Existing Solar Panels on a house?

[Jobbo]

@Jobbo - is there a Probate Capital Gains concern here - HMRC value the property at "market value" but the true value (in terms of what people are prepared to pay) is less due to the lease situation?

You submit your value to HMRC before obtaining probate - they'd be entitled to challenge it but if the value is genuinely affected by the solar panels then they'd acknowledge that. The lease of the solar panels is a commercial lease over part of the property.

Commercial leases are also renewable under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 so if anyone is considering a property like this where the solar panel lease ends in the near future, bear in mind that it probably won't just end neatly.

[Jobbo]

It lists a freehold for the house, a freehold and lease hold for the airspace above it?

Ownership of the freehold of the air space seems to be the key point here.

I doubt the solar panel company does have the freehold of the airspace. Based on how the Land Registry present these things, I think the freehold of the house and freehold of the airspace are shown as two separate things purely because there's a lease of the airspace, and I'd expect the homeowner to own the freehold of the airspace. If they don't, it's definitely not mortgageable or saleable to anyone except at a massive discount; what if the company decided to branch out and put a maisonette in their freehold space? Or a high-rise block?

[scotta]

Seems an utterly bizarre situation to agree to a company owning part of your house.

That said we do have the ridiculous factor agreement for public spaces in our estate Which has gone up about a third since we moved in 6 years ago.

[Rich B]

What a ridiculous situation, surely we should be encouraging the installation of solar panels to houses, not making them into a massive issue that wipes out value or saleability of your house?!

[dinny_g]

Cheers Jobbo - makes sense (of course)

This arrangement was commonplace in the first wave of home solar. Wouldn’t surprise me if tens of thousands of people are in this situation

[Jobbo]

Whenever there's anything new to 'improve' your home with government incentive money, dodgy practices spring up. There was scaremongering over the cost of replacing solar panels so this was sold as a way to protect yourself from the expense of that. In reality it was a way for companies to milk the subsidies offered (high feed-in tariff rates etc).

I see that spray loft insulation is becoming the next big misselling scandal. But the small companies who will have taken government money to do this to elderly people's houses will no longer exist. Wonder if solar panel leases will become a well known scandal or if the number of affected people is too small?

[Gavster]

It does sound like the kind of situation where if enough people got together they could take action over being mis-sold or similar. I guess it only comes to light or urgent when people sell, which can be years, or even decades.

A bit like people who are stuck in buildings with cladding issues who can't sell until works are done, but can't get works done