Purchase a property with Solar Panels

TrubbleMaker

Hello

I purchased a property in 2022 with solar panels. On the property report the seller ticked the box  NO referring to if the solar panels have a long lease of the roof/air space been granted.

Turns out that their is a 25 year lease and there is 13 years left. This is affecting my ability to sell as mortgage lenders will not supply a mortgage because of this lease. To have them removed/take ownership is going to cost £15,000 to buy them  plus £450.00 plus vat to have them removed. My conveyancing solicitor has closed so do I have any comeback via the real estate agency or seller? Thank you

Keep_pedalling

Did your solicitor not ask for proof of ownership? 

If you take ownership, why would you have them removed? The FIT payments your buyer would be getting would be substantial on that period of installation, which is why you have been quoted such a high price.

Scotbot

 It was the solicitors job to obtain the documents that showed who owned the solar panels, the EA can only go on what the vendor told them. 

The seller may not have realised there was a lease. Some of the companies were shysters and wouldn't have explained the small print. I doubt you would get anywhere trying to get anything out of the seller.

pinkshoes

TrubbleMaker said:

Hello

I purchased a property in 2022 with solar panels. On the property report the seller ticked the box  NO referring to if the solar panels have a long lease of the roof/air space been granted.

Turns out that their is a 25 year lease and there is 13 years left. This is affecting my ability to sell as mortgage lenders will not supply a mortgage because of this lease. To have them removed/take ownership is going to cost £15,000 to buy them  plus £450.00 plus vat to have them removed. My conveyancing solicitor has closed so do I have any comeback via the real estate agency or seller? Thank you

No comeback with the agency as they just market the house based on what the seller tells them.

Why did the solicitor close down? As above, the solicitor should have asked for the paperwork regarding the panels. What is the exact wording in the lease? The sellers will no doubt claim they didn't understand the question e.g perhaps they didn't consider 13 years a long lease?!?!

There's a solicitor regulation authority who might be worth speaking to:
https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/ 

It does mention about solicitors shutting down but I think that's likely to be for firms that shut mid-purchase. 

£15k to take ownership sounds a lot. My parents paid less than that to have a new modern system fitted including a battery. Or is it due to the tariff rate they feed in at? Solar panels have advanced a LOT in the last 12 years since yours were installed.

Flugelhorn

what happens at the end of the 13 years?

Scotbot

pinkshoes said:

TrubbleMaker said:

Hello

I purchased a property in 2022 with solar panels. On the property report the seller ticked the box  NO referring to if the solar panels have a long lease of the roof/air space been granted.

Turns out that their is a 25 year lease and there is 13 years left. This is affecting my ability to sell as mortgage lenders will not supply a mortgage because of this lease. To have them removed/take ownership is going to cost £15,000 to buy them  plus £450.00 plus vat to have them removed. My conveyancing solicitor has closed so do I have any comeback via the real estate agency or seller? Thank you

£15k to take ownership sounds a lot. My parents paid less than that to have a new modern system fitted including a battery. Or is it due to the tariff rate they feed in at? Solar panels have advanced a LOT in the last 12 years since yours were installed.

I looked into buying the lease from one of these rent a roof schemes and was quoted £1000 per year. That was 7 years ago so not surprised by the 15k figure. Some of these companies were conmen, Ofgem is currently investigating A Shade Greener

Veteransaver

Potentially you could try and sue the solicitor via their professional indemnity insurance? Even if they have gone out of business. But it would be an uphill struggle.
There is no point having the panels removed really, I presume the company that owns the panels gets all the fit payments, however you still benefit from using the electricity whilst they are generating power.

eddddy

TrubbleMaker said:

On the property report the seller ticked the box  NO referring to if the solar panels have a long lease of the roof/air space been granted.

What do you mean by "property report"?

Is it something the estate agent gave you? (Or are you in Scotland or NI - and it's something us lot in England and Wales don't have?)



Or do you mean the "TA6 Seller's Property Information Form" which comes via solicitors - which typically has a question like this:




If you mean the seller put misleading information in the "TA6 Seller's Property Information Form" - that forms part of the contract, so your options include...

• Make a claim against the seller for misrepresentation (that might be a stronger case)

• Make a claim against your solicitor for negligence - for failing to ask any follow up questions about the solar panels (that might be a weaker case)

TBH, the lease should have been registered with Land Registry, in which case your solicitor would have found it.

So if somebody made a mistake and forgot to register the lease, your solicitor could potentially argue that somebody else was negligent, and not your solicitor.




And what did the estate agent say about the solar panels?

I think the Property Ombudsman would expect the estate agent to make 'reasonable' enquiries about the status of the solar panels - and if the estate agent has doubts about what the seller said, ask the seller for documentary evidence.

If the estate agent didn't make 'reasonable' enquiries and/or said something misleading, there might be a route for claiming compensation from the estate agent.

(But that depends on many factors.)

Myci85

Do you know who the lease is with and do you have a copy of the lease? Whether or not any lenders will give a mortgage with them in place will depend on there being certain clauses in the lease. Basically the lender will need to see a clause saying that if the property is repossessed and the solar panels are preventing it being sold off, the company will remove them free of charge and terminate the lease. 
We bought our house last year with a mortgage with leased solar panels in place. Whilst we don't get the FIT payments, we do benefit from the excess electricity they generate in the day, and now we've had a few sunny days, we are seeing a difference in our electric bills, so it's not all bad news. 

newsgroupmonkey_

Veteransaver said:

Potentially you could try and sue the solicitor via their professional indemnity insurance? Even if they have gone out of business. But it would be an uphill struggle.
There is no point having the panels removed really, I presume the company that owns the panels gets all the fit payments, however you still benefit from using the electricity whilst they are generating power.

You've missed the point.

It's very difficult now to get a mortgage with leased panels.
Because my wife is in the business, we knew this buying our recent purchase. Our solicitors couldn't understand why we absolutely insisted that not only the TA6 was filled out properly, but we got written confirmation that the solar panels were not owned by a third party.

TrubbleMaker

Thank you everyone the lease was signed between the previous home owner and a company called Plenitude Solar Ltd - which where a dormant company at the time. Would this make the contract null and void because as dormant company they can’t actively trade or carry out activities to drive profit  Thank you