It’s the Green Deal’s maiden voyage – will it sink or swim?

If I own a house, and take out a green loan to do it up to increase its value as I want to sell, does that then mean the purchaser of the property is the person who ends up paying the higher energy bills?

Do you know where I can arrange to get an assessment done? I understand that the assessment won’t cost me anything, but do I need to pay for this upfront and then wait until January to get the measures installed. I have tried searching on the internet but I can’t find any practical information on how to arrange for an assessment.

I’m all for becoming more energy efficient, as I’m sure are most people. Energy costs seem to be spiralling upwards at an alarming rate, and as this happens people will be focusing more and more on becoming more energy efficient.
However is the Green Deal really a good vehicle to achieve higher energy efficiency in our homes? I have several serious doubts. I’ve looked at what is on offer and I don’t expect the Green Deal in it’s current form to succeed anything like as well as is hoped.
Why?
Well lets look at a few examples.
Up until now loft and cavity wall insulation has been subsidised and very cheap, or even free, and the energy bill savings have been immediate. Insulation has always been “the biggest bang for your buck” when it comes to efficiency improvement. With the Green Deal OK you pay nothing upfront but you won’t see any immediate energy bill savings either. Those savings will go towards paying full price for the insulation, and you’ll pay interest of I think 7.5%. It might well take a few years to repay the loan and without that immediate incentive loft and cavity installations are going to plummet.
How is that a step forward?

The “golden rule” says that repayments won’t exceed energy bill savings (not guaranteed) so the improvements won’t see you paying out more? Well let’s say you replace your older boiler with a new singing and dancing 90% efficient condenser. Green deal installers you can bet won’t be the cheapest and remember that 7.5% interest. Ok no upfront payment but also remember modern condensing boilers are complex, more to go wrong and are unlikely to have a working life much longer than ten or twelve years. It could well be that by the time you’ve paid off the loan you’ll need another new boiler. Result is no overall saving, no incentive to do it in the first place.
How is that a step forward?

The Green Deal loan stays with the property if you move. So you’re thinking of buying a house and you find there is a Green deal loan attached to it. You’re faced with higher energy costs because you’ll have to carry on the repayments on that new boiler or whatever. Would you accept that or would you insist the Green Deal loan is paid off first? Me too.
The seller is then not only faced with the repayment but also a redemption charge. Buying and selling is hard enough already.
How is that a step forward?

To be fair there probably are occasions where the Green Deal just might work. Perhaps where you’re intending to stay in the same property for a long time. Where the property perhaps needs very expensive solid wall insulation, but even then I doubt the golden rule would work out. Then the Green Deal just becomes a different method of financing, but even then there are probably cheaper financing options, and certainly I would think cheaper non green deal installers.

So. I foresee problems with the Green Deal, and I’ve not even mentioned the fact it’s all happening through self regulating private enterprise, a recipe for miss-selling if there ever was one.

I’d rather see a system of Government subsidy for efficiency improvements, perhaps with the added incentive of reduced council tax for more efficient homes. All paid for with small additional tax on all energy bills or by using the VAT money charged on energy. Now some will argue that paying more to subsidise someone elses improvement is unfair but It’s the only way I can really see it actually happening.

I, too, have misgivings about the green deal. First, there may be some element of misrepresentation about the ‘golden rule’, which is intended to reassure householders that they will not borrow more to install measures than is covered by the savings resulting from them. However, there will be interest on these loans. If that interest is not covered by the savings then householders will pay back considerably more than they borrow. That should be stated clearly and the total cost of the loan to the householder should be set out prominently in any green deal package.
Second, the ‘impartiality’ of the assessor/assessment is a bit suspect. Making a document setting out measures to improve the energy efficiency of a house a formal prerequisite not only to selling it but also to securing a green deal loan or receiving the domestic RHI for it, then arranging for that document to be provided by salesmen whose livelihood depends on selling said measures hardly seems a recipe for impartiality True, the salesmen will be trained to use two software packages, which are presumably independent of the commercial interests of the salesmen, but the assessments produced by the impartial software packages are still subject to the information that the partial salesman enters into them. Who will check to see that all the relevant information is correctly entered? And is there any possibility that outputs can be selected, so that some assessments are ignored or dismissed if not suppressed?
Third, how will householders be able to judge what package of measures is the best value for money in their particular circumstances? I understand that some forty plus measures are covered by the green deal. Is every assessment going to give an estimate for the savings achieved for every one of these measures not already in place? Is the software sophisticated enough to calculate the effects of including or excluding any one or combination of measures? Would it even be able to do something as simple as, for example, compare the savings of 1) modernising an old oil boiler, 2) installing a heat pump instead, or 3) doing both in a bivalent system?
If the government really is serious about encouraging householders to invest in energy efficiency measures, whether by interest on green deal loans alone or interest plus payment of upfront costs that are not covered by savings, then they need to ensure that green deal procedures are clear and unequivocal about costs to householders. They need also to ensure that there is no uncertainty about the impartiality of assessors/assessments, and the best way to do this is to keep assessment independent of sale. If assessors are independent of providers and installers, then there is scope for them to become expert advisers helping householders to determine what combination of measures gives them the best value for their money, something along the lines of independent financial advisers. For this to happen, assessors need to receive a proper professional fee that rewards them for their time, expertise, objectivity and effort on behalf of the householder. Unfortunately, that fee will seem out of reach and unjustified to most householders, so some way must be found to subsidize it. If the government is unwilling to fork out, it should be able to come up with ways to make those with the greatest interest in seeing this market develop, the green deal providers and installers, provide the subsidy. Otherwise, in the present economic climate I cannot see any significant uptake of the green deal by householders.

hi when do i get a reply to registering for the green deal as i have recieved nothing yet and i registered months ago ?