Consumer Solar Audit Site v3

Independent Forensic Contract Review · Not a law firm

Let's find out what your paperwork actually says.

A lawyer working on contingency usually reads only the contracts they think they can win. We are paid to read yours either way — which is why we can tell you when there is nothing wrong with it.

Complaints to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau referencing solar rose from 18 in 2016 to 778 in 2025. Through August 14, 2026, another 648 have been filed. We produce one thing: a written findings report on your solar contract — and we will tell you when a free option handles it instead, or when there is nothing there at all.

Send us what you have and we'll read it. No charge. Try the six free options first.

Prefer to write? Email anthony@consumersolaraudit.com — everything in writing, so nothing gets lost. Or call (405) 985-2908. We will not call you unless you ask.

◆ Fee for the work, not the result ◆ Free options shown before any price ◆ One published price, never discounted ◆ 50-state coverage
10–30%
Dealer Fee Range Documented By The CFPB
2,679
Federal Complaints On Record

Dealer fee range: CFPB Issue Spotlight, Solar Financing, Aug 7 2024. Complaint count: CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, retrieved Aug 14 2026, search term "solar", 2016 through Aug 14 2026.

Eleven Years Of Federal Data

This is not anecdotal. It is a federal database.

We queried the CFPB Consumer Complaint Database directly on August 14, 2026. This is what came back.

Consumer complaints to the CFPB referencing solar, 2016–2026

2026 shown through August 14 only — the year is not finished.

CFPB Consumer Complaint Database, retrieved August 14, 2026. Search term "solar", all fields. Approximately 81% of complaints in this window carry a public narrative, so keyword matching undercounts true volume — this is a floor, not a ceiling.

View as table
YearComplaints
43×

Increase 2016 → 2025

+84%

In 2025 Alone

≈1,047

2026 Run Rate

Arithmetic on the CFPB series above: 778 ÷ 18 ≈ 43; (778 − 422) ÷ 422 ≈ 84%; 648 complaints in 226 days annualised ≈ 1,047. Illustrative of direction, not a forecast.

The Briefing

Six things worth knowing if you have solar on your roof.

Every item below is sourced to a federal regulator, a national laboratory, a state attorney general, a rating agency, or a mortgage underwriting rulebook. None of it is our opinion.

The fee you were never shown

The CFPB found dealer fees running 10% to 30% of the cash price — and sometimes above 50%. Its own worked example: a $9,000 fee on a $30,000 project. That fee is financed at your APR, for up to 25 years.

A federal regulator, a Department of Energy national laboratory, a state attorney general and a bill introduced in Congress each describe the same range.

CFPB Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing, Aug 7 2024 · LBNL Tracking the Sun 2024 · Minnesota AG, Mar 8 2024 · Sunshine on Solar Lending Act, Jul 17 2025.

The paper is failing faster than the panels

At 24 months, solar loan securitizations show cumulative gross losses of 1.5–6%. Solar lease securitizations: 0.5–2%. Same panels. Same roofs. Same sun.

The difference is the contract. The bond market repriced this well before any homeowner was told.

KBRA, "Residential Solar ABS: Performance Divergence Between Loan and Lease Structures," Mar 31 2026; KBRA US Solar Loan ABS Index, Mar 2026.

Nobody is answering the phone

SunPower filed Chapter 11 in August 2024. Solar Mosaic — $15 billion in loans to 500,000+ households — filed June 6, 2025. Sunnova, $10.67 billion in debt, filed three days later.

The administrator that inherited the SunPower and Sunnova contracts is now itself under a Connecticut AG civil investigative demand over warranty non-compliance.

Canary Media, Jun 11 2025 · EnergySage, Jun 9 2025 · Connecticut AG, Feb 27 2026.

The math changed after you signed

Net metering export credits in California fell roughly 75% under NEM 3.0. US electricity prices rose 13% from 2022 to 2025. The Section 25D tax credit expired in December 2025.

Three separate changes, all in the wrong direction. Your payment did not move.

EnergySage analysis, Aug 25 2023 (not a CPUC figure) · US EIA, May 14 2025 · SEIA Q2 2026; DC OAG, Sep 15 2025.

There may be a filing against your property

Fannie Mae's own rulebook: "If a UCC fixture filing is in the land records as a priority senior to the mortgage loan, it must be subordinated." PACE-financed solar makes a property ineligible unless paid in full at closing.

Most homeowners find out from a title company, mid-escrow, with a closing date already set.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-04, version dated October 8, 2025.

The marketing went where protection was thinnest

Between 2021 and 2023, 8.4 million solar financing mailers went out. 2.8 million — 34% — went to adults aged 60 and older. Median adopter income fell from $140,000 to $117,000.

The DC Attorney General named the targets: low-to-moderate income homeowners, seniors, and residents who do not speak English as a first language.

CFPB Issue Spotlight, Aug 2024 · LBNL via CFPB · DC Office of the Attorney General, Sep 15 2025.

Point Four, In One Picture

Squeezed from both ends. The payment never moved.

What happened to the savings math after the contract was signed

Indexed to 100 at the point of sale. Two verified changes, opposite directions, one fixed obligation.

Export credit: EnergySage analysis of California NEM 3.0, August 25, 2023 — approximately 75% reduction; this is a reputable secondary analysis, not a CPUC figure. Retail electricity price: US Energy Information Administration, May 14, 2025 — nominal US average forecast +13% from 2022 to 2025. Loan payment held flat by contract. Indexing is arithmetic on those verified inputs and is illustrative of direction and relative magnitude, not of any individual contract.

Point Two

It is the paper, not the panels.

Rating agency KBRA tracked eight vintage years of solar securitizations. At 24 months of seasoning, loan-backed deals lose three times what lease-backed deals lose.

Same hardware. Same installers. Same weather. The only variable that changed is the document the homeowner signed.

KBRA's rating stability ratio tells the same story: 83.6% for loans — roughly one in six ratings migrated — against 98% for leases.

KBRA, "Residential Solar ABS: Performance Divergence Between Loan and Lease Structures," March 31, 2026. Cumulative gross loss ranges, 2018–2025 vintages at 24 months seasoning.

Cumulative gross loss at 24 months

Range across 2018–2025 vintages

Point Five

The rulebook that can hold up a closing.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-04 · version dated October 8, 2025

"If a UCC fixture filing is in the land records as a priority senior to the mortgage loan, it must be subordinated."

And separately: properties with solar financed by a PACE loan are not eligible for delivery to Fannie Mae unless that loan is paid in full prior to or at closing. Lenders must run a UCC search whenever panel ownership is unclear.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-04, Special Property Eligibility Considerations.

When you go to sell the house, if you don't pay off this system, the buyer has to qualify not just for buying the house, but also for this lease. It can knock out some potential buyers.
John Bulik · Realtor, Denver · Yahoo Finance, Jan 18 2026
I've never met a buyer that's thrilled about picking up somebody else's lease.
Kip Barnard · Realtor, San Jose · Yahoo Finance, Jan 18 2026

◆ A number that cuts against us

Homes with solar sell for a 6.9% premium.

That is real, and we are not going to hide it. It applies to systems the homeowner owns outright.

The problem in this section is not solar. It is a senior lien, an unassumable lease, or a PACE assessment standing between a seller and a closing date. If you own your system free and clear, this section does not describe you, and you should stop reading it.

2025 Zillow data analysis by SolarReviews, via Yahoo Finance, January 18, 2026.

Point Six

8.4 million letters. Where 2.8 million went.

CFPB Issue Spotlight: Solar Financing, August 7, 2024. Solar-financing mail advertising sent to US adults, 2021–2023. 62% of the mail targeted at older adults bundled additional home-improvement offers. Separately, 44% of older homeowners with solar used financing, against 36% of homeowners aged 18–59.

residents in Wards 4, 5, 7, and 8, including low-to-moderate income homeowners, seniors, and residents who do not speak English as their first language
DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb, naming the targets · Sep 15 2025

A 25-year contract signed at 78 matures when that homeowner is 103.

Prefer to write? Email anthony@consumersolaraudit.com — everything in writing, so nothing gets lost. Or call (405) 985-2908. We will not call you unless you ask.

Everything, Stacked

If you have a solar loan on your roof today.

A fee of 10–30%, sometimes over 50%, may be financed inside your principal.

CFPB Issue Spotlight, Aug 2024

Complaints are up 43-fold and still accelerating.

CFPB database, retrieved Aug 14 2026

The bond market has already marked the paper down.

KBRA, Mar 2026

The company that warranted it may be in Chapter 11.

Mosaic · Sunnova · SunPower — as cited above

The export credit fell ~75% and your utility rate rose 13%.

EnergySage, Aug 2023 · EIA, May 2025

The tax credit the payment assumed expired in December 2025.

SEIA Q2 2026 · DC OAG, Sep 2025

There may be a filing in your county land records that must be cleared before your home can be sold or refinanced.

Fannie Mae B2-3-04, Oct 2025

Before You Pay Anyone Anything

Six things to try first. They cost nothing.

Some of you should do these six things and never speak to us again. If that solves it, that is the correct outcome and it costs you nothing. We would rather tell you now than take your money for something you could have done yourself.

Free · 01

File with your state attorney general

Attorneys general act on patterns across many contracts. Minnesota, Connecticut and the District of Columbia have filed or opened solar matters; several other states have active inquiries.

Minnesota AG, Mar 8 2024 · Connecticut AG, Feb 27 2026 · DC OAG, Sep 15 2025.

Free · 02

File a CFPB complaint

Companies must respond in the database. Your complaint is added to the 2,679-complaint public record cited on this page.

Free · 03

Demand your complete loan file in writing

Every disclosure, the signed contract, the dealer fee, and the cash price. You are entitled to ask for all of it.

Free · 04

Run a UCC search in your county land records

Many counties allow this free online. Find out whether a filing exists before a title company finds it for you at closing.

Free · 05

Call legal aid or your bar referral service

For some households this is free representation. It costs one phone call to find out.

Free · 06

If you are inside your cancellation window, write today

Three days in most states. Five in California. Seven for California seniors, on contracts signed from Jan 1, 2026. Send written notice. Do not call.

When free is not enough

The honest version: a complaint is a record, not a representative. Attorneys general act on patterns, not on your individual contract, and on their timetable. A UCC search tells you a filing exists — not whether it was authorized or properly perfected. And many consumer attorneys work on contingency, which means they cannot afford to read files that may show no violation; a file that has already been read and documented is usually the one that gets looked at.

The gap is often not legal representation. It is the written finding that has to exist before anyone can act — including you.

Prefer to write? Email anthony@consumersolaraudit.com — everything in writing, so nothing gets lost. Or call (405) 985-2908. We will not call you unless you ask.

Buying Criteria

Six questions to ask anyone who offers to review your contract. Including us.

Every one of these maps to a warning sign that appears in the public record for this category. Apply all six, to everyone, including us.

Question 01

Will you tell me in writing what you will deliver — and what you will not?

A defined deliverable is verifiable. A promised outcome is not. Anyone who guarantees your contract will be cancelled is telling you something they cannot know. Walk away.

Question 02

If you say a lawyer is involved, can you name them and give me their bar number?

A real bar number can be verified by you in a few minutes on your state bar's website. If no lawyer is involved, they should say so plainly — and so should we.

Question 03

Did you tell me about the free options before you quoted me a price?

If not, ask why not.

Question 04

Is your fee for the work, or for the result?

Both models can be legitimate. But you are entitled to know which one you are buying, in writing, before you pay anything.

Question 05

Are you pressuring me to decide today?

A manufactured deadline is one of the clearest warning signs in this category. A real deadline comes from a statute or a closing date, and it can be shown to you on paper.

Question 06

Did you come to me, or did I come to you?

The original sales pitch arrived at the door, on the phone, and in the mail — 8.4 million pieces of it. Be more skeptical of anyone who found you than of anyone you found — and if that is us, apply every question on this page to us with full force.

Only Now Do We Introduce Ourselves

We spent a week building a case against an installer. Then we killed it ourselves.

On our first complete file, we built a theory that the installer had worked without a valid licence. It was the strongest finding in the matter. Then we pulled the state contractor board's record. The licence was valid.

We killed our own finding and printed it in bold on page one of the client's report, where an attorney would see it first.

That is what you are actually buying. Anyone can hand you a list of everything wrong with your contract. The question — the only question, for somebody who has already been told once what they wanted to hear — is whether we would tell you when something wasn't. An audit that can only find problems isn't an audit. It's an argument with a price on it.

We produce one thing: a findings report.

◆ What we do

  • Obtain and reconstruct the complete contract and disclosure file
  • Establish the cash price, the financed price, and the dealer fee in dollars
  • Compare the disclosures in your file with what TILA / Regulation Z and your state's home-solicitation-sale law require to be shown, and list the gaps as questions for a lawyer
  • Search county land records for UCC-1 filings and determine their character and authorization
  • Deliver a written findings report you own outright — including a written clean finding if that is the honest result
  • Where findings support it, refer you to independent licensed counsel in your state — you engage them, not us

◆ What we do not do

  • We do not guarantee cancellation
  • We do not guarantee recovery
  • We are not your attorney and we do not give legal advice
  • We do not contact your lender, negotiate for you, or tell you to stop paying anything
  • We do not conclude that any law has been broken — we report what the documents say

An audit cannot promise your loan will be cancelled. It cannot promise a dollar recovery. It cannot make a lender do anything. It can only establish what is true about your contract, in writing, to a standard an attorney, an attorney general, or a court can use.

Anyone who promises you more than that is selling you the same thing the person at your door sold you.

Two things. One price. Nothing else.

The Rapid Review is free. The audit is $2,995.

The Rapid Review is free — for everyone, no qualification. If it finds something worth documenting, the Forensic Contract Audit is $2,995. One price, in writing, before you decide.

Step one · everyone, always

Rapid Review

$0 No fee is charged, requested, or held at any point.

A first read of whatever documents you already have, written back to you as a one-to-two page letter that says which of three things is true:

  • There is nothing here. Your paperwork says what you were told. Stop spending money on this — including with us.
  • A free option handles it. Which one, the phone number, and what to say.
  • A written record would establish something. Two documents disagree, a payment rises in a given month, a filing exists — and here is what building that record costs.

Every line is tagged document seen, client reported, or not in what you sent. It does not say a law was broken, does not compute a deadline, and does not mention any price other than the one on this page.

Send us what you have and we'll read it. No charge.

Step two · only if the Rapid Review says it is worth building

Forensic Contract Audit

$2,995 One published price. It does not change. Fee for the work, not the result.

Every executed document read side by side against twelve months of your utility statements, with every finding labelled document-verified or unverified on its face — including the theories we tested and threw out. You receive:

  1. Initial Findings Report
  2. One-Page Summary for counsel
  3. 12-month Utility Bill Analysis
  4. 90-day Action Plan & dated calendar
  5. UCC-1 & Lien Playbook
  6. Lender letter pack (client-signed)
  7. AG / CFPB complaint playbook
  8. Attorney-Ready Package with cover letter
  9. Recorded-intake findings
  10. Production-data recovery letters, incl. utility permission-to-operate request
  11. Servicer-call prep sheet
  12. Seven large-print client manuals
  13. A 30-minute delivery walkthrough
  14. A "we found nothing" report, if that is the honest result
  15. Large-print edition of the report

Delivery Guarantee

Your report is in your hands within 15 business days of the day we receive your complete documents. If it is late by a single day, you pay nothing and keep the report. If any factual finding in it is wrong, we correct it and reissue within 5 business days, or refund you in full — your choice.

◆ If we find nothing

A clean file gets a written clean finding — in writing, delivered, at full effort: what we tested, what held, what to keep, and when to look again. That is the deliverable working correctly, not failing. You are paying for a written answer, whichever way it comes out.

No discounts, no tiers, no add-ons, no deadlines from us. The engagement agreement carries a three-business-day right to cancel for any reason. Read it with someone you trust. See our Refund & Cancellation Policy.

We answer our own six questions

The questionOur answer
01 · Deliverable in writing?Yes. The deliverable list is above, the scope of work is signed before any payment, and the Rapid Review is a written letter.
02 · Is a lawyer involved, and can I verify them?We are not a law firm and no attorney works for us. Where findings support it we refer you to independent licensed counsel in your state; you engage them directly and verify their bar number yourself before you do.
03 · Free options disclosed first?You saw them before you saw our name.
04 · Fee for the work or the result?For the work. The audit is a document. We do not price outcomes, and we take no part of any attorney's fee.
05 · Deadline pressure?Only real ones. If you have a closing date or a statutory deadline we will show you the document that creates it. Otherwise there is no deadline and we will not invent one.
06 · Who found whom?Sometimes you find us; sometimes we do field work in your area and come to you. Either way the free options come first and the price is the one on this page. If we came to you, apply question six to us with full force.

Prefer to write? Email anthony@consumersolaraudit.com — everything in writing, so nothing gets lost. Or call (405) 985-2908. We will not call you unless you ask.

Qualification

We turn people away. Here is who.

◆ You are probably a fit if

  • You have a solar loan, lease or PPA and something about it does not match what you were told
  • There is a closing or refinance and a lien or lease is in the way
  • The installer or lender has filed for bankruptcy
  • A parent or family member signed something you do not believe they understood
  • The payment stepped up and nobody has explained why
  • The system has never worked as represented

◆ You are probably NOT a fit if

  • You are still inside your cancellation window — send written notice today, at no cost
  • You are satisfied with your system and your bill
  • You want a guaranteed outcome — no honest provider can sell you one
  • Free options have not been tried and your situation is straightforward

The Next Step

Step one is the free Rapid Review. It is not the audit.

Send us what you have. We read it and write back one of three answers — nothing here, a free option handles it, or a written record would establish something and here is what that costs. There is no charge and no obligation.

Answer 01

There is nothing here. Stop spending money on it.

Answer 02

A free path handles it. Here is exactly which one, and how.

Answer 03

There is something a written record would establish. Here is what it costs — $2,995, in writing — before you decide.

Bring: the signed agreement (not just statements), your last two loan statements, one recent utility bill, and anything you were handed at the door. Photos from your phone are fine.

About you
We will not call you unless you ask. Texts only if you tick the box below.
About the contract
The signed agreement, your last two loan statements, one recent electric bill, anything from the door. If uploading is hard, skip this and we will email you a way to send them.
Is a family member helping you? (optional)

Show this to your son or daughter. We would rather explain it to all of you at once.

Your consent
Try the six free options first.

No cost to start. Nobody calls unless you ask. Your review is written back to you as a letter; the only price on this page is $2,995, and we mention it only if there is something worth building.

Prefer to write? Email anthony@consumersolaraudit.com — everything in writing, so nothing gets lost. Or call (405) 985-2908. We will not call you unless you ask.