Sorry starting another thread for some advice! If anybody can help be greatly appreciated.
My uncle is selling a house with solar panels on it. He had them installed in 2012 and the lease ends in 2037. He had them installed by a company called A Shade Greener, who just a few months after the installation sold part of their business to Solar Power Investments. My uncle has never had any correspondence by this new company and only found this out a couple of weeks ago when he contacted A Shade Greener. The sole director of Solar Power Investments is supposedly on a beach in Malta somewhere and they can't contact him.
Does anybody know where he stands on the transferring of the lease? He would prefer these removed to be honest to proceed with the sale. The original lease only has a few words about termination such as a breach of contract or if they are damaged.
Ideal scenario would get the lease terminated if possible, but not sure how this works. His solicitor has been useless although perhaps not his specialist area I guess. He will go speak to a solicitor but said I would try to get some advice beforehand.
Cheers guys, know I am a bit of pain asking for advice (I have helped Lifers myself though)
0
Comments
and
https://www.thegreenage.co.uk/buying-a-house-with-solar-panels/
She consequently gave up on that one and eventually purchased another without panels.
He has only just found this out, although Land Registry still has Company A listed who I believe were liquidated and operate now under a similar name. I think they have asked Land Registry to remove Company A.
To be honest the lease agreements mentions being told of changes to the lease. Ideally we want to get this lease voided now.
The feed in tariff stuff is tosh as well
Bottom line - if you want panels, buy them - if you can't afford them, forget it
Fear your story might be replicated here though to be honest.
Firstly there is the right of access. The owner must alway allow access to the leased roof by the solar company. I doubt if they would move in and build a bathroom and kitchen, so not sure why there is a problem there.
A survey should determine if there is any flaw in the installation which affects value, in which case it's knocked off the mortgage offer.
Secondly there is a long term financial arrangement that is attached to the freehold of the property that passes to a new owner in the event of a sale, unless the obligation is bought out. Relative to the average value of a house, any such financial obligation is small and the buyer's mortgage company simply needs to insist on it being bought out on completion. The buyer gets a free solar installation and the seller might be able to take account of it in his sale price.
Sounds like a hare started running by mortgage company reports from their conveyancing lawyers pointing out insignificant third party rights and potential problems on sale. The companies can't be bothered to find a practical solution to support buyers and sellers.
For example if, independent of anything to do with the panels, the roof needed repairing and panels needed to be removed for access purposes and maybe got damaged whose fault would it be?
They pretty much told her that was not a debate they particularly wanted to get into and also implied that any insurance, if indeed it could be obtained, would be prohibitively expensive.
I suggested to her, once she relayed this information to me, that she did not need the expense and hassle either then or if and when she herself wanted to sell in due course.
Unusually for her she actually listened to me and decided to look elsewhere and ended up with a bigger, better located for her purposes house without solar panels and the accompanying hassles.