'A Shade Greener' solar panels - does anyone have a contract they can share?

NorthernGuy

Matapombos said:

I'm a few months in, on the purchase of a property that the estate agents said owned the panels. We just discovered they actually dont and they have a lease on the roof for 25 year finishing in 2039.

Anyone has a sort of contract to look into?

Should i be worried?

The rent-roof looks like an awful deal, i can use a bit of energy whilst they work and they get to own the airspace, and if i need to move them i might be incured costs.

this is currently my only concern with the property.

Any advice would be appreciated

I'm near completion selling a relative's property with A Shade Greener panels.  Their presence hasn't been a deal-breaker, as we made sure early on that the buyer & their broker fully understood the situation and sent them a copy of the lease.  I've read that these 'Rent a Roof' schemes don't exist any more, and likewise ASG stopped installing them soon after these were fitted (2015) and the legal admin side is now dealt with by ASG Maintenance, a separate legal entity.

ASGM won't answer any query specific to your situation without a £180+VAT fee.  An earlier post here suggested I try the Land registry for a copy of the lease contract, who for a fraction of the ASGM fee extracted 'Office Copies' of the contract signed 10 years ago by the then owners; I am indebted for the good advice.  When our conveyancing solicitors needed to deal with ASGM for the benefit of the buyer's solicitors, we had to pay ASGM the £216 fee.  At present we hope to avoid having to give the buyer a 'Deed of Variance' (not sure if this is a name change on the lease?) which our solicitors say would take months, £650 in their legal fees plus whatever ASGM wanted to charge for their work.  It feels like money for shuffling paper, extracted from sellers who are over a barrel.  You can't just remove the panels, they're not yours and ASGM are entitled to the Feed in Tariff payment which stops if they're gone.  They could come after you for their losses from breaching the contract if you removed the panels.  Note there is a mobile network attached monitoring system, which ASGM says allows them to check proper functioning without a visit; it going dead would surely alert them if the panels were removed. As I say, we 'might' be able to avoid the Deed.  There is simply no buy-out option in the solar lease.  They have to stay until the lease expires. The estate agent said that dealing with ASGN would add about a month to the total time to sell.

These Rent a Roof schemes remain short-lived, historic things which as I say will slowly vanish from the housing market as the old leases expire. There's no doubt that if you are at home daytime to use the free electricity whilst the sun shines, e.g. you're a non-working spouse or a retired couple, and you can run your energy hungry washing machine & cooker etc at those times, then you can save hundreds a year with care.  But if most days you're out at work with little more than a fridge humming away, solar savings will be smaller as there is no storage of power.  The costs & difficulties in the future, re mortgages, legal fees and about half of would-be buyers walking away (according to the agent), mean that a lot of the savings may be eroded when later selling again.