11.1.1 The seller's solar system doesn't automatically save you money

You need to find out:

• Is the system actually working?
• How much did it save last year?
• Was it bought outright, financed, or leased?
• Even if it was bought outright, does the seller have the original contract, design drawings, and warranty terms?
• When was it installed?
• How long is the warranty coverage?

These questions matter much more than "does the house have solar."

If you skip this before closing, you can end up with persistent headaches — sometimes disputes.

So when buying any U.S. home with solar, always demand the last 12 months of utility bills and review the contract and system documentation. These tell you, qualitatively, whether the system has positive or negative value — and quantitatively, what that value is.

You absolutely want to see utility bills and the solar monitoring app. They reveal whether the system is producing normally, how much it saved over the year, and whether there are anomalous high bills.

We routinely meet new homeowners who only discover after moving in that the solar system has been offline for months. Utility bills normally include 12 months of consumption history or actual amounts paid, plus a usage chart for the recent month and year.

A bill plus monitoring data is to solar what the kitchen remodel and school district are to the home itself. The relevant question is never "does the house have solar" — it's "what is the system worth, positive or negative?" Don't skip the homework. Push the seller until they produce the documents.