Upcoming Events :
Housing Seminar: Partnerships with the Public Sector – Avoiding the pitfalls
Thu 31 May 2012
Minerva House, 5 Montague Close, London, SE1 9BB
Housing associations struggling to get loans for green home improvements
Mon 19 Sep 2011
Many housing associations who are applying for loans to fund the installation of solar panels on social accommodation are being turned down by banks.
According to Inside Housing, lenders are apparently worried that if a body defaults on its loan, photovoltaic (PV) panels will drive down the value of its properties.
As a result, only a "handful" of housing associations have been able to take advantage of the government's feed-in tariff ahead of the reduction next year.
Some of the organisations that are struggling to obtain the necessary finance have argued that this means social housing tenants are paying higher energy bills than they would be doing otherwise.
Colin Hall, a partner at Winckworth Sherwood Solicitors, commented: "We identify with the problem faced by housing associations because the new legal issues thrown up by PV and the feed-in tariff have been off-putting to some banks.
"Clients of ours who have successfully installed PV have had to work hard to get buy-in from their banks, but when that has been achieved the projects have moved ahead smoothly."
