What happens if your installer goes bust.

The 30-second take

• Manufacturer product and performance warranties survive — they are between you and the manufacturer, not the installer.
• The workmanship warranty is generally lost when the installing business ceases to exist.
• You become an unsecured creditor, which in practice usually means recovering nothing.
• Another installer can service the system, but most will not assume liability for someone else’s installation work.
• A company trading under a new name after closing an old one is a documented pattern — check the ABN registration date, not the “years of experience” on the website.

What survives and what doesn’t

The first thing to establish is which of your three warranties are still alive. It is better news than most people expect, and worse news in the place that matters most.

• Product warranty — survives. It is a promise from the panel, inverter or battery manufacturer, and it is unaffected by your installer’s collapse. You may need to claim through the manufacturer’s Australian office directly.
• Performance warranty — survives, for the same reason.
• Workmanship warranty — generally lost. It was a promise from a company that no longer exists. There is nobody left to enforce it against.

So a defective panel is still covered, but the labour to swap it is now yours, and any problem caused by the installation itself — a leaking penetration, undersized cabling, a poorly terminated isolator — has become your cost.

What you can actually do

• Find your paperwork. Quote, invoice, compliance certificate, warranty documents and the serial numbers of your panels and inverter. Manufacturer claims are far easier with them.
• Contact the manufacturer directly. Most major brands have an Australian presence and will handle a claim without the original installer, though they will generally not pay for labour.
• Register as a creditor if there is an administrator. ASIC publishes information for creditors of insolvent companies. Be realistic: unsecured creditors — which is what a customer is — usually recover little or nothing.
• Get the system inspected by a licensed electrician or accredited installer, especially if you paid a deposit for work that was never finished, or if the system is behaving oddly.
• Check your home insurance if the failure caused damage, such as water ingress from a bad roof penetration.

Why another installer may not want it

Homeowners are often surprised that a reputable installer will service an orphaned system but will not take on its warranty. This is not unreasonable. Assuming liability for hidden work you did not perform — cabling you cannot see, penetrations you did not seal, torque settings you cannot verify — is an open-ended risk.

What a good installer will usually do is inspect the system, quote to rectify anything unsafe or non-compliant, and warrant their own rectification work. That is the realistic path back to a supported system.

“Nobody will warrant work they cannot see and did not do. That is why the installer you choose at the start is the decision that matters most.”

Spotting the risk before you buy

Closing a company and restarting it under a new name to avoid paying what it owes has a name — illegal phoenix activity — and ASIC runs a dedicated programme targeting it across industries. Where it happens, the outgoing company’s warranty obligations go with it, which is the single strongest argument for weighing the business as heavily as the hardware.

• Check the ABN registration date on the Australian Business Register. A two-year-old ABN alongside “20 years of experience” means the trading entity changed. Ask what the previous name was and why.
• Look for a physical presence and a real local trading history, not just a phone number and a website.
• Be wary of very large deposits. A deposit above roughly 10% funds their cash flow with your money and increases what you lose if they fold.
• Treat an unusually cheap quote as information. A price that cannot support aftercare usually does not.
• Prefer manufacturer-accredited installers. Accreditation requires training and audited work, and it gives you a second party with a relationship to the business.

None of this guarantees a company will still be trading in ten years. It does move the odds substantially, and it is the part of the purchase entirely within your control. Get matched with 2-3 vetted installers — typically 2+ years in business with a track record of decent reviews — and compare them on durability, not just price.

Read next

• What a workmanship warranty actually covers
• Solar warranties, decoded
• How to choose a good solar installer
• How to read a solar quote line by line

Sources

• accc.gov.au — consumer guarantees
• accc.gov.au — repair, replace, refund, cancel
• asic.gov.au — insolvency for creditors
• asic.gov.au — illegal phoenix activity
• cleanenergycouncil.org.au — buying solar