Three leg inverters for photovoltaic systems have a lot of disadvantages, especially when the load is unbalanced. These disadvantages are for example, small utilization of the DC link voltage, the dependency of the modulation factor of the load current and the superposition of a DC component with the output AC voltage. A solution for these problems is the four-leg inverter. Most papers dealing with 4-leg inverters ignore the effect of digital delays in control loop and suggest classic controllers, such as PI controller. However, the transient performance of the closed-loop system does not become, accurately, adjustable and acceptable, in most cases. This paper proposes a novel model, considering digital delays, for 4-leg inverters. Then, it applies pole-placement control strategy, via state feedback, to adjust the transient performance of the closed-loop system to a desired second-order system. Simulation results validate theoretical results and proposed control strategy. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.