Updated August 25, 2026. Quick answer: “The lease just transfers with the house” is the part of the sale that goes wrong. The lessor’s own SEC filing says the transfer is conditional on the buyer’s credit, that you may have to prepay to make it work, and that if it does not work the company can look back to you.
What the contract actually promises
Sunrun’s annual report: “If a customer sells his or her home, the customer has the right to purchase the system or assign the Customer Agreement to the new homeowner, provided the new homeowner meets our credit requirements and agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of the Customer Agreement.”
Every clause after “provided” is a condition on someone who has not signed anything yet. Your buyer has to qualify, and your buyer has to accept a 20-year obligation that was priced for you.
The two ways it fails
The first is price. The company notes the seller “may prepay all or a portion of the remaining payments due under the Customer Agreement to lower or eliminate the monthly rate to be paid by the new homeowner” – which is the polite description of a seller writing a cheque at closing to make the panels acceptable to the buyer.
The second is the fallback: “If the customer fails to purchase the system or assign the Customer Agreement to a new homeowner, we may negotiate directly with the new homeowner to transfer the Customer Agreement” – and, in the same sentence, may look to the original customer. Selling the house does not by itself end the obligation.
What the buyer’s lender adds
Fannie Mae requires that a lender be able to “become, without payment of any transfer or similar fee, the beneficiary of the borrower’s lease/agreement with the third party”. And for separately financed panels, they “must not contribute to the value of the property unless the related documents indicate the panels cannot be repossessed in the event of default.”
That is why a leased array can reduce what a buyer’s lender will lend against the house even when the panels are working perfectly.
Before you list
Get the transfer terms from the lessor in writing, along with the prepayment figure that would make the payment acceptable to a buyer, and the credit standard the buyer must meet. Those three numbers belong in the listing conversation, not in the closing week.
What this page does not settle
Scope: the terms quoted are Sunrun’s, from its most recent Form 10-K, and other lessors differ – your own agreement governs. What happens to a solar lease in probate, or how an estate handles one, could NOT be verified from a primary source and is deliberately not published here; do not read the sale case as an answer to the death case.
Sources
- Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-04, Properties with Solar Panels — https://selling-guide.fanniemae.com/sel/b2-3-04/special-property-eligibility-considerations
- Sunrun Inc., Form 10-K for FY2025 — https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1469367/000162828026012289/run-20251231.htm
Related: UCC-1 Filings on Solar Panels · Solar Lease Escalator Clauses · what other liens on a home cost.
General information drawn from the primary statutes, regulations and filings named above, not legal, tax or financial advice. Read your own governing documents or contract before relying on any general description, including this one.