Leaseholders and plug-in solar: whose balcony is it anyway?

From 27 August 2026 it is lawful to connect a plug-in solar device to a domestic socket in Great Britain. That does not mean it is lawful for you to hang one on your balcony. If you are a leaseholder, the document that decides the question is your own lease rather than the new statutory instrument, and the single fact that usually settles it is whether the balcony is demised to you or forms part of the common parts of the building.

The government was explicit about this. Its response to the consultation says that renters, leaseholders and residents in managed buildings “should obtain any permissions that may be required before installing a device”. It created a product framework. It did not create a right of installation, and nobody has been given permission to alter a building they do not own.

Demised or common parts

The Property Institute, the body for managing agents and property managers, has told its members that whether the balcony is demised to the leaseholder or forms part of the common parts is usually the decisive question. It is worth understanding what the distinction actually means, because the language in leases is rarely the language people use in conversation.

A demised area is one included in the parcel of property let to you under the lease. It is yours for the term. You still owe covenants about how you use it, but it is within your holding.

Common parts are retained by the freeholder or a management company for the benefit of all the residents. A balcony can look and feel entirely private and still be a common part, with access granted by an easement or a licence rather than by demise. Balconies in blocks built since the 1990s are frequently structured this way precisely so that the freeholder retains control of the external envelope.

A common middle case: the floor is demised but the balustrade and the external face of the building are retained. A panel clamped to the railing is then fixed to something you do not hold.

How to read your lease without a solicitor

You do not need advice to answer the first question yourself. You need the lease, which you can download from HM Land Registry for a few pounds if you cannot find your copy, and an hour.

1. Find the parcels clause, usually near the front, often headed “the Property” or “the Demised Premises”, and frequently pointing to a definition or a schedule. Read what it includes and, more importantly, what it expressly excludes. Phrases such as “excluding the external walls” or “the structural parts” are doing real work.
2. Check the plan. Leases are usually mapped with the demise edged red. Look at whether the red line takes in the balcony.
3. Read the tenant covenants. You are looking for anything about alterations, additions, fixtures and fittings, attaching anything to the exterior, and anything that affects the appearance of the building. Absolute prohibitions are common. So are qualified ones, which permit the act with consent.

An absolute covenant against alterations means the landlord can refuse without giving a reason. A qualified covenant, phrased as “not without the landlord’s consent”, often carries a statutory gloss that consent must not be unreasonably withheld. Know which one you are under before you write.

What to put in the written request

Assume you need consent and ask in writing. The Property Institute has advised managing agents to build a consent process for these devices, so a well-made request has somewhere to go.

Include, at a minimum:

• The make and model, and confirmation it is registered on the ENA Connect Direct database, with the reference.
• Its rating: no more than 800 VA / 800 W AC output and 3.5 A, with a maximum 2,000 W of PV input, on a moulded BS 1363 plug with a BS 1362 fuse of 5 A or less. Adaptors, extension leads and convertors are prohibited under the framework.
• That it contains no battery. The framework covers battery-free devices only, and a battery on a balcony is a different conversation with an insurer.
• The mounting method, in detail: freestanding, ballasted, clamped, or fixed. Say whether anything penetrates the structure. Say what the wind loading arrangement is.
• Where the panel sits relative to the balustrade and whether it projects beyond the building line.
• That you will notify the distribution network operator under G98 within 28 days of commissioning, and again on removal. Our guide to the G98 notification sets out how.
• An offer to remove it at your cost on reasonable notice, and to make good.
• Product documentation and the installation instructions as attachments.

Ask specifically whether the balcony is demised, and ask for the fee and the timescale up front. Some agents will require a licence to alter. That is a document to complete rather than a rebuff.

Why some buildings will be a firm no

There is one category where a refusal is likely to be sound rather than obstructive. The Property Institute has flagged particular concern about fire and electrical safety in buildings awaiting external wall remediation. If your block has a cladding defect, a waking watch, or an ongoing remediation programme, a freeholder is being asked to permit a new electrical source and combustible material on the external envelope of a building whose fire strategy is already compromised. Expect a refusal, and expect it to be a reasonable one.

The Institute also raises the plain physical risk of a panel falling from height. On upper floors the mounting method carries real weight. A ballasted unit that is fine at ground level is not automatically fine on the ninth.

Insurance

Two policies are in play and they are usually held by different people. The building insurance is the freeholder’s, and the leaseholders pay for it through the service charge. Your contents policy is yours.

Tell the freeholder or agent, because a material alteration they do not know about is exactly what an insurer asks about after a claim. Tell your own insurer as well, and get the answer in writing. Ask whether the device is covered against theft and storm damage, and whether your liability cover responds if it comes off the building and hits something. Neither question has a standard answer yet, because the product category is days old in this country.

Planning, if you are in England

Consent from your freeholder is a separate matter from planning permission. In England, SI 2026/896 amended permitted development rights, more narrowly than the headlines suggested. On blocks of flats, it is not permitted development on a listed building, or on “a wooden wall, balcony or enclosure or on any part of the exterior of a block of flats which is clad in timber”. Conservation areas and World Heritage Sites are restricted where the installation fronts a highway.

Notably, no projection dimensions are specified for balconies on flats, which reads as a drafting gap rather than a permission. There is no equivalent change in Scotland or Wales that we have been able to locate. We set out the detail in the planning guide, and the wider legal position in the legal rules.

If the answer is no

That is a realistic outcome. Ask for the reason in writing and check it against your lease. A refusal under an absolute covenant is the end of it. A refusal under a qualified covenant, where consent must not be unreasonably withheld, is arguable, though the arithmetic matters, and an argument over a device that might save you £50 to £190 a year should be a short one.

The more useful move is often collective. Managing agents are being told to build a process, and a block that asks once, with a sensible specification, tends to get a policy rather than a series of individual refusals. If you are in a building with a residents’ association, that is where to start. If you are renting rather than leasing, the ground shifts again. See our tenant guide.