Bought home with solar lease but did not assume the lease
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So you bought a house with solar but didn't want to pay for it basically?? Good luck
It's not like the solar panels could have been hidden and not obvious. The OP should have inquired about the solar panels from day 1 of an offer, not after the fact.
solar gets complicated. when my bank refi's a house with leased energy we send a copy of the lease and power purchase agreement to an outside attorney for an opinion letter. we almost always see ucc lien's, which need to be terminated or subordinated as a condition of the loan. most get terminated then reattached by the solar companies post close.
in many cases we'll require an amendment to the lease stating if the property gets sold, or if the bank forecloses, and the new owner does not want to assume the lease, the solar company is required to remove the panels and leave the roof in good condition at no cost to the owner. there can't be any verbiage stating the new owner needs to assume anything. otherwise it's a restriction on conveyance.
believe it or not most of the large solar companies work with us revising agreements. getting them to remove or subordinate ucc's cant be a different story
It's not like the solar panels could have been hidden and not obvious. The OP should have inquired about the solar panels from day 1 of an offer, not after the fact.
He knew about it, talked to the solar company, and declined to take on their overpriced contract.
We purchased a home a few months back that had leased solar. This was disclosed to us but we did not sign the lease transfer because of a combination of things, primarily the usage rate was extremely high (50% more than local utility) AND communication between the leasing company was significantly delayed due to holidays. There was no lien associated with the property and as far as we know, no contingency that we need to assume the lease.
The seller is claiming we breached the purchase contract. As far as we know, this lease is completely separate from the house contract (how else could we close??) and it should be a matter the seller has to deal with. Does the seller have any recourse here?
What was the outcome of this for you as a buyer? Did you manage to get out of the deal and not get litigated by the seller? Facing a similar predicament here and would be very interested in what happened.
What was the outcome of this for you as a buyer? Did you manage to get out of the deal and not get litigated by the seller? Facing a similar predicament here and would be very interested in what happened.
OP hasn’t been back in 1.5 years so doubt they’ll see this.
Reading this thread encouraged me to do a few web searches on the topic. As a result I would never (in 2023) lease a solar system. You are almost totally financially trapped upon doing so.
Articles say that most agreements won’t even allow lease buy outs after 5 to 7 yrs. Often the lease is tied to the title on the property. Even if the buyer accepts continuing the lease he must be approved by the solar company. And if the buyer doesn’t want the lease the seller is forced to continue paying it or have his credit destroyed.
Sometimes the lease allows for moving the panels to the sellers next house but that roof needs to be in good shape. There are also frequent escalation clauses whereby each year your lease cost might increase. What a mess.
So don’t install solar unless you can pay up front. That’s my strong conclusion.
Reading this thread encouraged me to do a few web searches on the topic. As a result I would never (in 2023) lease a solar system. You are almost totally financially trapped upon doing so.
Articles say that most agreements won’t even allow lease buy outs after 5 to 7 yrs. Often the lease is tied to the title on the property. Even if the buyer accepts continuing the lease he must be approved by the solar company. And if the buyer doesn’t want the lease the seller is forced to continue paying it or have his credit destroyed.
Sometimes the lease allows for moving the panels to the sellers next house but that roof needs to be in good shape. There are also frequent escalation clauses whereby each year your lease cost might increase. What a mess.
So don’t install solar unless you can pay up front. That’s my strong conclusion.
I just did a quote for solar on my house in AZ through a local collective, which is one of the better ways to do it for reasons I won't go into here.
Despite covering my electrical requirements for 30 years and probably making a small profit annually, I couldn't make the numbers work based on the up front costs, even with the current tax credits being offered.
I could take that money and make a better return even in a conservative investment.
I have a home in Florida, too, where the state legislature is in the pockets of the electric utilities, who have done everything possible to prevent point of use solar in one of the best locations for it in the country. Had the governor not vetoed it, there was a law about to be passed that would get rid of net metering, essentially pulling the plug on everyone who has a solar system and is using the proceeds the utilities are paying them for power. That would make the payback on their systems almost zero.
I can't begin to imagine leasing a solar system. This has problems written all over it.
I can't imagine buying a house without doing this research first.
Complete PITA. I bought a house that had a solar lease and was told I could either take over the lease, buy it out or do what's called a fully prepaid lease which is cheaper than buying it out but you technically don't own the the panels. Not to mention when the guy leased his panels they did shoddy install and put leaks all over the garage roof.
I did buy it out though. No way would I do a lease
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
