Can You Cancel a Solar Contract After Signing? Your 14-Day Rights Explained

Yes, in most cases. If you signed a solar contract at home, over the phone, or online, rather than at the installer’s own business premises, you have a legal right to cancel within 14 days, for any reason, and get your deposit back in full.

Where this right actually comes from

The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 give consumers a 14-day cancellation right on contracts concluded away from a trader’s normal place of business. A solar quote signed in your living room, over a phone call, or through an online form all count as off-premises for this purpose, which covers the overwhelming majority of how solar is actually sold in the UK. The clock starts on the day you sign the contract, not the day installation happens.

What the installer is supposed to do

The trader has to give you clear information about this right and a cancellation form at the time you sign. If they don’t, the regulations extend your cancellation window, up to 12 months from the original date, rather than letting the omission work in the installer’s favour. That’s worth knowing if you’ve already passed 14 days and assumed you’d lost the right: check whether you were actually told about it properly in the first place.

Can they start work before the 14 days are up

Only if you’ve explicitly asked them to, in writing, and even then there’s a catch. If work starts early at your request and you still cancel within the 14 days, you can be charged a reasonable amount for the work and materials actually used, not the full contract price. Reputable installers tend to simply wait out the 14 days before touching anything, which avoids this question coming up at all. If a salesperson is pushing to start work immediately after signing, that’s worth asking about directly.

If an installer won’t honour it

This is where Trading Standards has seen real complaints: deposits not refunded after a valid cancellation, or installers going uncontactable once you’ve tried to exercise the right. A few things actually help if that happens:

• Cancel in writing, by email, not just a phone call, so there’s a dated record of when you did it.
• If you paid any part of the deposit by credit card, and the amount was between £100 and £30,000, Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act makes your card issuer jointly liable, which means you can claim the refund from them if the trader won’t pay up.
• Check whether the installer is a member of the Renewable Energy Consumer Code. RECC members commit to honouring these cancellation rights as part of the code they sign up to, and RECC offers a dispute resolution process if a member doesn’t.

Where this doesn’t help

The 14-day right doesn’t cover a contract signed at the installer’s own showroom or registered business address, which is rare for solar but not unheard of. And it’s a cancellation right, not a quality guarantee, it won’t help with a bad install finished properly within the rules. For that, checking the installer’s MCS certification before you sign is the better safeguard.

Get matched with vetted installers if you’re starting from scratch and want to avoid needing any of this.

Frequently asked questions