should be a problem.  Each case is assessed individually apparently. I've since heard from a lady in the insurance industry who had the same issue and when her property was damaged she found out that ASG weren't insured and that she had no cover at the end of the day.  It just all seems so wrong.