So, our solar panel challenges continue. Prior to buying our new house, I checked with HIES that the guarantee on the solar panels could be moved to our name (they are owned outright and have 7 years left on the policy) as the company who installed had gone into liquidation (like many others). They said that would be fine, once we had the title deeds. Deeds received this week, I sent the details to HIES but that have come back to us saying:
Unfortunately after looking into the policy we would not be able to transfer the details into the new home owners details.The company who did the original installation My Planet Ltd have ceased trading.
The insurance backed guarantee policy you have is with the Insurance Backed Guarantee company. That being said the underwriters to that policy Enterprise insurance have also since ceased trading. This means we are unable to make any amendments to those policy as the liquidators will not allow us to do so.
So we are left with solar panels with no guarantee and no documents saying that the panels are in our name (except that we are obviously the new home owner). Anyone any advice on this as lots of firms have gone into liquidation since the government pulled the funding plug? Is there any other routes we can turn to re the guarantee? And if we cant get the policy sorted, can we just provide the title deeds to our energy supplier to apply for the feed in tariff, as at the moment we have no paperwork proving the panels are actually ours?!
Someone, somewhere will sell an insurance policy for that. Your solicitor should be able to advise.
I'd just drop it. Honestly, what is the actual importance of a guarantee on solar panels that have already survived n out of n+7 years. It's surely not worth trying to bolt-on an additional insurance policy, if they fail then just get a newer/cheaper/more efficient replacement like you would if the boiler broke down.
As for FIT I would have expected that to transfer along with the responsibility for the power contract, but that's just a guess on my part.
The cost of them (excluding installation) seems to be falling fast enough that sticking the cost of a policy in a jar would probably be nearly enough to pay for a new panel or two before they are likely to fail.
Yeah. Thanks all. Your thoughts are similar to ours now we have chatted it through.
Feed in tariff needs proof of ownership as dictated by Ofgem but maybe they will accept the fixtures and fittings document from the house purchase with the title deeds. We'll try next week.
Even if you don't get the feed in tariff you can surely put the washing machine on when the sun's out? That bits yours to keep, worst case scenario.
Presumably the panels were in the contract for the house purchase? Wouldn't that be enough for FIT?
Even if you don't get the feed in tariff you can surely put the washing machine on when the sun's out?
Or just install a diverter which dumps all the power into the HW cylinder or buy a Power Wall from Elon Musk and charge that....