Always Read the Small Print

A cautionary tale - in this case involving the solar energy industry but applicable to all contracts.  It happened to a colleague of my wife recently.

It all started off innocently enough with a sales call from a firm offering to install solar PV on their house for free.  Sounds a reasonable deal so they invited the company to send someone round to discuss the proposal and carry out the necessary survey.

There are two ways of installing solar PV to generate electricity:

Pay for an installation and it's ongoing maintenance yourself.  This way you should benefit from reduced electricity bills (depending upon how much power you use when the sun is shining) and you get the government feed in tariff for the power you generate.

Alternatively, and this is the option here, a company installs the solar panels at their expense and also maintains them.  This way you don't own the panels and basically you gain from reducing your electricity bill.  To pay for the installation the company that installed the system gets the revenue from the government feed in tariff.

After the survey, the company announced that the roof was suitable and came back with a figure of how much the cost savings would be. They also reported that the roof might need strengthening to handle the weight of the panels and they would send a specialist around to investigate.  My understanding is that this is quite common as roofs were only ever designed to be that - and not to bolt a considerable weight of solar panels on as well (remember this is above the tiles and not instead of).

This investigation showed that the roof would need strengthening at a cost of £4,000.  The householder gave the go ahead and the work was carried out.

This is where the problems started.  The company who had carried out the work on the roof presented the housholder with the bill.  They had assumed that this was part of the 'free' installation so suggested the roofing firm sent the bill to the solar panel company, who to their surprise rejected it.

My wife's colleague has now drafted in legal help to go through the signed contract with the solar company to see if there is any clause stating they would pay ALL costs, not just the installation costs.  They felt they were given to understand that 'free installation' covered all costs associated.  In reality I think that 'free installation' just covers a standard PV installation without any associated work.  They may even charge more if the existing electricity supply is difficult to connect into.

As yet they have not gone ahead with the solar PV installation whilst this dispute is under way.  To rub salt in the wound the solar PV company have now come back and suggested their original savings figure may have been somewhat optimistic and actual benefits may be somewhat less!

The matter may well end up in legal proceedings so I will not name the company - I believe however that with many companies joining the 'gold rush' for solar PV installations this may well not be an isolated incident with just them anyway.

A final thought on this type of solar PV installation.  You are signing up for twenty five years - if you wish to sell your house the new buyer must agree to the same terms, namely giving up their right to the feed in tariff income.  This has probably not yet been tested in the housing market but it may be a disincentive to prospective buyers.

Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.  Always read the small print and take legal advice if you don't understand it.  It may cost in the short term but the savings could be massive.