Selling your house with solar panels

It helps to separate three things that often get confused in a sale: the physical system, the contract with the grid operator and the equipment warranties. Each follows a different path.

The physical system — panels, structure, wiring, inverter — is attached to the property and transfers with it as part of the sale, unless the contract expressly says otherwise. Dismantling it to take with you almost never makes sense: the value of an uninstalled system falls sharply, the roof is left perforated and at the new location the design, structure and paperwork all have to be redone.

The self-generator connection contract and the bidirectional meter, by contrast, are tied to the electricity service account holder, which is you. They do not change hands on their own.

Warranties depend on each manufacturer and each installer. Some follow the equipment and transfer to the new owner; others are tied to the original buyer. It is the point most worth clarifying before signing.

When you legalized the system, the grid operator recognised you as a small-scale self-generator and enabled surplus offsetting under CREG Resolution 174 of 2021. That recognition is tied to the property's service contract, which is in the account holder's name.

When you sell, the electricity contract changes account holder as in any sale. What you have to ensure is that the change preserves the self-generator status and the bidirectional meter configuration, rather than being processed as a conventional service.

If that is not handled, the typical scenario is awkward: the buyer has panels on the roof, the system produces, but the surplus stops being offset because administratively there is no longer a recognised self-generator. The energy keeps flowing to the grid and nobody credits it.

That is why the change of account holder is not an incidental formality: it is the part of the sale that determines whether the buyer genuinely receives what they think they are buying.

The bidirectional meter is owned by or the responsibility of the operator, depending on how it was installed, and it stays physically at the property. Nobody takes it away.

What is worth checking is that it ends up correctly associated with the new account holder in the operator's systems and that it stays configured to record both directions of energy. A poorly handled change of account holder can end with a meter reconfigured as conventional, and getting it back means repeating part of the process.

Ask for written confirmation that the change was made preserving the self-generator status. It is a small document that prevents a large problem.

The exact procedure is defined by each grid operator, but the general shape is common: you request the change of service account holder providing the sale documentation and that of the new holder, and expressly state that the property has an already legalized self-generation system.

The most practical approach is to start it as soon as the sale closes and to coordinate it between seller and buyer, because it usually requires signature or authorisation from both. Leaving it until after handover complicates things: the seller no longer has any interest in chasing the process and the buyer does not have the background.

If the system was installed by a company still trading, it is worth notifying them. Many installers support this process as part of their after-sales service and know the operator's forms, just as they did during the initial legalization.

Warranties are one of the system's elements of value, and an informed buyer will ask about them. Arriving with the answer prepared is an advantage in the negotiation.

For panels, the product and performance warranties are usually tied to the equipment rather than the person, which in practice makes transfer easier. Something similar applies to the inverter, although some manufacturers require the change of owner to be registered to keep it valid. The installer's workmanship warranty is the most variable: it may be tied to the original contracting party.

Before putting the property on the market, write to the installer and the manufacturer to confirm in writing what transfers and what steps are needed. That email, attached to the system file, is worth more than any verbal assurance during a viewing.

If you took advantage of the benefits of Laws 1715 of 2014 and 2099 of 2021 — income tax deduction, VAT exclusion, tariff exemption or accelerated depreciation — there is an additional layer worth reviewing before selling.

Those benefits are granted on a non-conventional generation project certified with UPME, and they are applied across several tax periods. Selling the asset before that cycle is exhausted can have implications for your tax return.

It is not something a general rule can settle, because it depends on which benefit you claimed, what your tax position was and how much of it you have used. Check with your tax adviser before closing the transaction, not afterwards. If the system was installed by a company that handled the certification, they can also advise on what documentation they hold.

The difference between 'the house has panels' and 'the house has a legalized 4.5 kWp system, with valid warranties and a verifiable production history' is enormous for a buyer. And that difference is built by the documentation.

Assembling the file takes an afternoon and transforms the conversation. Without it, the buyer sees an installation of unknown origin that may cause them problems; with it, they see an asset with traceability.

There is a temptation to translate the system into a percentage uplift in property value. That is slippery ground: there are no published studies for the Colombian market that would support a figure, and promising a specific uplift is exactly the kind of promise that later does not hold.

There is a far more solid and verifiable argument: documented savings. Show the bills from the twelve months before the installation and the twelve after. The difference in kWh bought from the grid is a verifiable fact, not a projection, and it lets the buyer work out for themselves what that is worth at the current tariff.

Complement it with what reduces perceived risk: valid, transferable warranties, legalization in order, documented maintenance and an honest estimate of the remaining service life of each component, remembering that the inverter has a 10 to 15 year horizon and that replacement will be the buyer's.

That approach — verifiable data rather than promise — also protects the seller: you cannot be held to a future saving you never promised.

The same information works in the other direction. If you are buying a property that already has panels, these checks prevent you inheriting a problem.

These oversights are the ones that most often turn an advantage into friction during the negotiation or after handover.