Consumer Protection: California Adds New Guide to Solar contracts

Oct 2, 2019 01:53 PM ET

California is backpedaling to regulate the way solar is sold to potential buyers. Starting October 1, contractors are required to include the Solar Protection Guide to their contracts.

It’s a 23-page guide about how to stay protected while purchasing solar panels. The first four pages must be signed at the bottom by the buyer, ensuring they read it.

“It’s a budding and emerging industry and there’s a lot of areas there where people that aren’t as ethical can actually take advantage of people,” Nate Otto, president of Hot Purple Energy, said.

Kathy Owens, a solar consumer in the Coachella Valley, lost thousands of dollars to Southern California Home Improvement Center, a company that is now out of business. She signed a solar contract with a salesman at her doorstep from out of town.

“I thought I had done research,” she said.

In March, Hot Purple Energy helped Kathy understand what went wrong.

“This deal, they knew from the beginning, that it was not going to pencil out and it was going to be a negative deal and they let her go anyhow so that they could make a commission and a profit,” Otto said.

With the new guide, California is taking steps to make sure consumers are protected during a solar sale.

“People have to read it, they have to sign off on it, or they don’t get connected to the grid,” Otto said.

Topics within the guide include how to:

Take your time, watch for false claims, make sure they have a valid contractor’s license, what’s false and true, know your rights, etc.

“The biggest one here is the 3-day cancellation period after signing a contract,” Otto said as he pointed at the ‘Know Your Rights’ page.

All of it essentially means, don’t be “pushed” into solar, Otto said.

“I don’t want you to get wrong about solar,” he said. “Solar is great for about 80 percent of the people but there’s 20 percent that the circumstances aren’t right for.”

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