Solar Roof Price Sheet Change

[SolPowered]

I'd signed a price sheet many months ago for our solar roof. On it, there were broken out lines for the solar roof, the powerwalls, and a summed total including the credits for the initial $100 and the solar rebate. In the terms and conditions of that same document, it mentioned that the permitting was included in the contract cost, and that they may update the price sheet for an unforeseen conditions at the site.

Over the weekend they sent an updated price sheet that includes a line item for permitting, roof-prep, and pre-construction, for several thousand dollars. Did anyone else have this happen? Permitting was supposed to already be included, and I don't see how they can come up with a new line item due to unforeseen conditions when no one's actually visited the site.

 

[wjgjr]

I'd signed a price sheet many months ago for our solar roof. On it, there were broken out lines for the solar roof, the powerwalls, and a summed total including the credits for the initial $100 and the solar rebate. In the terms and conditions of that same document, it mentioned that the permitting was included in the contract cost, and that they may update the price sheet for an unforeseen conditions at the site.

Over the weekend they sent an updated price sheet that includes a line item for permitting, roof-prep, and pre-construction, for several thousand dollars. Did anyone else have this happen? Permitting was supposed to already be included, and I don't see how they can come up with a new line item due to unforeseen conditions when no one's actually visited the site.

I think you will need to talk to Tesla about this to clarify - I am guessing they either completely left out the "Pre-Construction" section (or the Permitting, roof-prep, and pre-construction sub-section) or accidentally set it to $0. For what it's worth, our solar roof contract, which did include an amount in that sub-section (as well as a charge for roof deck replacement) also contains what is likely the same contract language - "Your Price Sheet shows the price of your System and its installation (“Contract Price”). The Contract Price includes permitting fees." Of course, the interpretation of that section is very different when they leave out a line-item for it, in which case it implies they are paying for it out of the money they are getting for solar/PW.

It seems like another instance of Tesla being sloppy - and from a customer standpoint it could look like bait-and-switch. I don't know if it is really practical to try and get Tesla to complete the contract as-is, but it is at least worth asking for some consideration if indeed it was their error and the change was not based on some new information that changed the scope of work.

Their process seems to be surprisingly manual. We had a version of our contract where they dropped the gutter replacement cost from the pre-construction section. The total did not change, but the sub-totals no longer added up to the total. This tells me that all of this stuff is copy/pasted in rather than being fully system-generated.

 

[X-pilot]

Not a lawyer, but if you signed the sheet earlier, I'd hold them to it. As you note, no one has come to the site & the permitting was included in the original quote.

 

[SolPowered]

I think you will need to talk to Tesla about this to clarify - I am guessing they either completely left out the "Pre-Construction" section (or the Permitting, roof-prep, and pre-construction sub-section) or accidentally set it to $0.

Correct, that line item was not present at all on the price sheet I'd signed. And I was under the impression that the cost was baked in to the tile line items (i.e. some standard rate for those things based on the number of tiles).

 

[wjgjr]

Correct, that line item was not present at all on the price sheet I'd signed. And I was under the impression that the cost was baked in to the tile line items (i.e. some standard rate for those things based on the number of tiles).

With the contract you were given, that seems like a perfectly reasonable interpretation. And it kind of leaves you in a crappy situation where you could try to get Tesla to proceed with the signed contract (but they might fight it, and it may not be worth the trouble if they do,) accept the changes, or try to get Tesla to meet you somewhere in the middle.

Based on what I saw in my contract and have seen from others, permitting and prep work is always called out as a line item. Given that, I am guessing it was an unintentional omission on their end. That said, they screwed up, and as both a large corporation and the party that produced the contract, it seems to me that they should be expected to accept an error in your favor. But, that does not seem like how they have tended to operate with these errors, and from their perspective, I expect they feel like most won't pursue litigation/arbitration, and they have enough of a backlog to just move on to the next customer in line.

 

[SolPowered]

In talking with my project advisor (third one, but she's been the most helpful and responsive of them all), the actual costs behind the line item is for replacing the skylight, and for doing siding repair where the the roofline meets the siding along a one-story section of the roof. So, thankfully, it's less nefarious than I'd feared, though that siding repair cost for $1,250 seems a little much. I was wondering when they'd talk to me about the skylight, so I guess that time is now .