Where to search for a solar lien

Where is a solar lien recorded?

In your county's land records, in the same office that records mortgages on the property. A solar lien is usually a UCC-1 fixture filing, andUCC § 9-501sends a fixture filing to the office that records a mortgage on the real property, not to the state's central UCC registry. Most people search the registry, find nothing, and stop.

That is the whole page in four sentences. Everything under it is evidence. We keep rewriting this one because almost every article on solar liens sends people to the wrong office, and a wrong pointer does more damage than no pointer at all. It manufactures confidence. Someone searches the obvious place, gets a clean result, tells their agent the house is clear, and finds out in week six of a closing that it was not.

Why does a clean state UCC search prove nothing?

Because the two searches answer different questions. Every state runs a central UCC index at the Secretary of State for ordinary financing statements, and that index is the first result for "UCC filing search" in any state. A fixture filing is the exception carved out by § 9-501: it goes where mortgages go. A clean central search rules out one thing and says nothing about the other.

A fixture filing exists for a specific reason. When equipment gets bolted to a building it stops being loose property and becomes part of the real estate, so a finance company that wants a claim on it has to file where claims against real estate are recorded, next to the mortgage (UCC § 9-102). Rooftop panels are the textbook case. So the filing lands in the county, sitting in the same index as the mortgage, which is exactly where a mortgage underwriter goes looking.

Which office do you search in your state?

The county office that records deeds and mortgages, whatever your state calls it. Below are the three states where we have read the statute ourselves, plus the rule that covers everywhere else. Names differ by state: recorder, register of deeds, county clerk, clerk of court. The function is identical, and the function is what § 9-501 points at.

Three states, not fifty. We sell in Florida, Texas and Illinois, and those are the three statutes we have pulled up and read. A fifty-row table would rank better and half of it would be guesswork, and the person who needs this page is about to hand it to a title officer. If you are outside those three, the § 9-501 rule still tells you what to ask for: the office that records mortgages in the county where the house sits.

How do you run the search yourself?

Start with your own paperwork, then search the county, then search the state index as a separate question. Most counties have their official records online and searchable by name and by parcel, free. Budget twenty minutes. If your county's site is bad, and some are, the clerk's office will run the search at the counter. There may be a per-page fee for certified copies, which on a first look you do not need.

1. Read your agreement and work out which structure you have. Loan, lease, PPA, subscription. They file different things, or nothing. Do not rely on a salesperson's summary of it, including ours.
2. Search your county's official records by your name as grantor or debtor, and by the property address or parcel number. You are looking for a UCC-1, sometimes indexed as a financing statement or a fixture filing.
3. Search your state's central UCC index too, under your own name. It catches filings against equipment that never became a fixture.
4. Ask the solar company in writing for the lien and UCC status on your account, plus a payoff figure if you financed. In writing. A filing is a document, so the answer about it should be one.
5. If you financed and paid it off years ago, check anyway. Releases are not automatic, and a satisfied loan can leave a live filing sitting in the record.

What do you do if you find a fixture filing?

Start the subordination request immediately, before you list if you can. A fixture filing recorded ahead of the mortgage in priority has to be subordinated before a buyer's loan closes. That isFannie Mae's rule, not your lender being difficult, and it applies whether or not anybody looked for it earlier.

The step is not hard. It is slow. Somebody has to request a document from a finance company that has no stake in your closing date, and that request typically gets made by a title officer two weeks out, at which point everyone panics and blames the panels. It was never the panels. It was a filing nobody went looking for until the lender did (UCC § 9-334is the priority rule underneath it). Start it six weeks out and it is just paperwork.

One thing this page will not do is tell you whether a filing exists on your address. We are not a title company, and we would be guessing. What we can do is name the office that holds the answer and tell you the county search is free, which is the part that usually goes missing.

Which solar structures put anything on the property?

Loans almost always. Leases and PPAs often. Cash and subscriptions, nothing. The structure decides it, not the hardware, which is why two identical roofs on the same street can have completely different title situations.

The honest footnote on that last row, since we sell it. A subscription puts no lien and no UCC filing on your home, and a title search will not show it, because the provider owns the system and there is no debt to secure. What you do have is a contract: a 36-month commitment inside a 10-year agreement, cancelable after month 36 with no fee, with a fixed 1.9% annual increase. That is a term to read, not a cloud on title. Different problem. Still one to work through before you sign, and the cancellation clause is where to start. Check our paperwork the way you would check anyone else's, because a salesperson saying there is no lien is not the same as a record saying it.

Is there a step-by-step guide for your county?

For these counties, yes: the office, the online search, which fields to use and what the county's own site says about it, checked against that site.

• Brazoria County, TX
• Charlotte County, FL
• Collier County, FL
• Fort Bend County, TX
• Galveston County, TX
• Harris County, TX
• Lee County, FL
• Montgomery County, TX

Selling or refinancing soon?

The closing-table version of all of this, structure by structure, is atselling a house with solar. If you are still working out whether your contract created a lien in the first place, start withdo solar panels put a lien on your house. Refinancing has its own wrinkle, covered insolar leases, refinancing and DTI.

Get your number

If you are looking at this because you want solar without adding anything to your title,run your bill through the estimator. It takes about a minute and a real person follows up. Or read how the model works first, including the parts that make it a bad fit.