Do I own the panels on my new build?

What the regulation actually secures for you

It is worth being precise about this, because “the law says the house must have solar” is doing a lot of unearned work in most explanations.

Requirement L3 secures two things:

• that a system exists — installed on the building or within its curtilage
• that the electricity reaches residents — the system must be designed to enable generated electricity to be available for their use, and to generate a reasonable output

It is silent on:

• who owns the hardware
• who receives export income
• who maintains it, and who pays when the inverter fails
• what happens on resale

Those are contract and property questions. The building regulations get the panels onto the roof and the electricity into the house; everything after that is between you, the developer and your title.

The three questions for your conveyancer

Give these to them in writing, before exchange:

1. Does any lease, licence or other interest affect the roof, the airspace above it, or the solar installation? This is the one that matters. It should appear on the registered title.

2. Are the panels included as fixtures in the sale? They should be, and the contract should say so rather than leaving it to inference.

3. Are there estate restrictions in the transfer affecting the installation? New estates commonly carry restrictive covenants on external alterations. They rarely stop you owning the panels, but they can affect adding to them later — see covenants and upgrading a developer-fitted system.

Flats: ownership is the easy half

In a block, the panels are usually on a roof that belongs to the freeholder, serving dwellings that are leasehold. So the ownership question splits:

• the equipment typically belongs with the building, not with your flat
• the electricity must, under L3, be available for the use of residents — Approved Document L contemplates supply to individual dwellings and to communal spaces “where the electricity can be used for the benefit of the residents”
• the maintenance cost lands in the service charge, along with eventual inverter replacement

So the questions in a block are different, and sharper:

1. How is the generation allocated — to individual flats, to landlord’s supply, or to both?
2. Who receives any export income, and does it offset the service charge?
3. What is the replacement plan for the inverter, and is it in the reserve fund?
4. Who is the registered generator for any export arrangement?

We would want answers to those before treating solar on a block as a benefit rather than a future service charge line. Our leasehold page covers the underlying structure.

Export payments do not come with the house

A common and expensive misunderstanding, so it is worth separating clearly from ownership.

The panels transfer with the house. The Smart Export Guarantee tariff does not — it is a contract between a generator and a supplier, and you arrange your own after completion.

To do that you will normally need the MCS certificate for the installation. Ask for it at handover, in writing, before completion. Chasing a developer for a certificate after you have the keys is a well-known misery, and the leverage is entirely on their side once the sale has completed.

If something is registered against the roof

If your conveyancer does find an interest over the roof, treat it as a serious matter rather than a technicality, and read rented roof leases in full. The short version:

• lenders have specific requirements about leases over part of a property, and many want an unconditional right to break the lease on possession
• the interest affects your remortgage and your onward sale, not just your electricity
• re-roofing becomes a negotiation with a third party

On a new build you have one advantage the retrofit victims did not: you have not exchanged yet. That is the whole point of asking now.