Help! Rent-a-Roof Solar Panel Dilemma

TeddiesRock

Hi. I’ve been house-hunting and found a great property – but with rent-a-roof solar panels. I’ve read lots that says “don’t buy”, but Freetricity advise this lease only has six years left (just over 20yrs in total). I’d hope not to be selling onwards during this time, so I’m not considering the expense of a buy-out. I need to decide whether to proceed and could anyone please help with any of my questions below:

1. I would want to get hold of a copy of the lease to check that it’s lender compliant. Assuming it is, is it likely that the conveyance process will still be longer and more drawn out than a “typical” conveyance?
2. Freetricity say they don’t know what the output is and that the panels won’t work on a cloudy day. In reality, will there a noticeable benefit and cost saving (there are 8 panels on a 3-bed house)?
3. Freetricity don’t remove the panels after the lease and say I’ll become the owner. If the panels are 20 years old and potentially cheaply made, I can’t see there is any benefit in paying out for a battery storage system or maintaining them if they go wrong. The big question - if I want the panels gone, is this a costly exercise and is there likely to be roof damage/discolouring?
4. If yes to the last question, would it be practical / worthwhile replacing the panels with a new, modern system (there is underfloor heating!)?

Thanks in advance to any advice you can give.

Myci85

I can only help answer the first two questions, as we bought a house with leased air space solar panels not long ago.

1. Our vendor was able to share a copy of the lease as soon as we asked for it (we wanted like you to ensure it had the relevant clauses necessary to satisfy the lender) and we were able to share this with our solicitor. It didn't add any extra time to our purchase, they simply had to show a copy of the lease to our lender to make sure they were happy with it, they were, so that box was ticked.
2. Our panels are slightly newer than yours by the sounds (I believe we're around halfway through a 25 year lease). We've lived here for 17 months now and last summer we did notice a saving on our electricity on sunny days, so we tried to time as many high energy usage activities within high sun hours as possible. It wasn't a huge saving, as the daily standing charge is a large proportion of our bill, but to quote tesco, every little helps.

Peter999_2

Are you planning on staying in the property for at least the next 6 years? Have you had a look in the loft and checked the installation? - is everything ok? any sign of damp or water ingress etc.

If it was me and I was planning to stay a lot longer than 6 years and it was a house I would really want then I would go ahead.

If the installation is fine, and they've been installed correctly and actually made a lot of solar (is it a south facing roof?) then it wouldn't be that hard to get it upgraded to new solar panels (I've just had 8 x 500W panels installed and I've generated 24kWh today). I think the panels only cost about £100 so it would be that plus the installation cost of them.

I don't think 6 years is too long to wait until the end of the lease. Are you getting a discount because of the panels lease?

Again, so long as the installation is fine then I'd go for it.

TeddiesRock

Myci - thank you, that’s good to know. I feel it should be a benefit now while someone else is paying the maintenance, but having never even heard of this scheme a few days ago, I don’t want to be left with a problem.

Peter - yes , I would hope to be there at least six years and the roof faces south east. I’ve not discussed price yet, as I don’t want to waste the owners time if I’m not 100% behind it. And I would look to get a full survey with specific emphasis on the roof to check the installation was done correctly.

WIAWSNB

Panels are typically designed for a minimum 25-year lifespan, but usually last longer.

You can tell the size of the installation by checking the inverter - they are almost always chosen to be just under the max output.

I would speculate that your system is around 3kW, but can output more than this in ideal conditions. The inverter is likely to be a 3kW jobbie.

How useful this will be to you will depend on things like how well you time the use of high-draw appliances - WMs, ovens, etc - to be at high PV generation times. If you have a stored DHW system, then you can divert every last electron in to heating this up, so really useful especially in summer.

At the moment, it's a no-cost setup, so everything you use is a bonus. Adding a battery will cost around £5k?, so will take years to recoup.

Yes, it can be removed easily if you want, say it stops working due to age. What type of roof covering do you have? Tiles are especially easy, slate a tad more tricky, but an easy half-day job.

Do you have an EV?! Or Phev?

eddddy

TeddiesRock said

I would want to get hold of a copy of the lease to check that it’s lender compliant.

As a starting point, have you asked Freetricity if they believe that the lease applied to that specific property is "Mortgage Lender Compliant"?

If they say it isn't (or might not be) compliant, you could ask them whether they do lease variations, and how much a variation would cost, and how long it would take.

Obviously, you can't rely on what they say - you or, more importantly, your solicitor will need to check the lease. But asking Freetricity the question at the outset might help to speed things along.

TeddiesRock said

so I’m not considering the expense of a buy-out.

Again, if you haven't already, it might be worth asking freetricity if they allow a buy out, and if so, how much it would cost.

Just so you have a list of all the options available to you.

WIAWSNB

If you can buy-out, you should have the remaining FIT available to you, presumably around 12 year's worth, which, if at the highest rate, should give you around £1.5k pa. That's 'cash', and you still have all the free leccy you can use.

TeddiesRock

Thanks so much for the responses, which have been really helpful. I've been able to get more information from Freetricity that the system is 1.88kW, which I believe is quite small. I have an EV so can definitely use the electricity, but I suspect the benefit of this particular system will be fairly low on a 3-bed with underfloor heating! (This also probably explains why the owner pays quite high electricity costs to a provider.) So I think I'll rule out the panels as providing much of a benefit, which leaves me the question of what to do with them when the lease ends and they subsequently stop working. The roof is tiled, so hopefully not too much of an issue if I choose to remove them.

Unfortunately, I've also found out that the lease has 11 not 6 years left as Freetricity had advised a couple of days ago. They believe the lease to be CML compliant, but said that some lenders / solicitors may still query the wording. If so, they use a Deed of Variation for which they have a standard wording that will be quick to put in place … assuming agreeable to the legal people!

theartfullodger

Six years of is not a long time in property ownership. The average length of mortgages is 7 years (albeit taken out for longer) so quite likely you will sell before the deal is up. Caution!

WIAWSNB

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81928041#Comment_81928041

Yes, that's quite small.

Unless your EV is a Phev with a granny charger, I don't see it making much difference. However, a 10A Phev can be kept running nigh-on free in sunny weather, if the charged mileage suits.

What sort of DHW system does the house have - does it have a hot cylinder? If so, you should be able to have pretty much free DHW all summer.

Really, I personally wouldn't worry - cheap and easy to remove when you are done with it, and enjoy the minor benefits until then.

TeddiesRock

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929060#Comment_81929060

Many thanks and I'll add the DHW to my list of questions (there is a cylinder, but I'm not sure the type of system). Your final sentence is pretty much where I've landed … and I've also now seen that the buy-out cost isn't huge if I need to unexpectedly sell early (if this is an issue with another buyer).