Change of ownership

Hello,
I’m looking for assistance with a change of ownership request that has been outstanding for several months.

• Moved into the property: 2 December 2025
• Submitted change of ownership request: 19 December 2025
• Received a reply requesting evidence: 23 January 2026
• Provided all serial numbers and photos immediately
• Follow‑ups sent on: 1 February, 10 February, 3 March, and 18 April
• No further response received
• Installer has confirmed they no longer have control of the system

At the moment, I have no access to the system I legally own, and I’m unable to monitor or manage it through the GivEnergy platform.

Could someone please escalate Ticket 178387 or advise on the next steps to complete the ownership transfer?

Thank you in advance for any help.

David

GivEnergy have gone into receivership and all staff have been made redundant, so you won't get any help from them.

I think your best option would be local control using the third party Inverter app.

Also look up Home Assistant and GivTCP, especially if you don't have an Android phone to install a third party app on. PredBat which uses GivTCP will estimate half hourly usage based on the last seven days and can plan the most efficient/cheapest charging/export plan based on your tariff using that and forecast solar energy.
The Android based Monitor For GivEnergy Inverter is excellent for more basic control. https://givenergymonitor.co.uk
There is no reason why you cannot run both alongside each other although PredBat will sooner or later overwrite any settings you may change in the Monitor app.
For quick control and to get to learn your way around the system I would personally install the Android app right away, and then plan Home Assistant/GivTCP/PredBat as a project over a few weeks. Once Predbat is controlling the system the Android app still offers excellent diagnostic information and utilities that will compliment PredBat well.
Any control system will require you to connect the inverter to your WiFi or via a network cable if the system supports that - have you already been able to do this?

Dai Gray
This app: The Android based Monitor For GivEnergy Inverter is excellent for more basic control. https://givenergymonitor.co.uk
is great - need an Android phone to run it and the IP address of your Inverter - which should be identified on your network as HF-A21 or something similar

You will probably need to change the dongle's network settings unless your home network is also inherited.

That is done by connecting to a local access point that it creates. You will need a username and password. It is usually admin admin or admin and your inverter's serial number.

Dai Gray Perhaps you could ask the previous owner for their account login details. You could then go into Account Settings and change the details to yours. If they haven't migrated to SSO this will just be a user name and password. If you get no joy there, you could ask the installer if they could help in anyway.

Dai Gray If you cannot get in to the system these guys may be able to help. There is no one left at GivEnergy to help you https://solar-tech-support.co.uk/

Dai Gray

Contact the solicitor you used to purchase the property from ASAP and ask the previous owner to supply the login details.

If they had a particular SSID they used you can set that as your guest network SSID and Pwd. Then you’ll have access and be able to change it to your own network and credentials.

Likely they simply forgot to leave you the login details. But if the solar system was specifically included in the house sale you have a right to access and use it. I’d try that first if I were you.

It’s been discussed here before (along with best practice before moving out; putting your solar system on the guest network and leaving the access login details on the inverter, etc.) but I can see this becoming more and more of an issue with more houses having solar.

Try asking the question at least. If they don’t supply the details maybe you have some legal recourse? 🤷🏼‍♂️

Good luck.

The installer comment is odd and potentially bs. I am moving soon and my installer is changing owner as part of the move.

Most of us were forced to setup SSO, so handing over login details isn't possible. But even without SSO I would not hand over login details. username is my personal email address for one thing.

I would suggesting contacting your solicitor or estate agent to speak with the previous owner to find a solution however I am not sure what legal action you could take as giv energy were not in administration at point of sale.

You could however email premium@givenergy.co.uk I am aware they are working on a user based change of owner system. But that is the only working email I am aware of.

Obtaining login details is not the solution here. Either the solvent GivEnergy software needs to aid them in creating a new paid account, since that's all there will be for Cloud control going forward, or the OP should use local control which doesn't require an account anyway.
I would not handover login and WiFi details to a new buyer. I would however assist them in resetting the system and provide dongle logins.

pwdst 100% this. I have printed the EMS manual form my buyers and left a quick guide for how to reset the time after a powercut, how to connect wirelessly to the ems etc. Installer information. But nothing personal to me.

In the app you can change your login, email address and password and also the WiFi network (once logged in !).

Change this to a disposable email address and password. Connect it to “guest network”. Leave the new owners the login Pwd for “guest” network,
The dummy login email and password before you move out. It’s not that hard really.

I’d like to have a bit of faith in humanity and think it wouldn’t be too much effort to change that for the new owners before buggering off. That’s the minimum I’d expect (and I think next time I move that’ll be written into the solicitors contract with about £30,000 held back in escrow until I’ve got in).

Locking them out of a system they expect to have access to (and have paid for), is a bit like selling a car without the remote key because the remote key is somehow ‘personal to you’. Bit of a d*%k move.
You’ve got the car but it’s useless. There are work arounds; you can get another remote key at vast expense from the dealer but why? just why would you do that?

Personally if I’d forgottten to do the above I’d give the new user my email address and the password to get in (assuming I didn’t use the same email and password for my online banking!). Or i’d go round and get them up and running. Giving out your email address is like giving out your postal address. It doesn’t mean you’ll get robbed unless you give them your front door key as well. Also email passwords and emails can be changed easily !

No one wants to faff about with third party software or home assistant when they’ve just moved in if they don’t absolutely need to ! They just want access to the basic controls from the manufacturers app
To get up and running straight away.

Wishing the OP good luck. Hopefully the sellers will be half decent and play nicely.

You are advocating for a user to voluntarily breach their own privacy and data protection, not to mention GivEnergy's and likely the email providers terms. Under no circumstances should you be handing over access to your email inbox. With that a malicious person can very likely access every account connected to it and lock you out.
Either GivEnergy software can help the user create a new portal account that the new owner can then pay for access to if that is their wish, or if they don't wish to pay then they can use local control which doesn't require any authentication anyway - whether this is third or the promised first party local control in the official app.
Any account left nominally attached to me would mean I could reset the password to lock the user out in the future, become the defacto conduit for support if they forget their password or cannot get in themselves, or otherwise force the new owner to impersonate me when contacting GivEnergy software for help. Equally if I am down as the owner I could theoretically blag access back into the account when I contacted GivEnergy software. If I have sold the property and the system then I don't want to be listed as the person controlling it, otherwise if and when something goes wrong I could be accused of causing it.
The new local control mode from the GivEnergy app seems like it also won't need authentication and if it does then GivEnergy software are still trading and should manage the change of owner. The new owners can hardly pay them if they cannot even create an account.
If GivEnergy software can genuinely not handle transitioning to new owners without the hardware entity then the only solution I would consider acceptable would be to change the name and email address to those of the vendor on completion day so that the account was no longer under our control - reset emails and communication would then go to them and not to me.
I would reset the dongle before leaving so that they would set up their own WiFi details. If I gave them WiFi details then not only am I forcing them to set up their network to support the inverter, but they could then park outside our new property and access our network unless we then change our network password and every device connected to it.
There is a reason that the official process pre-administration didn't hand over accounts but set up new credentials for the new owners.

pwdst

Please re-read my post carefully ! And maybe the OP’s post. The OP has been in contact with GE multiple times but has had no luck transferring ownership. And been in contact with the (presumably original) installer. He should log a change of ownership with the installer. And GE if possible. (But that was his sticking point if you recall.)

To be perfectly clear;

I wasn’t suggesting giving them the
password to my EMAIL account (as you wrongly assumed) !
(That’s a totally different scenario and of course no I wouldn’t do that).

I was suggesting IF I hadn’t swapped it over to a guest network and dummy email address and dummy password…. Etc… (ie I’d do something sensible and helpful before I moved out.)….

I’d (with the caveats previously mentioned) give them my email address and the password to the Givenergy system, so they can temporarily gain access to update it to their own credentials (own wifi, own email, own password etc) !!!!
Or go around and do it myself to help them out.

Plenty of people have my email address (and yours). It doesn’t mean that they can get “access to your email inbox” (as you’ve written above, that’s nonsense) / just having your email address doesn’t provide access to your email account and it won’t let them read your emails or gain ANY of your personal information that way.

All that’s in the GivEnergy account section is your GivEnergy username, your name, email address and postal address. Which I’m sure the new owners will already know your name (probably your email address) and the address where they are now living !

Logging a change of ownership with GivEnergy or the installer is of course a different matter and yes I’d definitely do that as well.

If you’ve sold the solar system with your house and don’t live at the property anymore then I don’t think there is anyway you’d be held liable for anything, same as after you’ve sold a car to someone else, you’re not liable if they get a flat tyre or have a crash. (Statutory rights for miss-selling aside).

Temporarily Giving the new owner your GE user login and password surely isn’t a hardship?

• you literally aren’t “handing over all your personal details”.

Hopefully he’ll get some luck gaining access with local control. Or his sellers will be helpful (normal?) and help out via his solicitor.

Have a nice evening.

Pete UK It may have escaped your notice but it is now mandatory for GivEnergy accounts to migrate to SSO, and that means mandatory One Time Passwords (OTP) delivered by email for every login. These are valid for only ten minutes.
There is no "just hand over the password" without access to the underlying email address, not unless you want to be on call 24/7 to provide the OTPs on demand. Forwarding rules might help but risk missing important account notices.
There is also the fact that as owner of the email address you retain full control of the account and could reset the credentials at will.
The only solution is for you to change the email address to that of the buyer yourself at the earliest opportunity after completing, along with the other account details.
In theory by the end of this month Cloud accounts will cease to be a thing except for users willing to pay for them anyway.
I am not sure if you read the post carefully enough to note that I suggested contacting GivEnergy Software and not the now defunct Support department the OP had previously been dealing with. Given only a percentage of users are likely to sign up for paid Cloud accounts to start with, and only a percentage of property buyers would be willing to continue paying for access, GivEnergy Software will rapidly lose their remaining customer base if they cannot create new accounts to allow property buyers to continue to access their systems. Remember payment cards and subscription data will then be involved, with all associated rules and regulations.

As an aside, demanding an escrow for more than three times what MCS state the average 2025 battery system install cost was would very rapidly make you ex-buyers for us. I cannot fathom how that amount could in any way be proportionate. You could install a brand new replacement system and have money left over for a small EV in case of vendor "failure". Especially as the conditions you list for releasing the funds can only be determined as having been met by you.

pwdst

Yes

pwdst

Handing over your email address and GE login password is a TEMPORARY solution, until you change the login email and user details. Email rule/ auto forward a copy of OTP.

the actual cost of a similar system. In my case that’s £30k.

Pete UK That is surely the complete system though? Even assuming a similar system would cost the same today, which is doubtful given the huge falls in price, you would only need to replace the batteries and inverter which would cost substantially less than a full replacement.

pwdst Wouldn't matter anyway as no residential mortgage provider is going to agree to "escrow".

Its delusional nonsense, as usual.

I’ve never used it but what does the delegate user bit of the portal allow - would this be a workaround?

hoggy I didn't think it worked after SSO but haven't tried myself. It gave read/write access last time I looked (years ago).

The inherent problem is simple - there's no legal way of handing over ownership since the demise of GE Ltd.

Nobody should be handing over primary login credentials. Its beyond stupid.

I rather suspect having a GE system installed is now a liability rather than an asset when it comes to selling a house.

Edit - frankly providing a link to @Rubikcube 's app with a £10 Google Play voucher is probably the way to go & I'm not being facetious.

For most users Cloud accounts effectively cease to exist in the coming weeks anyway. It remains to be seen what will happen with the data for those who do not pay.
The best case scenario is that the app does support full local control as promised and then any buyer can use the official branded app as long as they can get the equipment connected to their WiFi. Dongle passwords are a great example of passwords buyers should be receiving from vendors.

pwdst Having handed over equipment (Ubiquiti stuff in a previous house) which had both local and cloud passwords to the next owner I can tell you all there's no good way of doing it.

In my case I waited until the buyers had internet and then went round, wiped the system and walked them through setting up a cloud account/local management account, wifi credentials, the works. Even got them to print it out.

Every time TalkTalk (their ISP) made a change/gave them a new router who do they call? It ain't ghostbusters, thats for sure!

I blocked their phone numbers about 4 years after we sold the house.

Vendors should keep it simple - here's a local app which will control the system (Rubikcube's) and if you want more than that then you need to deal with the GE app developers on the google/apple stores. Don't do anything more as there's no warranty to transfer, which was the only reason for a change of ownership anyway.

Something sensible regarding legal hand over to a new owner/user to allow full access should be put in place and agreed before a house sale (via your solicitor). Whether it’s your Solar system, Nest thermostat. smart home system, heating controls or whatever.

This obviously isn’t always the case and doesn’t always happen (as in the OP’s case). Which makes it difficult and especially frustrating in the event of an insolvency of the manufacturer or poor customer service.

So a good suggestion as best practice (and to make life easy for everyone) would be to stick the system on a “guest” network (or whatever name you assign to the SSID - but “guest” seems best, as the new owner only needs to enable that on their new router and use the same password you left for “guest” network. Create a new throw away email account, change your systems account details to that email and give them access to the throw away email address and job done. If the new owner doesn’t change the throw away email address to their own, well that’s their security risk. Same as if you don’t change the locks when you buy a new house, yes there is a risk the previous owner still has a key and can get into your home.

Same for any other smart home system login credentials.

OP’s issue is that this didn’t happen and he is stuck.

I guess how helpful one is after you’ve sold up and moved on is up for discussion. I’d like to think I’d be helpful but, maybe I wouldn’t have any incentive to?

Writing a financial incentive into the house sale contract to ‘ensure compliance’ isn’t unusual and is quite separate to any mortgage agreement the new buyer may have with a bank. So it’s not nonsense (or “the usual nonsense” - whatever that refers to?).

A financial incentive tends to help focus people’s minds to remember to do what they should normally do. Whatever the number, doesn’t precisely matter (the highest rectification costs plus time, hassle, inflation, etc doesn’t seem unreasonable). Just something “encouraging” whatever that number is.

We can debate security/ ethics/ opinions/
whatever all day long but I think the OP has now got a few avenues to go down.

If they reply then it’ll be interesting to see how they got on or what route they took.

It’s quite common to include a contractual provision covering transfer of access credentials, documentation, and operational control for things like:

• Solar PV systems
• Battery storage systems
• EV chargers
• Smart home hubs
• Alarm systems
• CCTV/NVR systems
• Home Assistant servers
• Heating controls
• Wi-Fi/network equipment

In England & Wales, this is usually handled either by:

1. A special condition in the sale contract, or
2. A retention/escrow arrangement where part of the sale proceeds are held back until the seller complies.

A solicitor can draft it formally, but a clause might look something like this:

⸻

Example Clause — Smart Home / Solar System Handover

The Seller shall provide to the Buyer on or before Completion:

• all usernames, passwords, administrator credentials, recovery codes and access details relating to the Property’s solar photovoltaic system, battery storage system, inverter monitoring platform, EV charger, smart home systems, alarm systems, CCTV systems and associated software or mobile applications;
• all manuals, warranties, installer details, commissioning certificates and MCS/Flexi-Orb/NICEIC documentation;
• transfer of ownership and administrator rights for all relevant online accounts and applications.

The Seller shall reset and remove personal data where appropriate but shall not disable or remove operational functionality of the systems.

In the event the Seller fails to comply within 14 days of Completion, the Buyer may recover reasonable costs incurred in restoring or replacing access.

⸻

If you want leverage, a retention clause is stronger:

Example Retention / Escrow Provision

The Buyer’s conveyancer shall retain the sum of £20,000 from the sale proceeds following Completion pending satisfactory transfer of all access credentials, ownership rights and operational control relating to the Property’s solar, battery and smart home systems.

The retained funds shall be released to the Seller upon written confirmation from the Buyer that all systems are fully accessible and operational.

If compliance has not occurred within 14 days of Completion, the retained funds may be applied toward remediation, replacement equipment, engineer callouts or account recovery costs.

⸻

Practical things worth specifically naming:

• Tesla Powerwall ownership transfer
• GivEnergy installer/admin access
• SolarEdge monitoring portal ownership
• Enphase Energy Enlighten access
• Home Assistant admin credentials/backups
• Octopus intelligent charging integrations
• EV charger app ownership
• MCS certificate and DNO/G99 paperwork
• Feed-in tariff/export tariff account details

For a house with substantial tech installed, I’d also recommend asking for:

• a written “systems schedule”
• network diagram
• Wi-Fi SSIDs/passwords
• list of installed apps/services
• local admin accounts
• proof devices are not finance-encumbered

A solicitor can usually add this as a special condition for a few hundred pounds rather than a full escrow arrangement. Retentions are more common where the systems are high-value (e.g. £20k+ solar/battery installations).

Pete UK Create a new throw away email account, change your systems account details to that email and give them access to the throw away email address

Out of interest - why this step? If they have the guest ssid and pwd then they can log onto the devices directly (if you also leave the passwords for those) and change the network details there - maybe a step by step guide on how to do it would be useful (also good for the other partner who doesn't take much interest in these things!!0

CW

GE SSO login process now requires a TFA code to be sent to an email address to login to the GE app/ cloud does it not? (Correct me if I’m wrong on that, and in that case you could skip that step but I thought it was required if you wanted cloud access anyway).

Seems neater to do it that way. You set it up, you can test it works yourself on the GE app, (even record evidence of you receiving the SSO TFA, logging in with those temporary credentials and it working, (if so inclined). Then leave all the (temporary) logins and passwords for the new owner who can login and change everything to their own requirements at will. Demonstrably you’ve then fulfilled all the requirements that’ll likely start to get written into more and more home sale contracts. If that step isn’t required though, then sure skip it. Although wouldn’t any 2FA still go to your email address if the new owner doesn’t change it/ forgets to change it?

It’s just an idea for best practice and worth thinking about in advance to cover yourself really (and be as helpful to the new owners as possible/ fulfil the legal requirements of what’ll likely get written into more and more sales contracts in the future.)