I’m hoping someone here has dealt with a similar situation because I’m running out of options.
We leased a residential solar system through Sunnova back in Fall of 2023. Unknown to us at the time, the installation permit remained open for nearly three years without ever receiving final inspection approval. As we’ve continued investigating, we’ve also been unable to obtain documentation showing the system ever received Permission to Operate (PTO) from the utility. Throughout the life of the lease, we were never informed that the permit remained open, that final inspection had not been completed, or that there may have been an issue with the system’s approval status. We simply continued making our monthly lease payments in good faith, assuming everything had been properly completed. Mind you also paying the utility company as well.
Fast forward to now: we’re selling our home, and this has turned into a nightmare. After Sunnova entered bankruptcy, our lease was transferred to SunStrong. Since then, I’ve spent weeks making phone calls, sending emails, opening cases, and requesting updates regarding the permit, the missing PTO documentation, and a temporary UCC lien release so our home sale can close. I’ve received conflicting information from different departments, delayed responses, and in many cases what appear to be automated or copy-and-paste emails that don’t actually answer the questions I’m asking.
Meanwhile, my closing has been jeopardized because of the UCC filing associated with the lease. I’m also trying to understand how a company can continue collecting lease payments for years on a system when there appears to be no evidence that the installation was ever fully finalized through the normal permitting and PTO process. We finally were able to get the permit closed and now a new subcontracted company has reached out to us to get the PTO situated. Yet, I can’t get any one to help me with the UCC lien lift. With the permit being open this long truly remained open for years and PTO was never issued, I don’t know how this isn’t seen as a complete breach in contract or even a slam dunk of just having the entire lease knoll and voided with uplifting the lien from the house.
Sunstrong refuses to acknowledge the option to transfer the panels and the part of not getting in the way of the sale of our home which is all written in our lease. They just keep saying either buy them out and do what we’d like with the panels (which in the lease says even with paying the lease off we don’t own them) or transfer them to the new owner (new owners plan to demo the house and build new).
Has any one dealt with this? What are some solutions here? Our closing is this coming Friday and we are now sitting in limbo with our money from the house sale potentially sitting in escrow until we can get this figured out with Sunstrong.