Your solar company went bankrupt. Now what?

Does my solar contract end when the company goes bankrupt?

Not by itself. Under11 U.S.C. § 365, the company in bankruptcy (or its trustee), subject to the court's approval, decides whether to assume or reject each unexpired lease and executory contract. A contract it assumes can then be assigned to someone else, as long as that buyer gives adequate assurance it will perform.

Put plainly, your lease or PPA is an asset. It is a stream of monthly payments attached to equipment the company owns, and the Code has a mechanism for selling exactly that kind of asset with the contracts still attached. If the company rejects the contract instead, § 365(g) calls that a breach of the contract. A breach is not the same thing as the contract never having existed, and what it means for your payments and your roof depends on the wording in your agreement and on what the court orders. That part is a question for a bankruptcy lawyer, not for a web page, including this one.

Two filings look different on the docket.Chapter 11is a reorganization: the company usually keeps running as the debtor in possession while it sorts out its contracts.Chapter 7is a liquidation: a trustee is appointed to sell what the company owns and pay creditors, and the court can let the trustee run the business for a limited time if that helps the sale.

How do I find out who holds my contract now?

Check two records: your county's land records and the bankruptcy court docket. The county record shows who filed against the system on your roof. The docket shows who the court approved to take over the contracts, if anyone has been approved yet.

Start with the county. A financing statement has to name the secured party or its representative (UCC § 9-502), and a lessor is allowed to file one using the words lessor and lessee (§ 9-505). When a solar filing exists, it sits in the county office that records mortgages, not in the state's central UCC index. Our page onwhere to search for a solar lien names the office in Florida, Texas and Illinois and walks through the search.

Then look for anything filed after it. Under§ 9-514, a secured party may record an assignment by filing an amendment that names the new holder and its mailing address. Note the word may. Plenty of assignments never get recorded, so a record with no amendment does not prove your contract stayed put. If you are not sure what a fixture filing is or whether your structure creates one, start withdo solar panels put a lien on your house.

The docket is the second half. A sale outside the ordinary course of business happens after notice and a hearing (§ 363(b)), so a sale of a contract portfolio leaves a paper trail. You can read it yourself throughPACER, which charges 10 cents a page, capped at $3.00 a document, and waives the fee for anyone under $30 in a quarter. Search by the company's name in the PACER Case Locator if you do not know which court it filed in.

Should I keep paying?

Keep paying the party your paperwork names until the party the court approved tells you otherwise, in writing. Stopping on a rumor, a news story or a phone call is how people end up in default on a contract that was sold, not cancelled.

Keep proof of every payment. If a notice arrives telling you to pay someone new, check the new name against the docket before you change anything, and call the old servicer on the number printed on your own statement, not the number in the notice. A real transfer holds up to both checks.

One thing not to do: take the panels down yourself or disconnect them to make a point. If the company owns the system, the bankruptcy filing stays any act to take possession of or exercise control over property of the estate (11 U.S.C. § 362(a)(3)). Whether that reaches your situation is a lawyer's call. Make the call before you pick up a wrench.

What happens to my warranty and monitoring?

It depends on who made the promise. A solar system usually carries two different kinds of warranty: one on the equipment, like panels and inverters, and one on the installation workmanship. The FTC lists them separately in itsguide to home solar, and the difference decides who you call now.

The workmanship warranty is the installer's promise. If the installer is the company in bankruptcy, that promise is only as good as whatever happens to it in the case, and you should plan as though nobody will come out to fix a leak around a roof penetration on the old terms. The equipment warranty is different. The FTC notes your equipment may be covered by a manufacturer's warranty, and that promise comes from whoever made the panels or the inverter, a separate company that did not file. Dig out the model numbers and the manufacturer warranty documents now, while it is not an emergency.

Then there is monitoring. If your production app or monitoring service ran through the company that filed, check whether it still reports, and write down your production numbers while it does. If you lease or have a PPA, maintenance was the company's job under the contract, and what happens to that obligation follows whatever happens to the contract itself.

In Illinois, customers in the state's solar incentive program have a specific resource. Illinois Shines keeps astranded customer pagefor people whose vendor went out of business, with a shortlist of installers willing to take on stranded projects, and it tells customers to contact the manufacturer or installer about warranty problems.

I have a solar loan. Does the installer's bankruptcy change it?

Look at who your loan is with. It is usually a lender, not the installer. Solar loans are often made by a lender working with the installer at the point of sale, so the sale, the installation and the financing blend into one conversation at the kitchen table. Felt like one company. Was two. The CFPB describes the arrangement in itsreport on solar financing.

If you own the system with a loan, the installer filing for bankruptcy is a different event from anything happening to your lender. Read your loan agreement for the lender's name, keep paying it, and ask the lender in writing whether anything about your account has changed. If the installer left work unfinished, that is a claim against the installer, and the next section covers what to do with it.

When should I file a proof of claim?

Only if the company owes you money. A proof of claim is the form a creditor files to show what the company owed on the date it filed for bankruptcy. A creditor, in the court's own definition, is someone the company owed a debt to on or before that date. The form isOfficial Form 410, and its instructions are worth reading before you fill it in. A deposit for a system never installed, a refund you were promised, or an unpaid performance guarantee are the kinds of thing that make you a creditor. Owing the company money does not.

The form is filed in the district where the case is pending, using the debtor's name and case number as shown on the bankruptcy notice you received. Whether you need to file at all depends on the case. In Chapter 11, a creditor whose claim is not listed in the company's schedules, or is listed as disputed, contingent or unliquidated, generally has to file to be treated as a creditor. In a typical no-asset Chapter 7, there is no need, because there will be no distribution. Watch the deadline in your notice.

The bankruptcy also changes where you can pursue the company. The filing stays actions against the debtor to recover a claim that arose before the case started (§ 362(a)(1)), so a small-claims suit you were planning is likely on hold. Ask a bankruptcy lawyer how that applies to your claim.

How do I spot a fake new servicer?

Assume the first unexpected call is a scam until you have checked it yourself. A company in the news for a bankruptcy is exactly the kind of name scammers borrow. The FTC's four signs fit this situation well: they pretend to be a business you know, they say there is a problem, they pressure you to act now, and they insist you pay a specific way, like a wire, a payment app, a gift card or cryptocurrency (FTC).

What a real transfer looks like: a written notice, a new name you can find on the court docket, and a payment method that looks like the one you already use. What a fake one looks like: a call, a threat of shutoff or default, and a new account number to send money to today. Look up the phone number yourself. Do not call the number the message gave you.

Some of the unexpected mail will be legal, just not in your interest. If you do have a claim, you may get letters from firms offering to buy it for less than face value. The court's own instructions warn that these can look like official court mail, that these firms do not represent the court, the trustee or the debtor, and that you have no obligation to sell. If something smells wrong, report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov and to your state attorney general, the two places theFTC's solar guidepoints people.

What we would do in your shoes

1. Find your agreement and write down who the counterparty is. It may not be the name on the truck.
2. Search your county's records for a fixture filing and any later amendment.
3. Look up the case on PACER and read the notice of any sale.
4. Keep paying the party of record, and keep proof.
5. Pull the manufacturer warranty papers and model numbers for the panels and inverter.
6. File a proof of claim only if the company owes you money, before the deadline.
7. Treat every new payment instruction as unverified until the docket and your own statement agree.

If you want help reading what your contract says about assignment and transfer, paste it into oursolar contract checker. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded. And if your plan was to get out of the contract entirely,how to cancel a solar contract covers what each structure allows.

Does this apply to a solar subscription too?

Yes, and we sell one, so here is the honest version. A subscription puts no lien on your house, so there is no county filing to look up and nothing to subordinate at a sale. But the rest of this page still applies: the provider owns the system, the agreement is a contract, and the question of who holds it after a sale or a bankruptcy is answered by the agreement's assignment clause. Ask any provider, including us, to show you that clause before you sign.