How to Cancel a Solar Lease or Power Purchase Agreement

How do you cancel a solar lease or PPA?

If you signed in the last few days, you cancel a solar lease or PPA by sending written notice inside the cancellation window that your contract and the law give you. After that, how to cancel a solar lease depends on its own terms: a buyout, a transfer to a buyer when you sell, an early termination charge, or a dispute where the company broke the contract or misled you. Cancellation is never automatic; it turns on your contract type, the dates, your state and the facts.

For per-kilowatt-hour pricing, escalators and PPA exit terms in detail, see how to get out of a solar PPA.

What are you cancelling?

A solar lease is a contract to use a system that a company owns and installs on your roof, for a monthly payment. Treasury’s lease guide says that during the term “you’re entitled to use all the power the system produces.” A power purchase agreement (PPA) is a contract to buy the electricity a company-owned system on your roof produces, at a price per kilowatt-hour; under a PPA, the FTC says, “you don’t automatically get all the power it produces.”

Either way, the company owns the system and any tax credit tied to it. Treasury’s advisory says “The tax credits and incentives go to the system’s owner,” and its lease guide calls a pitch that tax credits will cut the cost of leased panels a lie: “With a lease, you don’t own the system, so that claim is a lie.”

Can you cancel inside the cooling-off window?

Cost: nothing. After a valid cancellation the seller has 10 business days to refund what you paid.

Often, because the FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule can apply: its text covers “a sale, lease, or rental of consumer goods or services” solicited away from the seller’s place of business, at $25 or more for a sale at your home. Its required notice gives you until “midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.” Saturdays count, so in the FTC’s example a Friday sale runs to midnight Tuesday.

PPAs are the open question: the rule’s text never mentions them, and no agency has addressed them, though Treasury’s PPA guide says the right to cancel “lasts for at least three days from the date it is signed.” With a PPA, rely on your contract and state law, and send notice inside the shortest window that could apply.

State windows vary and can be longer. Texas gives buyers and lessees five business days for residential solar signed on or after September 1, 2025. Check the state table and the deadline tool, and send the notice in writing by the method your contract and the law require, with a copy the same day to the leasing company or any lender if it isn’t the installer.

Who it works for: anyone who signed recently. What disqualifies you: a closed window or a sale the rule excludes. Our pre-installation cancellation guide covers the notice.

Who holds your lease or PPA now?

Bankruptcies moved many contracts. Sunnova’s Chapter 11 plan (S.D. Tex. No. 25-90160) took effect November 14, 2025, and SunStrong Management took over servicing. SunPower’s plan (D. Del. No. 24-11649) took effect November 14, 2024; its old leases and PPAs went to SunStrong, and the company now using the SunPower name took no interest in leases, PPAs or equipment installed before September 30, 2024. SunStrong tells customers there are no changes to their agreements “aside from any previously expected escalators noted in your contract and/or changes to sales tax.” Sunnova’s sale order says the buyer is not a successor for Sunnova’s warranty liability, and which warranties it assumed is not confirmed.

A June 4, 2026 bankruptcy court opinion dismissed an Arizona homeowner’s motion arguing her SunPower lease was cancelled, for lack of jurisdiction; it did not rule on the lease. Connecticut’s attorney general sent SunStrong a civil investigative demand on February 27, 2026 after about 65 complaints, including that it failed to uphold warranties and didn’t respond to consumers; those are complaints, not findings. More on the bankruptcy page.

What does the leasing company owe you?

Treasury’s lease guide says “The leasing company owns the system and is generally responsible for system maintenance.” For leases and PPAs, California’s utility regulator, the CPUC, says the provider is “responsible for all monitoring, maintenance, and repairs” and that these contracts often carry a minimum production guarantee. Treasury’s consumer advisory tells signers to check whether the contract includes a “performance guaranty” and “how the company will pay if the system doesn’t produce the minimum amount of power.” Fannie Mae will buy a mortgage on a home with leased panels only if the agreement makes the equipment owner responsible for damage from “installation, malfunction, manufacturing defect, or the removal of the solar panels,” so look for that clause.

When the company falls short, write to whoever bills you, cite the clause, attach dates and production figures, and ask for a reply. A broken service promise is a contract problem, and a promise your paperwork contradicts may be misrepresentation. See solar panels not producing.

How do you dispute a lease or PPA?

Cost: postage and time.

Ask the company in writing for what you want: release, a corrected payment or repairs. A dispute is strongest where your documents contradict the pitch, so keep the ads, texts, emails, proposals and production estimates. The Holder Rule applies to consumer credit, capping recovery at “amounts paid by the debtor,” and no agency has applied it to leases or PPAs, so a lease or PPA dispute is with the company that signed you or the one that holds the contract now.

The CFPB’s complaint list doesn’t include solar leases or PPAs, so these complaints go to your state attorney general, the FTC and state agencies. Treasury, the CFPB and the FTC “encourage consumers that believe they have been a victim of unfair or deceptive practices to file a complaint with CFPB, FTC, or their relevant state consumer protection office.” A 2024 CFPB advisory adds that you can “consult an attorney at the same time.”

When should you get a free case review?

Disclosure: Candid Yak works with Titan Advocacy Group, a solar consumer advocacy firm, and may be paid when readers hire it.

When the company refuses in writing and your documents show a gap between what you were promised and what you signed, a free case review from an attorney-backed firm is the route worth taking. A firm that offers one checks your contract, proposal and messages for a deceptive-practices or contract claim and, if it finds one, hands the file to an attorney licensed in your state to raise with the company. Confirm that the firm:

• reviews your contract before quoting a fee, and tells you if a cancellation window, written request or complaint is still open to you;
• names the attorney on your file, licensed in your state and listed with the state bar;
• writes down its fee, and what happens to the fee if the company refuses, before you pay;
• never tells you to stop paying your lease or PPA;
• never promises a result or claims a link to your installer or leasing company.

Who it works for: owners refused in writing whose paperwork shows misrepresentation or a signature they don’t recognize. What disqualifies you: an open window or a contract that matches the pitch.

What other routes does your contract give you?

The FTC warns that “depending on your contract, it may be difficult and expensive for you to end a lease agreement before the end of the term.” It says the contract should state “whether there are early termination fees or other charges if you want to end the contract early,” and whether you can “renew your lease or PPA, buy the system, or have the system removed when the contract ends, and how much those options cost.”

Transfer when you sell

Cost: any transfer fees your contract sets.

California’s regulator says that if you sell before the term ends, “you will have to pay the solar provider the remainder of the value of the lease or PPA or transfer the contract to the new property owner.” The FTC adds that the buyer may have to meet credit requirements or pay fees, and the buyer’s lender looks too. Fannie Mae counts a lease payment in the buyer’s debt-to-income ratio unless the lease delivers a set amount of energy at a fixed payment with a prorated production guarantee, and it treats a “precautionary” UCC filing that lists only the solar equipment as “acceptable (and a minor impediment to title).” See selling a house with a solar lease.

Who it works for: sellers whose buyer qualifies and agrees. What disqualifies you: a buyer who won’t take the contract or can’t qualify.

Buyout or prepayment

Cost: set by your contract. The CPUC warns that “buying out a lease or PPA can cost thousands of dollars.”

At the end of the term, Treasury’s lease guide says to check whether “you are required to purchase the system from the company at ‘fair market value.’” Get the quote in writing with its calculation, and compare it with the payments left using the cost calculator. The buyout page shows how the number is built.

Who it works for: owners with cash. What disqualifies you: a quote above the cost of finishing the term.

Early termination

Cost: the termination charge your contract names.

Treasury tells signers to ask about “exit fees or early termination fees” and lists excessive “termination fees” among warning signs in solar costs. See cancellation fees.

End of term

Agencies describe the ending differently; your contract decides. Treasury’s advisory says you “may be able to purchase it from the company at ‘fair market value.’” The FTC says “the company must remove the system and put your roof back in its original condition.” The CFPB says “the lessor is responsible for uninstalling and removing the panels.”

What will staying cost?

The CFPB’s solar financing spotlight says that while some leases keep a flat payment, “in many cases the payments increase each year by a predetermined amount.” California’s regulator says lease and PPA escalators are “typically in the range of a 1 percent to 3 percent increase above the rate you paid in the previous year” and warns against higher ones. Treasury’s test for any promised savings, best run with the escalated payment: “the combined total of your new electricity bill plus your monthly lease payment should be lower than your current electricity bill.”

What if you stop paying?

The contract doesn’t end. Its default terms apply and the company keeps its claim for the payments, so get professional advice before you change any payment, and read what happens if you stop paying.

How to cancel a solar lease or PPA, in order

1. Inside a cancellation window? Cancel in writing now, by the method the contract and the law require, and send a copy to the leasing company or lender the same day.
2. Identify your contract and every company: lease or PPA, and who installed, owns, services and warranties the system.
3. Ask in writing, and complain for free. The CFPB’s complaint guidance starts with “Have you tried reaching out to the company?” Get the company’s answer in writing, then file with your state attorney general, the FTC and your state consumer protection office.
4. If they refuse, and your documents show a gap between the pitch and the paper, get a free case review from an attorney-backed firm.
5. Other routes: buyout or prepayment, transfer at sale, or early termination on the contract’s terms.

Disclosure: Candid Yak works with Titan Advocacy Group, a solar consumer advocacy firm, and may be paid when readers hire it. This page’s author, Kira Fairbank, is a manager at Vacation Ownership Consultants, a timeshare exit firm.

This is general information, not legal advice. What your lease or PPA allows turns on its own words and your state’s law, so put the contract in front of an attorney licensed in your state before you send a notice, accept a buyout quote, sign a release or change any payment.