Solar PV when selling up...

[Mulberry View]

We were fairly early PV Feed-in tariff adopters, so we're on the big (circa 50p/kwh) rate. We're earning upwards of £2000/year from it in feed-in payments at the moment and have about 17 years left on the contract (I'd need to check paperwork for exact details). Everything can be evidenced, so let's assume £34k of remaining profit for the sake of argument.

 

So, now we're looking to sell the house to fund our self-build and, as far as I understand, can transfer the tariff to the new owners, it'd be good to understand if there's a rule-of-thumb about how much value it might add?

[ProDave]

NONE

 

It might reduce the value of the house.

 

Virtually nobody seems interested in the future income. They just view it as "complicated"

 

One example I know is a friend of SWMBO was going to buy a detached house with a PV system on the high rate FIT.  I advised her it was a good idea.  Several weeks in she pulled out of the purchase when the surveyor expressed concerns about the extra loading on the roof, and the access difficulties to maintain the roof tiles, which as most surveyors like to say are near the end of their life.  She ended up buying a semi detached house without PV.

 

I would always keep in the back of your mind the possibility that if you get an equally stupid buyer, that you offer to remove them to allow the sale to proceed and re use them on your new house.

 

 

[joe90]

It’s madness (IMO), a mate of mine wants to move and buy a 1950s bungalow, I went to view it with him (as his tame retired builder) and it had age related issues but nothing major, the surveyors report was pages and pages of “it might have this” or “it might have that”, pure scaremongering in my opinion. Reminds me when my parents passed away and we sold their house, luckily I had lived there for many years and later did much of the work on it, the buyers surveyor made some absurd assumptions about the work that had been done. I wrote a very terse letter to the buyers explaining I was a builder, the previous owners son and apart from explaining the things that were wrong, not to pay the surveyors fee, which they didn’t, they bought the place and were very pleased with it. (Rant over?).

[nod]

Agreed with above

I wouldn’t put them on if I was thinking of selling 

Surveyors hate them 

Unknown 

[Jeremy Harris]

7 minutes ago, joe90 said:

It’s madness (IMO), a mate of mine wants to move and buy a 1950s bungalow, I went to view it with him (as his tame retired builder) and it had age related issues but nothing major, the surveyors report was pages and pages of “it might have this” or “it might have that”, pure scaremongering in my opinion. Reminds me when my parents passed away and we sold their house, luckily I had lived there for many years and later did much of the work on it, the buyers surveyor made some absurd assumptions about the work that had been done. I wrote a very terse letter to the buyers explaining I was a builder, the previous owners son and apart from explaining the things that were wrong, not to pay the surveyors fee, which they didn’t, they bought the place and were very pleased with it. (Rant over?).

 

 

I think a lot of the "include absolutely everything" in surveyors reports is driven by the need to cover the surveyors backside, in case there is a defect that he/she was unable to actually detect, but which might be there and show up later.  It does waste a lot of time, and cause some unnecessary anguish for buyers, but without it I'd guess that some buyers might go after the surveyor if they bought a house and then found problems which had not been mentioned in the survey.

 

There's also, I suspect, a bit of profiteering going on sometimes.  When we sold our old house, I had all the key things done pre-sale, so as well as tidying the place up, replacing an old (but not leaking) flat roof, I also had the boiler and gas installation serviced and safety checked and inspected and tested the electrical installation, really just for our own peace of mind.   I made sure the buyer's surveyor looked at all the warranties, safety chits etc I had for work done, when he did the survey, but I didn't mention that I'd inspected and tested the electrical installation, although had he looked he'd have seen that I'd put a label on the CU giving the date of the last inspection (which was a week or so earlier).

 

He still recommended that the buyer get her own EICR, gas safety checks, boiler service etc done, and suggested companies to do this work.  I suggested to the buyer that she could save the cost of the EICR, as I'd provide one, using the data I'd already got.  She decided to follow the surveyors advice, which was fair enough.  As it happened, the gas safety check company was the same one I'd used, and they were pretty honest, and told the buyer that they'd just done a check on the property and unless there had been any very recent changes there wasn't much point in her paying them to do another one.  The electrical contractors were simply unbelievable, though.  They charged her £384 for a four hour EICR (so over  £700/day just for labour) and suggested that the cost to bring the installation up to current regs would be around £1,000.  They wanted over £700 just to change a 6 way CU (materials cost ~£70 - £80, labour less than a day), and that was 99% of the work, as they'd have swapped out the 16mm² tails for 25mm² ones at the same time.  Not at all sure where the other ~£300 was going, as they'd not flagged anything else in their report.  The buyer passed me a copy of the EICR she'd had done and it was more or less the same as the one I'd given her, but only two C3s, one for the 16mm² tails, one for the absence of RCD protection in the CU (I'd flagged the cooker switch and outlet as a C3 for being slightly too close to the gas hob).

 

I'm pretty certain that there was some sort of tie up between the surveyor and the companies he recommended, as the electrician who came out to do the EICR told me that he only did EICRs, and that most of them were as a consequence of surveys from the same surveyor. 

 

 

[nod]

18 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

 

 

I think a lot of the "include absolutely everything" in surveyors reports is driven by the need to cover the surveyors backside, in case there is a defect that he/she was unable to actually detect, but which might be there and show up later.  It does waste a lot of time, and cause some unnecessary anguish for buyers, but without it I'd guess that some buyers might go after the surveyor if they bought a house and then found problems which had not been mentioned in the survey.

 

There's also, I suspect, a bit of profiteering going on sometimes.  When we sold our old house, I had all the key things done pre-sale, so as well as tidying the place up, replacing an old (but not leaking) flat roof, I also had the boiler and gas installation serviced and safety checked and inspected and tested the electrical installation, really just for our own peace of mind.   I made sure the buyer's surveyor looked at all the warranties, safety chits etc I had for work done, when he did the survey, but I didn't mention that I'd inspected and tested the electrical installation, although had he looked he'd have seen that I'd put a label on the CU giving the date of the last inspection (which was a week or so earlier).

 

He still recommended that the buyer get her own EICR, gas safety checks, boiler service etc done, and suggested companies to do this work.  I suggested to the buyer that she could save the cost of the EICR, as I'd provide one, using the data I'd already got.  She decided to follow the surveyors advice, which was fair enough.  As it happened, the gas safety check company was the same one I'd used, and they were pretty honest, and told the buyer that they'd just done a check on the property and unless there had been any very recent changes there wasn't much point in her paying them to do another one.  The electrical contractors were simply unbelievable, though.  They charged her £384 for a four hour EICR (so over  £700/day just for labour) and suggested that the cost to bring the installation up to current regs would be around £1,000.  They wanted over £700 just to change a 6 way CU (materials cost ~£70 - £80, labour less than a day), and that was 99% of the work, as they'd have swapped out the 16mm² tails for 25mm² ones at the same time.  Not at all sure where the other ~£300 was going, as they'd not flagged anything else in their report.  The buyer passed me a copy of the EICR she'd had done and it was more or less the same as the one I'd given her, but only two C3s, one for the 16mm² tails, one for the absence of RCD protection in the CU (I'd flagged the cooker switch and outlet as a C3 for being slightly too close to the gas hob).

 

I'm pretty certain that there was some sort of tie up between the surveyor and the companies he recommended, as the electrician who came out to do the EICR told me that he only did EICRs, and that most of them were as a consequence of surveys from the same surveyor. 

 

 

Our boiler was flagged as needing replacing on the sale of our house 

18 year old 

Gas engineer that serviced it each year said 

But there’s nothing wrong with it 

[SteamyTea]

When I had my EPC survey done, my house magically doubled in size.

 

What should happen, is that purchasers should take the survey seriously, get everything costed out, then subtract the price of the remedial work off the purchase price.

May get some sensibly priced housing then.

The whole housing market is based of fantasy.

That is my rant over, for a few minutes anyway.

[joe90]

Actually my mate (see above post) is sending the report to the seller (via agent) to try to get a reduction in the price, so might work to his advantage.

[Mulberry View]

It's a sad waste, but I guess it's life and something we need to come to terms with.

 

I guess I was half-expecting it to add nothing, but I wasn't expecting it to be detrimental!! I'm not overly scared of taking it off if I have to.

[ProDave]

The surveryor that valued out old house told me the PV would add nothing to the value and might even put some buyers off.

 

One thing that annoyed me is our house everything came out okay except he gave the garden a code 2.  I asked what the problem was and it was the burn. He expected me to put a fence along the whole length of both banks of the burn to stop people falling in.  Any buyer that stupid should not buy a house with a waterway in the garden.

 

One thing that comes up often with surveys is the mention of "rising damp" and the almost inevitable recommendation to have an chemical damp proof course injected.  Most times the damp has easy to identify causes like ground level too high, leaking drainpipes etc and is easy to fix, but that does not stop them keep recommending injection damp courses. 

[Jeremy Harris]

5 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The surveryor that valued out old house told me the PV would add nothing to the value and might even put some buyers off.

 

One thing that annoyed me is our house everything came out okay except he gave the garden a code 2.  I asked what the problem was and it was the burn. He expected me to put a fence along the whole length of both banks of the burn to stop people falling in.  An buyer that stupid should not buy a house with water in the garden.

 

One thing that comes up often with surveys is the mention of "rising damp" and the almost inevitable recommendation to have an chemical damp proof course injected.  Most times the damp has easy to identify causes like ground level too high, leaking drainpipes etc and is easy to fix, but that does not stop them keep recommending injection damp courses. 

 

 

There's a growing body of evidence that the chemical injection "damp proofing" systems aren't effective, much of which may be because the damp wasn't ever "rising damp" in the first place, but penetration coming in from somewhere higher.

 

My brother had the same problem with water in the garden.  He had a big pond, that his kids had stocked with all sorts over the years, and had loads of enjoyment from.  When he came to sell the surveyor recommended that the pond be filled in, as it presented a risk to small children.  My brother did fill it in, as he felt that doing this was easier than risking losing the sale.

[Mulberry View]

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

The surveryor that valued out old house told me the PV would add nothing to the value and might even put some buyers off.

 

One thing that annoyed me is our house everything came out okay except he gave the garden a code 2.  I asked what the problem was and it was the burn. He expected me to put a fence along the whole length of both banks of the burn to stop people falling in.  Any buyer that stupid should not buy a house with a waterway in the garden.

 

One thing that comes up often with surveys is the mention of "rising damp" and the almost inevitable recommendation to have an chemical damp proof course injected.  Most times the damp has easy to identify causes like ground level too high, leaking drainpipes etc and is easy to fix, but that does not stop them keep recommending injection damp courses. 

 

This all sounds very exciting. Can't wait for the onslaught of home-selling problems. We honestly thought this would be our 'forever home', then the opportunity to buy a piece of land crept up on us. Our place was done up from absolutely derelict to a pretty high standard and most of the work by us, it was a labour of love, so it'll be heart-breaking to hear people pulling it apart.

[Jeremy Harris]

Just now, christianbeccy said:

 

This all sounds very exciting. Can't wait for the onslaught of home-selling problems. We honestly thought this would be our 'forever home', then the opportunity to buy a piece of land crept up on us. Our place was done up from absolutely derelict to a pretty high standard and most of the work by us, it was a labour of love, so it'll be heart-breaking to hear people pulling it apart.

 

 

I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for anyone that's put their life and soul into a home, only to see the next owner pull it apart.  It happened to a lovely house a few hundred yards up the lane from us.  We'd marvelled at the superb kitchen they'd had installed, clearly a few tens of thousands of pounds worth.  Two years later the first thing the new owners did was rip the kitchen out.  I walked past and saw the kitchen smashed up, sitting on their drive in the rain.  Enough to make you weep.

[ProDave]

You have to wonder why some people buy the house they do.  Our neighbour has the same burn through his garden.  A couple of years back he announced he wanted to culvert the whole lot.  I stuck my oar in and informed him he would need permission from SEPA and gave him the forms.  He did cover about half of it, as much as SEPA would allow him to cover.  I was concerned at the potential of a long culverted section to block up and then back up into my garden.  When it's in spate like today it would not take long to cause problems.

[Temp]

My mother in law was also an early PV adopter getting max FIT. When she died we had the job of selling her house. Not a single potential buyer asked about the PV income. It was rented out for awhile and even the tennants didn't care. For some months they didn't notice the RCD had tripped out following a thunder storm. The man that eventually purchased the house wanted it as a buy to let and I had to chase him several times for his address to send the company paying the FIT to get it transferred. A year after the sale we were sent a large FIT cheque because it turned out the FIT transfer hadn't gone through for some reason - so he hadn't even noticed he wasn't getting the money. I never knew it was so hard to give it away.

 

[ProDave]

You can legally keep the FIT contract in your name. You just need to get meter readings somehow.  We are still collecting the FIT on our old house as it has not yet sold.  All that is important is the equipment must remain at the original address connected to the original supply.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

You just need to get meter readings somehow.

Fit a smart meter, that logs exports.

Or make up a logger that texts data over.

Mind you, If I had a system that someone else was getting the FiTs on, I would switch it off.  Then negotiate a price.

[Mulberry View]

On 02/11/2019 at 17:57, ProDave said:

You can legally keep the FIT contract in your name. You just need to get meter readings somehow.  We are still collecting the FIT on our old house as it has not yet sold.  All that is important is the equipment must remain at the original address connected to the original supply.

 

Or just offer the buyers £500/year to give us the readings? Maybe that'll be easier for them to understand? Even if they don't want to keep it forever, we could cash in for a little while at least?