What happens to my AI when I sell the house?

The short answer

The hardware on your wall, in your closet, and in your ceiling stays with the house. The cloud accounts do not. Voice profiles, biometrics, training data, and account graphs are tied to the people who set them up, and most of them cannot be transferred to a new owner. The only AI architecture that survives a sale cleanly is the one that lives on hardware, not on someone else’s server.

The account-tied problem

If your Alexa was set up under your Amazon account, the next owner cannot inherit it. They have to sign in with their own Amazon account and start over. Same for Google Home. Same for Apple HomeKit, although Apple has the cleanest handover process of the three. Same for any cloud-based AI service paid for by you. Subscriptions, training, voice profiles, automations: all reset.

For a voice assistant, that is annoying. For a luxury home with hundreds of programmed scenes and integrations, it is a serious operational cost on the buyer’s side and a real diligence question during the sale.

The Sonos and Lutron precedents

In 2020, Sonos remotely deprecated functionality on speakers customers had purchased outright. The legal status of "remotely changing what a buyer thought they bought" is now an active area in consumer protection. Lutron has been more conservative but operates plenty of cloud-tied features that depend on the original account. The pattern: the more the house depends on someone else’s servers, the less of the house actually conveys to the buyer.

What transfers, what does not

• Transfers cleanly: Crestron processor and programming, Lutron RA3 / HomeWorks system and programming, Ubiquiti UniFi network and configuration, structured wiring, low-voltage infrastructure, locally-installed AI hardware (Mac Studio, NVIDIA box, Home Assistant box), models stored on local hardware, documented programming.
• Transfers messily: Apple HomeKit (Apple has a documented home-handover flow but it requires both buyer and seller to engage in it), some Lutron Caseta cloud features.
• Does not transfer: Amazon Alexa account, Google account, voice profiles trained on previous occupants, biometric face data on cloud cameras, ChatGPT / Claude / Gemini personal subscriptions, Perplexity Pro account, custom integrations tied to seller’s personal email.

The Restrepo handover packet

For every system we install, we produce a handover packet. The seller gets a copy at install. The buyer gets a copy at sale. The packet contains:

1. System diagram (network, AV, automation, AI compute).
2. List of every cloud account with credentials reset path.
3. List of every local credential and how to rotate it.
4. Documented programming on the Crestron processor.
5. Documented Home Assistant configuration.
6. Local LLM model files and configuration.
7. Care plan transfer instructions if the seller had one with us.
8. The phone number to call if anything is unclear: 201.405.2022.

The realtor angle

For a high-end listing, "documented Restrepo system with handover packet" is a real differentiator. Buyers’ agents who have seen the alternative (a house with twelve apps, six accounts, three integrators, and no documentation) understand the difference. We work with realtors to position the system properly and to coordinate the actual handover at closing. See our realtors page for details.

The Apple HomeKit handover specifically

Apple has the cleanest documented handover flow of the major consumer voice ecosystems. The seller can transfer ownership of a HomeKit residence to the buyer through the Home app, and devices, scenes, and automations transfer cleanly. The catch: both parties have to engage with the process, the seller has to remove their personal Apple ID from the residence, and any cloud-tied integrations (smart cameras, certain locks) may still require buyer action. We coordinate the handover at closing for clients.

For sellers: what to do before listing

• Ask your integrator for the current state of system documentation.
• Identify every cloud account tied to the house and decide which can be deleted, which can be reset for the buyer, and which need formal transfer.
• Schedule a Restrepo or comparable system audit so the buyer’s diligence has a clean answer to "is this maintainable?"
• If the system depends on ongoing subscriptions, document them.

For buyers: what to ask

• Is there a handover packet?
• Who owns the cloud accounts? Can they be transferred or do I start over?
• Is there a care plan in place, and does it transfer?
• What happens to the system if the network goes down for a week?

Related

• Build It Yourself: Local AI
• The AI Reality Check
• Restrepo for Realtors