Hiring a Solar Attorney: When It Is Worth It

Save the lawyer for the fight that needs one

The solar company and its lender have lawyers, contracts drafted by those lawyers, and an arbitration clause they probably did not explain. It is natural to feel you need your own attorney just to get a phone call returned. Often you do not, and paying one to do what a free letter would do only drains money you may need later.

So start here. If you are inside your cancellation window, send the notice and you are done. If the system was never energized, write to whoever bills you and cite the clause. If you want a regulator involved, the complaint form is free, and complaints produced every case named on this page. If you are selling the house, the lease or PPA transfers to a qualified buyer.

None of that needs counsel. The main routes page runs through all of it in order.

Come back here when one of the things below is true, because then an attorney can change what happens to you.

The four situations where a lawyer changes the outcome

1. You can document a misrepresentation

Disappointment is not enough. You need a specific thing you were told that the paperwork contradicts.

The enforcement record shows how often that happens. Michigan’s attorney general alleges that Climax Solar representatives promised homeowners they could replace or greatly reduce their utility bills with affordable solar payments, use federal tax credits to lower the cost, and have a working system installed quickly, then ran a “pitch, sign, fund, fail, and collect” model in which many consumers were rushed through electronic contracts during a single in-home visit.

If you have the marketing sheet, the text messages, the savings estimate, or a witness to what was said, you have the raw material of a claim. Keep all of it. If all you have is that the deal turned out worse than you hoped, a complaint is the better tool.

2. Your loan principal exceeds the cash price and nobody explained it

This is the dealer fee, and it is the most common real claim in solar right now.

The CFPB found lenders including markups that increase the loan principal by 30 percent or more above the cash price, frequently baked into the principal without being indicated as a markup and typically left out of the costs of credit presented to the consumer. Minnesota sued four solar lenders over roughly $35 million in such fees across nearly 5,000 loans. Michigan alleges more than $22 million in financing costs included in system prices without separate disclosure as finance charges, with fees averaging more than 27 percent of the amount financed.

Find your own number first, on the dealer fee page. The gap between the cash price on the installation contract and the principal on the loan agreement is the fact a claim is built around, and it takes ten minutes to establish.

3. You dispute the signature

Michigan’s complaint alleges that financing companies continued to service, collect, report, assign or enforce loans even after consumers reported disputed signatures, deceptive sales practices, failed inspections, missing permits and unsafe conditions.

If a signature on your loan is not yours, stop treating it as a billing dispute. Get it in front of a lawyer quickly, because how you respond to it early shapes everything after.

4. There is an arbitration clause between you and a court

Many of these agreements contain one, and it was put there by the side that wrote the contract. Whether it binds you, what it covers, and whether the claim can proceed anyway are questions with real answers that depend on the wording and your state’s law. You should not have to work that out from a web page, and you should not concede it because a servicer says so.

The Holder Rule: why the lender cannot hide behind the installer

Lenders count on homeowners assuming the finance company is a stranger to what the installer promised. Sometimes it is not.

The FTC Holder Rule, at 16 CFR 433.2, requires certain consumer credit contracts arising from a seller-arranged sale to carry a notice in bold type stating that any holder of the consumer credit contract is subject to all claims and defenses which the debtor could assert against the seller of goods or services obtained with the proceeds, with recovery by the debtor capped at amounts the debtor paid. Treasury lists that rule among the laws applicable to residential solar.

In plain terms: where the notice appears, claims you have against the installer can travel to whoever holds your loan, up to what you have paid in. The cap matters, and so does the exact wording in your own contract, which is why this is the point where a lawyer earns the fee.

Go and look for the notice. It is usually near the signature block, in capitals.

Hourly, contingency, and what to ask

Consumer cases get handled both ways, and which one you are offered tells you how the attorney rates your claim.

Hourly means you pay for time regardless of outcome. Predictable for the lawyer, open-ended for you.

Contingency means the fee comes out of a recovery. A lawyer who offers contingency believes there is money to recover, and that is useful information. It also means no recovery, no fee, though costs can work differently from fees.

We are not publishing typical figures for either, because we could not find a source we would stand behind, and this cluster does not fill gaps from memory. Ask instead, on the first call:

• Is the consultation free, and how long is it?
• Would this be hourly or contingency, and why that one?
• What costs, separate from fees, would I owe if we lost?
• Have you handled solar financing or home improvement finance claims specifically?
• What is the realistic range of outcomes, including the bad ones?

Get the fee agreement in writing before any work begins.

How to find one

Your state bar’s lawyer referral service. Most state bars run one. It is the cleanest way to reach a practicing attorney in the right area without wading through advertising.

Legal aid, if cost is the barrier. Treasury’s solar advisory points consumers to nonprofit legal services through the Legal Services Corporation for cases of fraud, abuse or deception. Eligibility is usually income-based.

Look for the right specialism. Consumer protection and consumer finance. Skip anyone whose pitch is “solar cancellation.” The claim you have is a consumer credit claim that happens to involve panels.

We do not recommend individual firms and we do not take referral fees, which is also why there are no names on this page.

File the complaint anyway

Whatever you decide about counsel, file with your state attorney general, the CFPB and the FTC. It is free, it takes twenty minutes, and it runs independently of any private claim.

On the evidence, it is also what puts pressure on this industry. Minnesota, Michigan and Connecticut all built their files out of complaint volume. A private case can get you relief, and your complaint adds to the record that regulators use against the lenders and sellers who did this to you and to your neighbors.

This is general information, not legal advice, and nothing here creates a lawyer-client relationship. Whether you have a claim depends on your documents and your state’s law, so take the installation contract, the financing paperwork and anything the salesperson gave you to an attorney licensed in your state.