Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – The UK financial ombudsman has ruled that a bank must rework a credit agreement for a home solar installation which was sold based on misleading information.
… Mr L told us he’d been ripped off by a company selling solar panels.
He explained he was told the panels would be “self-funding”. He’d used his savings to cover some of the costs of having the panels installed, and had signed up to a credit agreement to pay for the rest.
Mr L said he’d soon realised the panels weren’t saving him any money. He’d already complained to the credit provider, who didn’t agree that the benefits had been misrepresented. Mr L didn’t agree, and asked us to look into what had happened.
putting things right
Mr L told us that the salesperson promised his loan repayments would be totally covered by the benefits of his solar panel system – through “feed- in tariff” payments and the savings made on his electricity bills. He explained the salesperson said the solar panels were “better than free”. But in reality, there was a shortfall between what he was paying out and what he was getting back.
We looked at the paperwork Mr L had been given explaining the benefits he’d receive. The documentation wasn’t complete – and in our view, the information wasn’t clear. This meant Mr L would have been relying on what the installer told him, rather than on the paperwork, to understand what he was signing up to.
We then looked at what Mr L was actually getting back. We found that – instead of the situation being self-funding – he was nearly £1,000 a year out of pocket.
All in all, we decided there was clear evidence of misrepresentation on the installer’s part. And we didn’t think Mr L would have agreed to have the panels installed if he’d realised that, rather than being “self-funding”, the panels would actually leave him worse off.
We carefully considered how to put things right in Mr L’s individual circumstances.
In this case, it seemed Mr L was happy to have the solar panels, but was unhappy that they weren’t self-funding. Following our involvement, the credit provider offered to reduce the loan slightly – and to allow Mr L to keep the panels.
However, we didn’t think this was enough. We told the credit provider to rework the loan – so Mr L wouldn’t pay any more for the panels than the potential savings they’d make over the long term. …
Read more: April 2018 Ombudsman News Issue 144 (page 18)
This ruling potentially opens the way for redress for anyone in Britain who feels they were pressured into signing up for a solar installation loan which is returning less than the loan repayments. The ruling may even have implications for people in the USA, Australia or other countries with similar legal systems – courts sometimes take note of comparable rulings which occurred in foreign cases.
My suggestion – if you are in financial difficulties because of a loan for home solar products which have not delivered the promised returns, especially if you live in the UK, talk to your ombudsman or talk to a lawyer. Make sure you show them a copy of this ruling.
I don’t know Mr. L’s circumstances, but the average annual electricity bill in the UK for a 5 bedroom house is £850. If he is £1,000 out of pocket, he really is being ripped off big time, or he lives in a palace. Solar panels are a rip off in the UK anyway. One guy got interested after his son in Australia installed a 1k/W set up and inquired about it, only to find it would cost 7 times as much in the UK. Maybe that’s due to the EU imposing tariffs on panels imported from outside to protect German manufacturers, but I don’t know for sure. This is why Brits want to come out, because the EU is in fact a trade protection bloc.
We are in Queensland, Australia.
About 6 years ago our power bill arrived $900.00, for a quarter, I nearly freaked, that’s the point where I got interested in what solar would cost us.
Husband has heart failure and needs air-conditioning in summer and humidity, and warmth in cold wet and winter temps, advised by specialists Dr’s to get air-con installed if did not already have one.
Quoted $7500.00, divided by $900 = 8.3+ quarters, that’s only a two and a bit of quarterly bills.
Made sense to me, 20 panels and 5kw inverter installed, next bill $123.00, that in itself was a minor amount compared to what it had been, since then queensland power priced have doubled, last bill low $300.00, still not happy paying that much but its a long way from $900.00 doubling, so has worked for us with 24 x 7 reverse air con’s running.
All appliances run during day mostly, rather than after dark as would happen if going to work for 8 hours a day or more, that is a different story completely.
Amazed to be told by friend of family that had solar panels that they only ran their pool filters when they were home, I convinced them to put pool filters on timer system so it only ran during the day, they were good enough to tell me it made a difference to their power bill.
Good advise Lyn. Here in Netherlands you currently get the same amount for a kWh you put in the grid as you take out so it does not make a difference. This is guaranteed by our government until the year 2023. After that we will probably only get the bare electricity price so it will be wise to do the vacuuming, washing etc. during daytime. In this climate, winters with hardly any sun, it is not worth investing in battery storage.
No sympathy. Mr L complains about being ripped-off by the company, but quite happy to rip-off other British consumers funding this scam by subsidising the feed-in tariffs via additional charges on their energy bills.