Buying or selling a house with solar panels

This guide covers the practical side. It isn’t legal advice: leases and mortgages are for your conveyancer or solicitor, and the process in Scotland differs from England and Wales.

Most home systems were bought outright and belong to the house. Some were fitted under “rent-a-roof” schemes. Ofgem describes the usual set-up: a company owns the panels and receives the feed-in tariff, and the homeowner gets the electricity they produce.

The homeowner will normally have signed a lease of the roof space to that company. Which? says these leases typically ran for 20 to 25 years and stay with the property, so a buyer takes on the rest of the term. That’s why lenders and conveyancers look closely:

• Lender consent. UK Finance says most lenders’ mortgage conditions require their consent to any lease, including a lease of roof space for solar panels. For England and Wales the requirements are in clause 5.20 of its Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook.
• Your lender may say no. The Law Society’s notes to the TA6 property information form, where sellers say whether panels are owned or leased, warn that even if the seller’s lender accepted the lease, a buyer’s lender might not.
• The owner may have changed. Ofgem says these installations can be sold between companies without the homeowner being told. Ofgem can help identify who owns the panels.
• Solar buyback. Some owners have sold their future feed-in tariff to a company for a lump sum. Check who actually receives the payments.

Ask the original installer first. MCS will only produce a copy itself if that installer is no longer MCS certified or no longer trading. It needs proof of address, a fee applies, and MCS says the copy follows within 10 working days of payment. If the installer has stopped trading, see solar installer gone bust? See lost your MCS certificate?

MCS only provides copies to the current system owner or their legal representative, so if you’re buying, ask the seller to request it. If a certificate was never issued, MCS says it can’t raise a new one.

The FIT closed to new applicants on 1 April 2019. Newer systems are usually paid for exported electricity through the SEG, a government-backed scheme that started on 1 January 2020. Ofgem’s guidance says:

• you apply to a SEG licensee (a supplier offering a SEG tariff), which doesn’t have to be your electricity supplier;
• you need to show the installation is suitably certified, usually with the MCS certificate;
• export must be measured by a meter that can take half-hourly readings and has an export MPAN.

The seller’s SEG contract requires them to tell their licensee when ownership changes. As the new owner, you apply for your own SEG tariff, and Ofgem suggests shopping around.

Put everything in one folder before you list:

• the MCS certificate (request a copy early if it’s lost);
• electrical and building regulations certificates;
• FIT or SEG paperwork and a recent energy bill;
• manuals, the manufacturer’s terms and any battery documents;
• generation readings and service records;
• for rent-a-roof, the lease and the panel owner’s contact details.

A recent service report shows buyers the system works. We service systems fitted by any installer, across England, Wales and southern Scotland. See solar panel maintenance.

In Scotland, sellers provide a Home Report, which includes a property questionnaire. UK Finance currently has no roof-lease guidance for Scotland, so ask your solicitor how a lease would be handled.

Sources: Ofgem feed-in tariff and SEG guidance; MCS; UK Finance Lenders’ Handbook; the Law Society’s TA6 notes; Which?

If the system is on one of our Solar Maintenance Plans, the MCS certificate, DNO notification and service reports are kept in the owner’s My Solar account, ready to download when you sell.