Sungevity Leasing
There has been some investigative reports by the WHDH investigating team on the hidden cost of leasing solar panels. You can watch Hank Phillippi Ryan report on their website.
When we first saw this we were a bit scared since we recently signed a lease agreement with Sungevity. We wondered if we going to encounter some obstacles when we try to get a home equity loan to do some future house work?
The first thing we did was checked our leasing agreement. We found the followings statement that addressed the issue in the WHDH investigative report in Section 2, part B, part 3:
The Solar Facility will not be subject to any lien, security interest, claim, mortgage or deed of trust that may be imposed on or assessed against your interest in the Property, or any other property belonging to you. You will have no right to sell, give away, transfer, pledge, remove, relocate, alter or tamper with the Solar Facility at any time. As such, Sunrun will not apply a lien to your title for the Property.
Looks like we won't run into any issues when we get the home equity loan. As for the the part about them approving the new owners, I am sure that the bank standards would be higher than Sungevity.
If you have solar panels leased from Sungevity or Sunrun you may want to login to your portal and verify that your contact reads the same.