Selling my home with Owned Solar

[Njscott]

I am selling my NJ home which has a higher end purchased solar system just about 2 years old. LG panels, micro inverters, and getting me 12+ SRECs a year.

Can I sell the house and keep the SRECs, and if so, how? What paperwork needs to be signed by the new owner?

Thank you.

[Sunking]

It would have to be part of the sales contract and negotiated in the sales price. But no buyer would ever do something stupid like that. You are going to loose a lot of money, get use to it.

[Ian S]

I am selling my NJ home which has a higher end purchased solar system just about 2 years old. LG panels, micro inverters, and getting me 12+ SRECs a year.

Can I sell the house and keep the SRECs, and if so, how? What paperwork needs to be signed by the new owner?

Thank you.

I suppose anything's possible but I would suspect that ownership of the SRECs goes with ownership of the solar system. In any event, a home buyer would have to be very foolish to sign away rights to something that valuable without also expecting a commensurate reduction in the purchase price of the home.

[Njscott]

Thank you

Just looking for some facts to try to leverage them for a better sale price.

[Sunking]

Thank you

Just looking for some facts to try to leverage them for a better sale price.

That is the problem, you don't have much if any leverage. Just having solar scared away a lot of potential buyers. What remains would be run off if you tired to keep the credits. Hope you paid cash for the solar and/or paid cash or big down payment for the house. Otherwise you might be upside down and the one writing the check at Closing. Hope that is not the case.

Edit just thinking out loud and sharing some experience. If you find yourself upside down, don't want to take a loss. and must relocated; have you considered leasing the house out until economics change? Most who do that usually generate a positive cash flow or at least break even. Say your payments are $1500/month and lease it for $1700/month. The system and SREC's are still yours.

[donald]

Don't know about the SRECs. But a new, owned system should be attractive to many buyers. It's the PPA/lease/contract purchase that is the problem.

Telling a potential buyer they must assume a obligation to solarcity or similiar is where sellers will increasingly run into problems.

[paul65k]

As a licensed Realtor in a heavily Solar friendly environment with many homes here equipped as well as a solar owner myself I can offer the following observatons;

1. A owned Solar system will typically make a home more desirable when selling and we are seeing an approx. $10k value on a system which is generating 90-100% of annual household needs.......this represents approx. 40% of the cost of a new system before FTC and ~60-65% of the net cost of a new system.
2. Leased Systems typically add no value to the transaction and in all honesty add a level of confusion to the transaction that many agents would rather not deal with and may (I can't say for sure) be directing clients to other properties.....I don't as I understand a little more about how this works than the average bear and we look at the specifics of a given lease and make a decision from there.

An added dynamic of leased systems is that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae loans can not be written for a purchase on a home with an existing leased system unless the leasing company agrees to remove any liens or Loan positions, even though it is acceptable to reinstate these encumbrances after the new loan is in place......this can be dicey based on the leasing company.

And on the last position of the credits passing through to you after sale.....In my case at least the agreement I have with the power company is tied to the property and it specifically transfers with the property......this is in both AZ and CA but I can't speak to NJ............hope this helps at least a little