How do I get out of a solar contract in Texas?
Short answer
Texas now has a solar-specific law. For contracts signed on or after September 1, 2025, Texas law gives you five business days to cancel — and if a lender tied to the seller financed the deal, that lender must cancel the loan too. Older contracts sit under the older three-business-day rule. After those windows, the routes are the ones in your paperwork: payoff, transfer, buyout, or a documented problem with how the deal was sold.
The Texas solar law: SB 1036 and Chapter 1806
Texas wrote solar sales into its own statute in 2025. The Residential Solar Retailer Regulatory Act (Senate Bill 1036) is codified at Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1806 and administered by the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). It governs residential solar retail contracts from September 1, 2025, and it brings registration with it: solar retailers and their salespeople register with TDLR beginning September 1, 2026.
That one date — September 1, 2025 — matters twice on this page. The cancellation window a buyer gets, and the agency that takes the complaint, both turn on whether the contract was signed before it or on or after it. Your contract date is the first fact to pull from your file.
Your cancellation window depends on the contract date
For a covered contract signed on or after September 1, 2025, Chapter 1806 gives the buyer five business days to cancel, by written notice given on or before the fifth business day after signing. The contract itself must state the last calendar date for giving notice and a mailing or email address for it; if the contract gives no address, the law allows cancellation by any reasonable method.
Contracts signed earlier sit under the older rule: Texas Business & Commerce Code Chapter 601, the home-solicitation law, which gives three business days to cancel covered sales made at the home.
One thing Texas does not do: no senior-specific extension was found in the Texas solar law or in the older home-solicitation rule. The window is the same at every age — five business days for newer contracts, three for older ones. A salesperson who described a longer window for a senior buyer was describing something Texas law does not provide, and that promise belongs in the complaint file.
The lender rule: cancel the contract, and the tied loan must be cancelled too
Chapter 1806 does something most states’ solar laws do not. When a buyer cancels a covered contract inside the window, an affiliated or referred lender — a lender the retailer is tied to or sent the buyer to — must cancel the accompanying loan. The solar cancellation and the loan cancellation travel together.
That matters because the most common Texas trap is cancelling the panel contract and assuming the financing died with it. For covered contracts, Texas law closes that gap on paper — whether it happened on your deal is a paperwork question, answered by the cancellation notice you sent and the lender’s response to it.
Where complaints go in Texas — and what the Attorney General has done
The complaint route follows the contract date. For contracts dated on or after September 1, 2025, complaints about a solar retailer go to TDLR. For earlier contracts, they go to the Texas Attorney General’s consumer protection division. Written complaints with the contract, proposal, and statements attached are what create the record either office acts on.
The Attorney General has been active on Texas solar. In April 2026, Attorney General Paxton announced civil investigative demands (formal orders for documents and answers) to residential solar companies including Sunrun, Freedom Forever, Lone Star Solar Services, and CAM Solar, citing more than 100 consumer complaints. On May 21, 2026, the Attorney General sued CAM Solar — a San Antonio company that sells statewide — under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleging nonexistent or far smaller savings, defective systems, undisclosed fees, and misrepresented tax credits, and seeking to stop the practices, restitution for Texans, and civil penalties under the DTPA. Those are allegations in a lawsuit, not findings.
The volume behind the enforcement is documented too: a 2024 Texas Appleseed report found that solar complaints to the Attorney General grew 818% from 2018 to 2023. A complaint is not a formality in Texas; it is the fuel the enforcement above ran on.
In Dallas–Fort Worth? The buyback is a separate fight
Most “solar didn’t save me anything” complaints in the metroplex are not really about the solar contract — they are about the buyback. Oncor delivers the power but sells none and buys back no solar; your retail electric provider sets the credit for what your panels export, and Texas has no statewide net-metering rule forcing that credit up to the rate you pay.
The DFW mechanics — who bills what, why both bills survive, and the Dallas front-door sales case federal prosecutors brought — are on the Dallas–Fort Worth page. Texans outside the metroplex: your delivery company and retail plan differ, but the contract, loan, and complaint facts on this page are statewide.
When the Texas seller is gone
Several failed national sellers sold heavily in Texas, and one of the largest, Sunnova, was based in Houston. An installer’s failure does not cancel a separate loan or lease — those continue with their servicers. The routes for an orphaned system, and how to confirm who services your deal now, are in the solar company bankruptcy guide.
Documents to gather
- Your signed contract — and its date: before, or on or after, September 1, 2025 decides the window and the complaint route
- The contract page that states the last date and address for cancellation notice
- Your loan papers, naming the lender — and anything showing the seller referred or was affiliated with that lender
- The proposal and savings estimate you were sold from
- Any cancellation notice you sent, and the lender’s response
- Utility bills and loan or lease statements, oldest to newest
- Texts, emails, and messages with the salesperson
Questions to ask a licensed attorney
We are not a law firm, and this page is general information, not legal advice. These are the questions your paperwork raises that a licensed attorney in your state can answer for your situation:
- My contract is dated before September 1, 2025 — which cancellation and complaint rules apply to me?
- Was my lender affiliated with or referred by my seller, and what follows if I cancelled in time?
- Do the Attorney General’s allegations against my seller match what happened to me, and does that change my position?
Questions people also ask
How can I cancel a solar contract within six months in Texas?
Almost certainly not through the cancellation windows — they are measured in business days from signing, not months: five business days for contracts signed on or after September 1, 2025, and three business days under the older rule for earlier contracts. By six months, both have long closed. What remains are the routes inside the contract itself — payoff, transfer, buyout — or a documented problem with how the system was sold, which is an attorney’s question.
Does Texas give seniors extra time to cancel a solar contract?
No senior-specific extension was found in the Texas solar law or in the older home-solicitation rule — the window is the same at every age: five business days for contracts signed on or after September 1, 2025, three business days before that. If a salesperson told you a longer window applied because of your age, write that promise down with dates; it belongs in a complaint file, next to the paperwork showing what you were told.
Who do I complain to about a Texas solar company?
It depends on your contract date. For contracts dated on or after September 1, 2025, complaints about a solar retailer go to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). For earlier contracts, they go to the Texas Attorney General’s consumer protection division. Either way, send it in writing with your contract, proposal, and statements attached, and keep copies of everything — the Attorney General’s solar enforcement, including the May 2026 CAM Solar lawsuit, was built on consumer complaints.
How do I get out of a bad solar contract?
One Texas homeowner put the common version of this question this way on a legal Q&A forum: “The finance company put a UCC filing on the property and refuses to help us…” A UCC-1 fixture filing is standard on financed solar — it records the lender’s interest in the panels; it does not cancel the loan, and the lender is not required to renegotiate because it exists. The routes are still the contract’s: payoff, transfer, or a documented dispute about the sale. The UCC-1 guide on this site explains the filing itself.
How the workbooks help
Your Actions is built from your Texas contract and loan papers — starting with the contract date, because in Texas that one fact decides your cancellation window and where a complaint goes — and The In-Depth Version documents every finding in full, including whether your lender was tied to your seller.
The Package — Your Actions + The In-Depth Version. Both books always included. Each book is delivered by email within 3–5 business days of purchase; delivery occurs after the 3-day cancellation window closes.
Read a sample workbook (PDF) More homeowner questions