Plug-in Solar in Rented and Leasehold Property: What Landlords and Agents Must Check

Since 27 August 2026 a tenant can lawfully buy a plug-in solar kit and install it themselves. That tells you nothing about whether your building can take one, or whether your lease or tenancy permits it.

Three questions decide it, and only one of them is about the flat:

• Is the building suitable? The fire restrictions rule out several external wall constructions outright, and that answer covers every flat at once.
• Does the lease or tenancy permit it? Alterations, fixings to the exterior, use of the building fabric.
• Is the electrical installation in that dwelling suitable? The protective device, the socket, and whether an outdoor socket exists at all.

Nothing obliges you to commission an assessment. But the first and third questions cannot be answered by looking, and a written answer from a competent person is what stands up later.

This is the part that makes plug-in solar unusually efficient for an agent to deal with properly. The specification requires the instructions to carry a prominent safety warning that installation is not permitted on:

• Aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding systems
• Metal composite material (MCM) cladding systems
• High-pressure laminate (HPL) cladding systems
• Timber cladding systems
• Timber balconies

And a further prominent warning that it must not be installed on buildings subject to external wall remediation works, building safety remediation works, or equivalent restrictions relating to external wall fire safety. Where there is any uncertainty about the construction of the building, the instructions must tell the user to consult the building owner, freeholder, managing agent or other responsible person — which is to say, you.

Two further constraints bite in blocks specifically: panels must not be fixed to walls or other parts of the building that form a property boundary between dwellings, and users are responsible for keeping escape and rescue paths clear. A panel on a balcony that is also an escape route is a different conversation from one on a garden fence.

Establish the external wall construction and the remediation status once, and you have answered every flat in that building — including the ones that have not asked yet.

The specification is explicit, and it is worth quoting to anyone who argues: users are responsible for obtaining any necessary permissions from the property owner, landlord, freeholder, managing agent or relevant authority prior to installation — including agreeing how any costs associated with installation will be apportioned — and for obtaining any necessary planning permission and Listed Building Consent.

So a tenant who installs one without asking is not following the manufacturer’s instructions. Whether they are also in breach of their agreement depends on its terms, but the usual clauses are the ones about alterations, fixing to the exterior, and use of common parts.

Worth knowing on the planning side: the mounting must be reversible and non-permanent, and must not compromise the structural integrity, fire performance or weatherproofing of the building. That is a product requirement, not a planning one — but it is a useful condition to restate when you grant permission.

The building question is yours. The electrical question is about the dwelling, and it is the one most likely to generate actual work.

• No extension leads. The device plugs directly into a fixed socket-outlet and nothing else — no extension cables, cable reels, multi-way adaptors, RCD adaptors, travel adaptors or plug convertors. The panel is outside; the socket is usually inside. That gap is normally closed by fitting a fixed outdoor socket-outlet, which is electrical work with its own certification. Where the inverter and the socket are both outside, the socket needs IP55 or better.
• Socket circuits only. Not a lighting circuit, and not a spur feeding fixed equipment such as a cooker or a boiler.
• The protective device. Type AC is not appropriate where DC components may be present, and bidirectional capability is a separate question from the type marking. The RCD question is set out in full here.
• Older or unlabelled boards. Where the consumer unit does not use modern protective devices, is not clearly labelled or is of unknown condition, the specification says to seek inspection and assessment by a qualified electrician before installing.
• No batteries. Battery storage and battery-integrated plug-in solar are outside this route entirely.

The specification places the duty on the user: they are responsible for checking, before installation, whether the product may affect any relevant insurance arrangements — including their own and, where applicable, insurance covering the property or building.

For a single let that is the tenant’s problem. For a block it is not, because the building policy is yours and the answer is identical for every leaseholder who asks. Raising it once with the insurer and recording the answer turns every subsequent request into a two-minute reply instead of a fresh enquiry.

Engineering Recommendation G98 Issue 2 Amendment 1 2026 currently restricts this to one device per household, and each dwelling is its own household. So a block of thirty flats is thirty potential devices, not one.

The specification itself permits one device per final circuit, and the government has said its approach is to move to one per power circuit subject to corresponding changes to G98 — on the basis that most UK dwellings have at least two power circuits. Treat the current limit as a rule that is expected to loosen rather than a settled position.

Notification runs from the occupier to the distribution network operator, not to you. It is connect-and-notify, with 28 days from commissioning under G98 Form B. Worth making a written condition anyway — along with telling you when the device is removed, because the deregistration obligation runs the same way and is almost universally forgotten.

A reply that holds up covers four things. It is worth having it as a template, because the request will come again.

• The building. Whether the external wall construction and remediation status permit a panel at all, and where it may and may not be fixed.
• The agreement. Whether the lease or tenancy permits it, and on what terms.
• The conditions. Direct connection to a fixed socket only, no extension lead, no battery, no lighting circuit, the supplied label fixed at the consumer unit, and the mounting reversible.
• The obligations. That they notify the network operator within 28 days, tell you and the operator when it is removed, and check their own contents insurance.

Where the electrical installation itself needs assessing, that is a job for a competent electrician and it produces a document you can keep on file against the flat — which is worth considerably more than a phone call when the question resurfaces in two years with a different tenant.

At portfolio scale the economics invert. Answering these one at a time is expensive; answering them by building is not, because the fire restrictions and the insurance position are properties of the building and the electrical position is usually consistent across dwellings of the same age and specification.

The practical approach is a standing position per building — permitted, permitted with conditions, or not permitted, with the reason recorded — plus a standard conditions list issued with every approval. That turns an unpredictable stream of individual queries into a reference document, and it means the answer given in March is the same one given in November.

It is also worth anticipating the direction of travel. Demand for these will rise, the one-per-household limit is expected to loosen to one per circuit, and the question will arrive more often rather than less.