Help! Rent-a-Roof Solar Panel Dilemma

spreadsheeterapple

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81929738#Comment_81929738

Did you progress with this purchase, and how did you get on with Freetricity?

• contact response times ok?
• deed of variation
• and do you know if they charged a lot for your seller to get the deed of variation
• what was the buy-out cost for 11 years to run

cheeky to ask I know; am in same position as a seller, just under 11 years to run on the rent-a-roof lease, also dealt with by Freetricity, but they won't respond to these same questions for me, we've been asking for nearly 3 months. Our lease has no buy-out clause, but does have a termination upon 12 months notice, though obviously we'd want to negotiate that down.

eddddy

spreadsheeterapple said

Our lease has no buy-out clause, but does have a termination upon 12 months notice…

FWIW, those sound like different names for the same thing.

You would give them 12 months notice, and probably pay them compensation for the loss of 10 years of the use of your roof to generate electricity. (Informally, you could call that 'buying out the lease'.)

spreadsheeterapple said

…termination upon 12 months notice, though obviously we'd want to negotiate that down.

Maybe consider this approach…

• Give 12 months notice now - in order to start the 12 month clock
• Then try to negotiate the notice period down

Otherwise you might spend 2 or 3 months trying to negotiate, and failing. And then have to give 12 month notice anyway - starting in 2 or 3 months time.

(But I guess you'd want a quote for the compensation you'd have to pay, before you give notice. So it might be a challenge getting that - unless there's a formula in the lease for calculating it.)

TeddiesRock

To answer your questions in order:

1. I think I was lucky as Freetricity were pretty helpful, even though I was a buyer not a seller (as far as they could be under GDPR!). They were willing to send a copy of the lease on request from a solicitor or estate agent and answered my numerous questions.
2. They advised they have a standard deed of variation, but this doesn't mean that it will be accepted by all lenders. Unless anyone else has any experience with the deed of variation, I almost feel there is no point going down this route until a buyer has a lender/solicitor in place - that way, you can see whether the standard deed will work or of this needs to be tweaked for the lender. If it does need to be changed, I think that's where the delays can come in.
3. I decided to go down the route of not taking out a mortgage, so I've not asked for a deed of variation.
4. The lease contains a table for the buy-out price and the figures in the table (corresponding to the number of years left to run) are multiplied by the kW output of the system. At 11 years to run, the figure to multiply is £4,218. My buy-out figure would be in the region of £6.5k

I'm not a legal person, but I think the notice period in my case would be 3 months. I've taken the view (as others suggested) to ignore the buy-out for now as I won't have a lender and enjoy the free electricity with no maintenance of the system. If I decide to sell sooner than expected, I'll probably give notice for a buy-out so a buyer won't have any problems. I'll be asking my conveyancer to fully review the lease though in case there are any nuances I've missed! If you aren't having much joy with Freetricity, it might be worth asking your solicitor to put the questions to them to see if they can get the answers you want. Good luck with the sale.

spreadsheeterapple

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81972739#Comment_81972739

thanks.

yes, 'buy-out' and 'termination by giving 12 months notice' are the same thing, except for the timescale. We can force them to end lease with the 12-month notice because the clause in the lease says that. There is no clause for buy-out straight away, meaning we could ask and they have the right to refuse, making us wait 12 months. We don't have this luxury as home must be sold for care fees racking a debt + interest with the council, plus an unoccupied home has risk & extra costs in unoccupied insurance, heating, standing charges, maintenance.

Yes, we could give 12mths notice, but we don't know how much it is to pay as they won't answer, and we won't know if we have the amount required; it has to come from the person in care home who's funds are being taken by council towards care fees. Catch 22, if we knew how much we could negotiate to buyout asap and use money whilst still available, but as we don't know and do not have an invoice for that bill the council take the funds. Family cannot pay it ourselves.

There is a formula mentioned in the lease, but it is in a table in a schedule to the lease, and that part of the papers isn't included in the registration at land reg, which it doesn't have to be. Asking the operations firm Freetricity for nearly 3 months has not got us the table, just auto-responses now. We asked solicitor to help us obtain it, she said they couldn't help us.

eddddy

I hate to be pedantic, but in case other people read this thread for advice, in this context a "buy-out clause" is just an informal way of saying a "Termination Clause".

You're unlikely to see the informal term "buy-out" in a formal lease agreement.

And for example, you could informally say that a lease has a buy-out clause that requires 12 months notice. Or in a different case, you could say that a lease has a termination clause that requires no notice.

You might confuse yourself and others if you say things like "I don't want to terminate the lease, I want to buy- out the lease."

TeddiesRock

That's really unhelpful from the solicitor! Is it that your name isn't on the lease, in which case they won't be able to release the detail to you for confidentiality purposes? Have you tried speaking to Freetricity, as I found them really helpful on the phone? You could ask if the buy-out table is standard across all leases, in which case I don't see why they can't give that to you … all you need to know then is the output of the system to multiply by the table. If your solicitor won't contact Freetricity, ask Freetricity if they will release the information if an estate agent asks for it. If you explain the position to them, it would be nice to think that they will do what they can under the unusual circumstances (especially if the person on the lease is unable to contact them).