Purchased a home with PrePaid Lease

[cebury]

I almost pulled the trigger on the exact same lease Ian had for Sunpower panels at < $3/watt ish back in 2009, but mine was in CA and we didn't have any state and local incentives Ian had the brought his price down to around $1. Most of the ones I saw in my area from 2011 to 2015 were as a Ian described. So a Solar city prepaid may be an excellent deal as we would expect.

[Six4KilowWatt]

It's your house...get them to either sell the system outright, or no deal. Oh and don't let them take their property off of your house...Make them pay you to have them removed. I really hate Solar Leasing, they milk the government and screw customers.

There is nothing good about not owning your own components. Customer service is merely a promise. Nobody is coming to fix your stuff until then can get the cheapest unqualified third party contractor to do the job.

[Ian S]

It's your house...get them to either sell the system outright, or no deal. Oh and don't let them take their property off of your house...Make them pay you to have them removed. I really hate Solar Leasing, they milk the government and screw customers.

There is nothing good about not owning your own components. Customer service is merely a promise. Nobody is coming to fix your stuff until then can get the cheapest unqualified third party contractor to do the job.

IMHO, you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to a prepaid lease and consequently are giving crappy advice based on that lack of knowledge.

[J.P.M.]

IMHO, you don't know what you're talking about when it comes to a prepaid lease and consequently are giving crappy advice based on that lack of knowledge.

I agree with Ian that the information 6FourKilowWattt offers is a bit off the mark, and maybe not the best or most complete. If the lease really is prepaid, again, I'd read the contract very carefully, and then read the terms of the sale of the house and proceed according. I'd think a prepaid lease has 20 yrs. to run, but that may indeed apply to the leasee staying put, with the deal not transferrable to any new homeowners unless by written agreement with the lessor, at least for the prepaid leases I've seen. People peddling the leases and those buying the bundled leases from the peddlers are not as shortsighted and/or ignorant as most of those users signing the leases. Read the contract from the lessor's vantage point. The contracts are always in favor of the lessor.

On the general topic of prepaid leases, while not quite as onerous as the monthly variety, they're still leases and therefore not as good a deal as owning unless when used in somewhat specialized or unusual situations, both from a cost effective and long term PITA standpoint. For most folks, leases are still a trap used to snare the solar ignorant and fiscally short sighted.

Not many folks got Ian's sweetheart deal. Most get screwed in a lease and never know it. That deal was so good, I might have considered it.

Ian: I you shoulda' bought a few lottery tickets the day you found that deal and then taken the horseshoe of of your butt.