The questions to ask before you sign a solar contract (and the tricks to watch for)

Before you take a single quote

• Pull 12 months of utility bills. Your annual kWh is the only number the whole deal should be sized from. If a salesperson sizes a system without it, they are sizing to the loan, not to your usage.
• Run your address through PVWatts (the free NREL tool). It tells you roughly how many kWh a system of a given size will make at your house. Any proposal that promises much more than PVWatts is promising weather that does not exist.
• Know your utility's export rule. Full retail net metering, net billing at a reduced export rate, or nothing. It changes the math more than any other single input, and most states have cut it in the last three years.
• Get three quotes, at least one from a company that does not sell financing. The cash price from an installer who does not push a loan is the number that tells you what the system is worth.
• Decide what the tax credit is worth to you, with a tax professional. For homeowner-owned systems placed in service after December 31, 2025, the federal 25D credit is gone. If a proposal still shows 30 percent off, ask what it is based on.

Questions about the company

1. Who is actually installing this? The name on the yard sign, the name on the contract, and the crew on the roof are often three companies. Get the installer's legal name and state contractor license number, then look the license up yourself.
2. How long has this legal entity existed? Not the brand. The entity. More than 100 solar companies have failed since 2023; several were re-formed under new names. See the bankruptcy tracker before you sign.
3. Are you a dealer, or the installer? Dealer-model sales organizations earn a commission and hand the job to a subcontractor. The 2026 collapse of Freedom Forever, the number-two installer in the country, was tied to that model.
4. Who honors the workmanship warranty if you close? The honest answer is "nobody." The equipment warranties come from the manufacturers; the roof-penetration and wiring warranty dies with the installer. Price that risk accordingly.
5. Has a state attorney general sued you or investigated you? Six did in 2026 alone. Here is the list.

Questions about the system and the production promise

6. What is the year-1 production estimate, in kWh, and where did it come from? Ask for the PVWatts or Aurora report, not the summary page. Divide kWh by kW: above about 1,700 is rare outside the desert Southwest.
7. What offset is this sized to? A system sized above 100 percent of your usage sends the surplus to the utility at the export rate, which under net billing can be a quarter of what you pay. Extra panels earn the salesperson more than they earn you.
8. Is there a production guarantee, and what does it pay? Most "guarantees" pay a few cents per missing kWh after a year of underproduction, only if the company still exists.
9. Exactly which panels, inverters, and battery? Brand, model, wattage, and the manufacturer warranty terms for each. "Tier 1 panels" is not a model number. Microinverters usually carry 25-year warranties; string inverters 10 to 12, which means a replacement cost in year 12.
10. Who registers the equipment warranties, and in whose name? If the installer registers them to itself and then fails, you will spend months proving ownership. Insist they be registered to you, at your address, and get the confirmation emails.
11. Who owns the monitoring account? You should be the owner, not a sub-user on the installer's account. When installers fail, homeowners lose access to their own production data.

Questions about the money: loan, lease, PPA, cash

12. What is the cash price, in writing, from the same company? Then compare it with the amount financed. The difference is the dealer fee: the cost of the low APR, routinely 15 to 35 percent, paid by you, invisible on the loan paperwork.
13. Who is the lender, what is the APR, and what is the term? GoodLeap, Mosaic, Sunlight, Dividend, and the others are separate companies from the installer. You will owe them for 20 to 25 years whether or not the panels work. Three state attorneys general sued solar lenders in 2026 over exactly this.
14. Is there a payment jump at month 18? Many solar loans assume you will pay the tax credit amount into the loan by month 16 to 18; if you do not, the payment re-amortizes upward. With the 25D credit gone, that structure is a trap.
15. Lease or PPA: who gets the tax credit? The company that owns the system, not you. Its deadline is December 31, 2027, which is why leases dominate the pitch now. What to compare.
16. Will this loan appear on my credit report? Yes, as an installment account reported to Equifax, TransUnion and Experian, with a hard inquiry at signing. It counts in your debt-to-income ratio for any future mortgage, refinance or HELOC. Run it past your mortgage lender if a move or refinance is possible in the next five years.
17. Will there be a UCC-1 fixture filing on my property? Almost always, for loans and leases. It is not a mortgage lien, but a title company will find it when you sell and the loan will have to be paid off or assumed. How title companies handle it.
18. For a lease or PPA: what is the escalator, the term, the buyout schedule, and the transfer requirements? A 2.9 percent escalator for 25 years doubles the payment. The buyout is usually far above the equipment's market value. The next buyer must credit-qualify and agree to assume it. What that does to a closing.
19. What happens if I pay the loan off early? Get the prepayment terms in writing. Some loans are fine; some dealer-fee structures make early payoff pointless because the fee was financed up front.

Questions about your roof, your utility, and your HOA

19. How old is my roof, and who pays to remove and reinstall the panels when it is replaced? Removal and reinstall runs $1,500 to $6,000. A roof with fewer than 10 years left should be replaced first.
20. Does the installer's roof-penetration warranty cover leaks, for how long, and does it survive the company? It does not survive the company.
21. Will you pull the permit and pass the final inspection before the lender releases funds? "Pitch, sign, fund, fail, collect" is the pattern the Michigan attorney general named in 2026: the lender paid the installer before the system was finished. Make the final inspection and permission to operate (PTO) a condition of payment.
22. Who applies for interconnection, and how long does PTO take with my utility? Until PTO, the system sits dark while the loan payments start.
23. Does my HOA or historic district have rules? Most states limit what an HOA can block, but not what it can require, and HOA disputes resurface at resale.
24. Will my homeowner's insurance cover the system, and will the premium change? Ask your insurer before, not after. Some carriers now non-renew over rooftop solar.

Questions about selling the house later

25. If I sell in year 5, what exactly does the buyer have to do? Owned and paid off: nothing, and the system can add value. Loan: pay it off at closing or the buyer assumes it. Lease or PPA: the buyer credit-qualifies and assumes 20 years of escalating payments, or you pay the buyout.
26. Does the net metering agreement transfer to the buyer? In some states the grandfathered rate transfers; in others the buyer gets the newer, worse rate. State by state.
27. Will I have the paperwork an appraiser needs? Invoice, equipment list, warranty registrations, permit final, PTO letter, production history. Appraisers can only count what they can document.

The sales tricks, named

These are drawn from the 2026 state attorney general complaints and from the homeowners who write to us.

• "You'll never pay a power bill again." The Kansas AG quoted that exact script in its September 2026 petition. Nobody's bill goes to zero; there is a fixed charge, and under net billing, winter.
• "This is just an application" or "just to see if you qualify." New York's complaint describes homeowners who signed 25-year contracts they were told were credit checks. If there is a signature line, it is a contract.
• "The government pays for 30 percent." Not for homeowner-owned systems placed in service after 2025, and never for retirees with no tax liability. Ohio and Texas both sued over this.
• "We're with the utility" or "we're a program from the state." The Kansas petition alleges reps were trained to "drop Evergy's name." Your utility does not send salespeople to your door.
• "The price is only good today." A real price survives a week. Door-to-door sales also carry a federal three-day cancellation right (below).
• "$0 down, pay less than you pay now." True only if the quoted payment is compared with your whole old bill and the new utility bill is ignored. Use the calculator; it adds the two.
• The English-only contract. Kansas alleges English-only agreements for Spanish-speaking buyers. If you negotiated in one language, the contract must be in that language in several states, and in every state it is a reason not to sign.
• The tablet signature. You are shown a summary screen and asked to sign on a tablet; the full contract arrives by email later, if at all. Ask for the complete document and read it before any signature.

Already signed? Your cancellation window

If the contract was signed at your home (or anywhere other than the seller's permanent place of business), the FTC Cooling-Off Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 429) gives you three business days to cancel for any reason, in writing, and the seller must have given you a cancellation form and told you about the right. Many states extend that: several give three business days for any home solicitation sale, some give longer for solar specifically, and a few void the contract outright if the required notice was missing. Send the cancellation in writing, dated, by a method you can prove, to both the installer and the lender, and keep a copy. If the window has passed and the sale matches the tricks above, that is the point at which an independent attorney's read is worth getting.

The one-page checklist