Selling a San Antonio Home With Solar Panels: Loans, Leases, and the UCC-1 That Can Delay Closing

Before you list a San Antonio home with rooftop solar, figure out exactly what you have. Sellers routinely tell their agent "the panels are paid for" and then discover at title review that a solar lender filed a UCC-1 fixture filing at the Bexar County Clerk's office, or that the system is actually a 20-year lease the buyer has to qualify for. Either one can stall or kill a closing that was otherwise clean.

There are three arrangements, and each has a different playbook. Get the paperwork out before you sign a listing agreement, not after you have an executed TREC 20-17.

The three ways your panels are owned

• Owned outright. You paid cash or you paid off the loan. The panels are your property, they convey with the house, and any manufacturer or workmanship warranties transfer to the buyer if the installer allows it.
• Financed with a solar loan. You signed a note with a lender like Sunlight Financial, GoodLeap, Mosaic, Dividend, or a local credit union. Nearly all of these lenders file a UCC-1 fixture filing in the county real property records to secure their interest in the panels as fixtures attached to the home. In Bexar County that filing shows up in the title commitment as an exception, and it has to be dealt with at closing.
• Leased or PPA (power purchase agreement). You do not own the panels. A third party (Sunrun, Sunnova, Tesla, Tesla-acquired SolarCity legacy contracts, sometimes Freedom Forever) owns them and either leases them to you or sells you the power they produce. Terms are typically 20 or 25 years. The buyer must either assume the lease and qualify with the solar company, or you buy the contract out.

Pull your original contract. If you cannot find it, request a payoff or buyout quote from the finance/lease company in writing. Do it early — some of these companies take 2 to 4 weeks to produce a transfer package.

The UCC-1 fixture filing at the Bexar County Clerk

If you financed the system, run a search in the Bexar County Clerk's official public records and a UCC search at the Texas Secretary of State before you list. You are looking for a UCC-1 with your name as debtor and the solar lender as secured party. In Texas, a fixture filing on residential real property is recorded in the county where the property sits, not just with the SOS.

At closing, the title company will not issue a clean owner's policy to the buyer with that lien outstanding. Your options:

• Pay the loan off from sale proceeds. The title company sends the payoff and the lender files a UCC-3 termination.
• Have the buyer assume the loan if the lender permits it. Most consumer solar loans are not assumable. Do not assume yours is.
• Get a subordination or release in writing. Rare, and lenders generally will not agree unless the loan is paid.

Build the payoff into your net sheet the same way you would a second mortgage. A 25-panel system financed at 2019 rates can carry a $28,000 to $45,000 balance. That is real money against your proceeds.

Leased and PPA systems: the buyer has to qualify

Leased systems are the harder sale. The buyer must submit a credit application to the solar company and be approved to assume the remaining term. Common friction points:

• Escalator clauses. Many older leases include a 2.9% annual rate escalator. A buyer looking at year 8 of a 25-year contract sees a monthly payment higher than a new system would cost today.
• Production guarantees that expire. The buyer inherits what is left, not what you signed.
• Roof penetrations and reroofing. If the buyer wants to replace the roof, the solar company charges $1,500 to $3,500 to remove and reset the panels. Disclose this.
• Buyout is usually not cheap. Buyouts at year 5 to 10 often run $15,000 to $25,000 depending on system size. Some contracts do not allow buyout until year 6 or 7.

Start the transfer paperwork the day you go under contract. Sunrun and Sunnova transfer packets typically take 10 to 21 days, and the buyer's lender will want to see the assumption approved before funding.

CPS Energy interconnection and net metering

CPS Energy — not SAWS — handles the electric side. Every grid-tied system in San Antonio has an interconnection agreement with CPS and a bidirectional meter. When the home sells:

• The buyer must open a new CPS Energy account and the interconnection agreement needs to be updated to the new account holder.
• CPS Energy's solar credit structure has changed over the years. What you were credited per kWh may not be what the buyer will receive. Do not represent your historical bill savings as what the buyer will get.
• If you received a CPS Energy solar rebate at installation, check whether there is a clawback provision tied to system ownership or removal. Most rebate agreements do not clawback on a normal sale of the home, but read yours.

What the TREC contract and disclosure require

There is no dedicated TREC solar addendum in the standard form library as of the current promulgated set. That means the solar arrangement gets handled in three places:

• Seller's Disclosure Notice (OP-H). Disclose the presence of solar panels, whether they are owned, financed, or leased, the name of the lender or lessor, and any known defects. "Leased solar" written on the disclosure has stopped more deals at option-period than almost any other single item, so brief your agent on how to present it.
• TREC 20-17 paragraph 2 (Property) and paragraph 11 (Special Provisions). Owned panels convey as improvements. For leased or financed panels, the special provisions or a broker-attorney-prepared addendum should spell out the assumption process, timeline, and what happens if the buyer is not approved.
• Non-Realty Items Addendum (TREC 51-0). Only relevant if something like a separate battery, EV charger, or monitoring hardware is being conveyed as personal property.

When the arrangement is anything other than "owned free and clear," have a Texas real estate attorney review the special provisions language. Agents are not permitted to draft contract language beyond filling in blanks on promulgated forms.

What most people get wrong

• Assuming "paid off" means "no lien." The loan can be paid and the UCC-1 fixture filing can still be sitting in Bexar County records because the lender never filed the termination. Pull the records. If it is still there, chase the lender for a UCC-3 termination now — not the week of closing.
• Waiting until option period to start the lease transfer. Sunrun and Sunnova do not move on your closing timeline. Start the transfer application the day you have an executed contract.
• Marketing panels as an added-value feature without documentation. Buyers' agents and appraisers discount unverified claims. Have the original install contract, the interconnection agreement, and a recent 12-month CPS Energy statement ready.
• Forgetting the roof. If your roof is at year 18 of a 20-year composition shingle and the panels went on at year 10, disclose it. A buyer's inspector will flag it, and the removal-and-reset cost becomes a repair negotiation on TREC 39-9.
• Confusing SAWS and CPS Energy in the disclosure. Solar is a CPS Energy interconnection. SAWS handles water and sewer. Getting this wrong on paperwork looks careless and invites scrutiny elsewhere.
• Not disclosing a battery. A Tesla Powerwall or Enphase battery is often financed separately from the panels and may have its own lien. Check.

Getting the sale done

Most San Antonio solar sales close cleanly when the seller does the paperwork upfront: payoff quote in hand, UCC search done, lease transfer packet started, and the disclosure written in plain English. The deals that die are the ones where the seller learned about the UCC-1 from the title commitment three days before closing.

If you are ready to list, you can put your home in front of local buyers at /list-your-home, or find a San Antonio agent who has closed solar-equipped sales at /agents. More seller resources are at /resources.