My installer went bust — what now?
Insolvency is common in solar installation, and the workmanship warranty you were sold is usually worth nothing the moment it happens. What survives is what did not depend on the company existing — which is why how you paid matters more than what you were promised.
The workmanship warranty is usually the first thing to go, and how you paid is what survives.
If any part of the purchase was on credit, section 75 makes the lender jointly liable — and that liability does not care whether the installer still exists.
Manufacturer warranties on panels and inverter survive, because different companies gave them. Your MCS certificate survives, because MCS holds it. And your DNO notification and building regulations record survive, because those bodies hold them independently.
Check the payment method first. It is the highest-value thing you can establish in ten minutes.
What survives and what does not
| Survives insolvency? | |
|---|---|
| Installer’s workmanship warranty | No, in practice — a promise from a company that no longer trades |
| Manufacturer warranties (panels, inverter, mounting) | Yes — given by other companies |
| Insurance-backed guarantee | Yes — that is what it exists for |
| Section 75 claim against a lender | Yes — joint and several liability |
| Chargeback on a debit card | Maybe — scheme rules, time-limited |
| MCS certificate | Yes — held on the MCS Installations Database |
| Building regulations certificate | Yes — held by the competent person scheme and the authority |
| DNO notification | Yes — held by the network operator |
| Claim against the company itself | Technically, but you are an unsecured creditor |
The pattern is worth naming: everything that depended on the company is gone, and everything held by a third party is intact. That is the principle to reason from.
Do these first
1. Establish how you paid. Credit card, point-of-sale finance, debit card, bank transfer. If there is any credit in the picture, go to section 75 — the item’s cash price needs to be over £100 and not more than £30,000, which a solar installation almost always is.
2. Find out what kind of insolvency it is. Administration, liquidation or a company simply ceasing to trade are different things. Check Companies House. There may be an insolvency practitioner appointed, and if so they are the correct point of contact.
3. Check for an insurance-backed guarantee. Look through the handover pack. An IBG is a separate document from the warranty, often issued by an insurer you have never heard of, and it is precisely the thing designed for this situation. Many people have one and do not realise.
4. Establish what state the installation is in. Complete and working, complete but uncertified, or part-finished. Each has a different route.
If the installation is incomplete
Do not pay any more money to the failed company without advice, including to anyone claiming to be collecting on its behalf.
Register as a creditor with the insolvency practitioner if there is one. Be realistic about the outcome: unsecured creditors typically recover little.
Pursue the lender if any credit was involved. This is the route most likely to actually recover money.
Get a second installer to assess it before agreeing anything. A part-finished installation may have work that needs undoing, and the new installer needs to know what they are taking responsibility for. Expect them to want the existing work inspected and to be cautious about certifying someone else’s.
If it is complete but the paperwork is missing
This is the commonest situation, and it is more fixable than people assume, because the important records are not held by the installer.
MCS certificate — MCS holds the record on the Installations Database. Start there.
Building regulations compliance certificate — the competent person scheme the installer belonged to notified the work and holds the record. Ask the scheme. If the work was never notified, you have unregulated building work and the routes are regularisation or indemnity insurance, covered on our building regulations page.
DNO notification — your network operator holds it. Ask them directly.
Manufacturer warranties — go to the manufacturers with your serial numbers and the installation date. Some require registration by the installer, which is a real problem if it never happened; ask anyway.
Structural assessment — probably gone. If you have concerns about the roof, an independent inspection is the answer.
The moment to assemble this pack is now, not when you are three weeks into a sale and a buyer’s conveyancer is asking.
Everything above is obtainable while you have time and no deadline. Under transaction pressure it becomes a retention on the sale price. See selling a house with solar panels.
If the system develops a fault later
Identify which component. A panel or inverter fault is a manufacturer warranty question and the manufacturer is still there. A workmanship fault — leaks around fixings, poor cable management, bad electrical work — is the one that has lost its backstop.
Check the IBG. Workmanship cover is exactly what it is for.
Consider section 75 even years later, if the defect was present from installation and credit was involved. The claim mirrors the one you would have had against the installer, and limitation runs on ordinary principles rather than from the insolvency.
Get an independent inspection before spending money on remedial work. You need to know what is actually wrong, and a report is evidence for any claim.
What this teaches for anyone still choosing
Three things, all cheap at the point of purchase and impossible afterwards:
Pay something on a credit card. Even a small deposit on a large purchase brings the whole transaction within section 75. It costs nothing.
Insist on the insurance-backed guarantee, and check you actually received the policy document rather than a promise of one.
Collect the paperwork at handover — MCS certificate, building regulations certificate, DNO notification, warranties, structural assessment. Every one of those is easy to obtain on the day and awkward to obtain later.
A workmanship warranty from a company that has been trading for two years is worth whatever that company is worth. The protections above do not depend on it.
Sources
- Consumer Credit Act 1974, section 75
- The Building Regulations 2010, regulation 12
- MIS 3002: The Solar PV Standard, issue 6.0
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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