You Now Own a House With Solar You Didn't Install: What to Do First

Whether you inherited the property or just moved in after buying it, taking over a solar system someone else installed means a specific short list of things to confirm, not guesswork about what's actually sitting on your own roof.

What's the first thing to actually locate?

Whatever documentation exists: the signed Certificate of Compliance from the original LEW commissioning, panel and inverter warranty papers, and the original installer's name if it's recorded anywhere. A complete handover pack would include all of this, though a house acquired through inheritance or resale doesn't always come with one intact, and piecing it back together, document by document, is often the actual first real task.

What if there's genuinely no paperwork at all?

Not a dead end. Panel and inverter model numbers are typically printed directly on the equipment itself, visible on the panel frame or the inverter casing, and that alone is usually enough to identify the manufacturer, look up standard warranty terms for that model, and start a fresh registration conversation with them directly.

A physical inspection at this stage, checking for visible damage, corrosion, or loose mounting, is also worth arranging if you have no other information about the system's condition or maintenance history.

Does the SP Group registration actually carry over to you automatically?

No, and this is easy to assume incorrectly. Electricity accounts are closed and reopened under the new owner's name whenever a property changes hands, standard practice independent of solar, so export credit registration needs to be actively confirmed under your own account rather than assumed to continue from whoever owned the system before you.

This applies whether the property came to you through a straightforward purchase or through inheritance, since either way the account itself changes hands.

How do you actually activate or confirm remaining warranty coverage?

Contact the panel and inverter manufacturers directly with the equipment's serial numbers and register the change of ownership, since most product and performance warranties are tied to the equipment rather than the original purchaser personally. Some manufacturers require this notification explicitly to keep the warranty fully valid under your name, a step worth doing proactively rather than only when a claim is actually needed.

Is it worth tracking down the original installer?

If they're identifiable and still operating, generally yes. They may hold your specific system's design records, any prior maintenance history, and an existing relationship with the equipment manufacturers that can meaningfully speed up warranty registration or a first service call, compared to starting entirely from scratch with an unfamiliar installer.

If the original installer is no longer in business, see what happens to warranty and support when a solar installer closes down for the realistic options that remain.

Does it matter whether you inherited the property or bought it?

Practically, the steps are the same either way: locate documentation, confirm registration, activate warranty. What genuinely differs is who you can ask. A purchase usually leaves a seller reachable for questions during a transition period, while an inheritance often means the person who actually knew the system's history is no longer available to ask.

If you're handling this as part of settling an estate, treating the solar system the same as any other piece of the property's infrastructure, worth a line item in the broader handover, keeps it from being overlooked amid everything else an estate transition involves.

What should a physical check actually look for on a system with unknown history?

A visual inspection for obvious damage, corrosion at connection points, or loose mounting hardware is a reasonable first step, alongside checking whether the monitoring app or inverter display still shows sensible generation data. A system that's been quietly underperforming for months without anyone noticing is a genuine risk on a property where nobody has been actively watching it.

See what a proper annual health check actually covers for the fuller list worth having a professional confirm, especially on a system whose maintenance history you can't personally vouch for. Treat the first inspection as establishing a baseline, not just a pass or fail check, so any future issue can be measured against a known starting point.

What should you actually do in the first few months?

Prioritise the SP Group registration and warranty activation early, since both are administrative steps that get harder to backdate the longer they're left. Arrange a professional inspection if the system's age or condition is genuinely unclear, treating it the same way you'd treat any other piece of building infrastructure you've just taken responsibility for, rather than assuming it's fine simply because it's still generating some electricity.

See what an annual health check actually covers for a reasonable starting point once the paperwork side is sorted. Run the Sunnify solar estimate to understand what your system's current output profile could look like.