How to Get Out of a Solar Loan You Can No Longer Afford

How do you get out of a solar loan you can’t afford?

You get out of a solar loan by paying it off, or by using a legal right that cancels it or cuts what you owe. The money can come from savings, a cheaper loan or a home sale; the legal right can come from an open cancellation window, a written dispute showing the loan doesn’t match what you were sold, or the FTC’s Holder Rule, which caps recovery from the lender at what you have paid. Here is how to get out of a solar loan, in order.

Cancellation is never automatic, and whether a loan can be unwound depends on the contract type, the dates, the state where you signed and what happened. For short-term relief instead, see what to do when you can’t afford solar payments.

Why do solar loans get hard to afford?

The CFPB found that “some lenders include substantial markups and fees that can increase the loan principal by 30 percent or more above the cash price,” and that it is “commonplace for solar-specific loans to re-amortize at a higher monthly payment amount at the 19th month of the loan term” unless the borrower prepays, frequently 30 percent of principal, sized to the federal tax credit homeowners could then claim. The IRS says the Residential Clean Energy Credit is “not available for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025.” Our reading: a 2026 installation on that structure has no credit to fund that prepayment. See our pages on dealer fees and payment increases.

How to get out of a solar loan, in order

1. Cancel in writing if a window is still open

Cost: nothing. A valid cancellation gets your money back.

The FTC’s Cooling-Off Rule generally covers a solar sale made at your home and lets you cancel “at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.” Saturdays count, so a Friday sale runs to midnight Tuesday when no federal holiday intervenes. The seller then has 10 business days to refund you and “terminate promptly any security interest created in the transaction.” State windows vary and can be longer: Texas gives five business days for residential solar signed on or after September 1, 2025, and the contract must require a lender the seller is affiliated with or referred you to cancel the loan when you cancel. Check the state table and the deadline tool.

If a loan secured by your home paid for the system, such as a home equity loan, the Truth in Lending Act gives three business days to rescind, extended up to three years if the required notice or key disclosures never arrived. A typical solar loan secured only by the panels usually doesn’t carry that right, because Regulation Z leaves incidental fixture interests out of its definition of a security interest, so check whether your loan is secured by the house.

Who it works for: recent signers, and home-secured borrowers whose disclosures never arrived. Send the notice in writing by the method your contract and the law require, and copy the lender the same day.

What disqualifies you: a closed window, an excluded sale, or a panel-only loan, for rescission.

2. Identify the loan and every company behind it

A solar-specific loan is an installment loan, usually fixed-rate, often offered with the installation contract. The CFPB says some are secured by a lien on the panels and others are unsecured; a home equity loan is secured by the house, and PACE is repaid on your property tax bill.

The installer, the lender, the servicer and the warranty provider can be four companies. On the record: Solar Servicing LLC, a Forbright Bank subsidiary, has serviced Mosaic’s loans since September 22, 2025; Sunlight Financial arranges loans that Cross River Bank and credit unions make; Dividend Finance is a division of Fifth Third Bank.

3. Dispute the loan in writing, and complain for free

Cost: postage and time.

The FTC’s advice: “If you have a problem with a system you bought, try to resolve it with the company first.” Write to the lender, the servicer and the installer saying what is wrong and what you want, such as corrected terms, a refund of an undisclosed fee or release from the loan, and ask for a written answer by a date.

Build the letter from your Truth in Lending disclosure, the box showing the annual percentage rate, finance charge, amount financed, total of payments and payment schedule, set beside the sales proposal. A system that saves less than you hoped isn’t proof anyone lied; a promise your paperwork contradicts is the stronger start. Keep ads, texts, emails, proposals and financing disclosures, and note what the salesperson said and when; see our document checklist and loan terms that differ from the pitch.

Then complain. The CFPB takes solar loan complaints under “Personal loans like installment, advance, and title loans.” 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.” Add your state attorney general and contractor licensing board (where each complaint goes). A 2024 CFPB consumer advisory adds: “You can submit a complaint to multiple places, and you can also consult an attorney at the same time.”

In the Tennessee and Kentucky case over Solar Titan USA, Mosaic agreed in a September 16, 2026 consent judgment to stop collecting at least $303,460.75 in covered debt, file UCC terminations and ask credit bureaus to delete the debt, admitting no liability.

Who it works for: every borrower; the record supports each later step. What disqualifies you: nothing, though a complaint doesn’t change your contract on its own.

Can you hold the lender to what the installer did?

The FTC Holder Rule (16 CFR Part 433) requires a notice in consumer credit contracts arranged through, or tied to, the seller. The notice says any holder “IS SUBJECT TO ALL CLAIMS AND DEFENSES WHICH THE DEBTOR COULD ASSERT AGAINST THE SELLER” and that “RECOVERY HEREUNDER BY THE DEBTOR SHALL NOT EXCEED AMOUNTS PAID BY THE DEBTOR HEREUNDER.”

So a claim against the installer, such as misrepresentation or unfinished work, can be raised against the lender, with recovery capped at what you have paid. The FTC said in January 2022 that the cap doesn’t limit attorney fees and costs awarded under other law. Look for the notice, in capital letters, in your loan agreement.

Who it works for: borrowers whose loan carries the notice and who can document a claim against the installer. What disqualifies you: no notice, a loan with no link to the seller, or disappointment without a claim. No agency has applied the rule to leases or PPAs.

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

4. If the lender refuses, get a free case review

Cost: nothing for the review at a firm that offers it free; any later fee belongs in writing first.

When the lender or installer refuses in writing or ignores you, 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 reads your loan papers, proposal and messages for a cancellation, Truth in Lending, Holder Rule or state deceptive-practices claim, and where one exists an attorney licensed in your state takes it to the lender. In our view, a lender reads a lawyer’s letter differently from a customer-service call.

Check that the firm:

• reads your documents before quoting a fee, and tells you plainly if a free route such as a cancellation window, a written request or a complaint is still open;
• gives you the name of the attorney who will handle the loan dispute, licensed in your state, so you can check the state bar’s records;
• writes down its fee, and what you owe if the lender says no, before you pay anything;
• never tells you to stop paying the loan;
• never promises an outcome or claims a connection to your installer or lender.

Who it works for: borrowers refused in writing whose paperwork shows misrepresentation, missing disclosures or a signature they don’t recognize.

What disqualifies you: an open cancellation window, which you can use yourself, or a loan that matches what you were told. See how attorney-backed firms work and what a real claim looks like.

5. Other routes: payoff, refinance or a sale

Pay off or refinance. Treasury reminds buyers that “You are not required to use the financing offered by the salesperson,” and that your own bank or credit union may do better, which holds for a replacement loan too. Check for prepayment charges first. A refinance changes the rate and term without shrinking a balance a dealer fee inflated, so keep any fee dispute going and ask an attorney whether anything you sign at payoff affects it. A home equity loan makes your house the collateral. Our payoff and refinance guide runs the numbers, and you can compare consolidation loans.

It suits borrowers with cash or good credit; a prepayment charge that erases the savings rules it out.

Sell the house. The CFPB says a seller typically pays off the solar loan before the sale or has the buyer assume it, “if permitted by the lender.” Treasury warns that these liens, “often called UCC-1 liens, can affect whether a prospective buyer will want to purchase your home.” A fixture filing is a UCC financing statement recorded in the county land records that covers the panels; a title search finds it, and it is a separate record from a mortgage, a deed of trust or a PACE assessment. After payoff, the UCC requires a termination statement for consumer goods within one month, or within 20 days of your signed, written demand. It works when your equity covers the mortgage and the solar balance. More on selling a house with solar panels.

Can hardship options help in the meantime?

They buy time. Before you miss a payment, ask the servicer in writing what it offers and how deferred amounts are repaid, and get any change in writing. See short-term relief options.

What happens if you stop paying a solar loan?

The balance stays, and your contract and state law decide what follows: late fees, credit reporting, collection and, on a secured loan, the lender’s right under the UCC to take the panels after default. The UCC’s duty to reimburse the cost of repairing removal damage runs to owners and lienholders of the real estate other than the borrower, so it gives you no right to roof repair. Get professional advice before changing any payment, and read what happens if you stop paying.

The order, in short

1. Inside a cancellation window? Cancel in writing now, by the method your contract and the law require, and send a copy to the lender the same day.
2. Identify your contract and every company: the loan, what secures it, and the installer, lender, servicer and warranty provider.
3. Ask in writing, and complain for free. The FTC says, “If you have a problem with a system you bought, try to resolve it with the company first.” Get the lender’s answer in writing, and file with the CFPB, the FTC, your attorney general and your contractor board.
4. If they refuse, and your documents show a gap between what you were promised and what you signed, get a free case review from an attorney-backed firm.
5. Other routes: payoff or refinance, a sale, and hardship options to stay current meanwhile.

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. Whether a cancellation, Truth in Lending or Holder Rule claim fits your loan turns on your contract, your dates and your state’s law, so put your loan and sales documents in front of an attorney licensed in your state before you send a notice, sign a release or change any payment.