Houston, Katy & Harris County, Texas
You were told solar would replace your electric bill. It did not.
Now you have a loan payment. You still have an electric bill. And nobody will answer the phone.
You are not the only one. Across Houston, homeowners tell us the same story. Promises at the door that did not match the paperwork. Panels that went up but never turned on. Installers who stopped answering. A loan that kept taking money anyway.
Harris County has more solar complaints on file with the Texas Attorney General than any other county in Texas.
We will read your paperwork and tell you where you stand. It costs you nothing.
English and Spanish. No cost, no pressure.
$170,000 recovered in a solar loan matter. Prior result in a Sunlight Financial case; every case is different and no outcome is guaranteed. See the full result.
Sound familiar?
Most people who call us describe the same few things. See how many you recognise.
Almost everyone who calls us apologises first. They say they feel foolish for signing. Some tell us their family does not know yet.
Please hear this: these sales were built to work on careful people.
The pitch came to your door, not to a store where you could take your time. The numbers were on someone else’s screen, not on paper you could keep. The person in front of you was friendly and in a hurry. You were asked to sign for what sounded like an estimate, a survey, a credit check.
Nobody sat down and read the loan to you.
Signing something is not the same as agreeing to it. Whether those two things came apart in your case is a legal question. It is not a question about how smart you are.
You also do not need to understand any of the words on this page to call us. That part is our job. Bring what you have. We will explain it in plain language, in English or Spanish, for free.
Answers up front
No forms first. These are the five things Houston homeowners ask us most.
Because those are three separate bills. CenterPoint delivers your power and charges for delivery. Your electric provider sells you the power and bills you for it. Your lender takes the loan payment no matter what the panels do. A solar loan does not replace either of the other two. If someone told you it would, that is worth writing down.
More detailIt is CenterPoint's written OK for your system to send power to the grid. It comes after the design is approved, the panels are installed, the work passes inspection, and both sides sign an agreement. It should have come to you in writing. If you cannot find it, we can ask CenterPoint for the file on your address and find out whether it was ever sent.
More detailIn almost every case the payments keep coming out anyway, which is exactly why this is so unfair. Please do not just stop paying — that can hurt your credit and start collection calls. Whether the loan can be challenged depends on your contract and on why the job was never finished. Talk to a lawyer first.
More detailThat can often be checked. Electronic signatures leave a record: how identity was verified, which internet connection and device were used, when the email was delivered and opened, and how many seconds passed before signing. If a signature came from a device that is not yours, or an email you never opened, that record can be pulled and examined.
More detailYes. We take solar cases across the Houston area, including Katy, Cypress, Spring, Sugar Land, Missouri City, Pearland, Humble, Kingwood, Tomball and Baytown. Most of the work is documents, so you do not need to drive to Dallas for us to represent you.
More detailHow we work
A solar case is a paperwork case. The sales pitch was spoken out loud and is long gone. What is left is documents — yours, the lender’s, the installer’s, and records kept by companies with no stake in your fight.
Our job is to read all of it side by side and find where it disagrees.
Here is what we gather
It depends on what your documents show and what your contract says.
A lawyer may be able to raise claims about how the sale was handled. About how the loan was described to you. About whether you ever really agreed to it. About whether the work was ever finished.
Which of those apply to you depends on your own paperwork. That is why the review comes first, and why it is free.
Here is what we can promise: we will tell you the truth about what your documents say, and what the other records show. No lawyer can promise that a solar loan will be cancelled, and we will not pretend otherwise.
The sections below explain each of these records in plain language. That includes how to check, yourself, whether your system was ever turned on properly.
Before you pick up the phone
No pressure and no commitment. Here is the whole thing.
You tell us what happened.
Ten or fifteen minutes on the phone, in English or Spanish. You do not need your paperwork in front of you.
We ask for whatever you have.
Any documents you can find. We go get the rest ourselves.
We read it.
This is the real work. We compare what you were promised against what you signed, and against the records other companies keep about your system.
We tell you what we found.
In plain language. If we do not think you have a case, we say so.
You decide.
Nothing happens unless you say yes. If we take your case, we put the fee in writing first.
Call (972) 972-4969, or start online and we will call you.
What to bring
You do not need all of this to call. Please do not wait because something is missing.
Bring what you have. Getting the rest is part of our job, including records you have no way to ask for yourself.
Bring what you have
We get these for you
If all you have is one monthly statement and the name of the company that knocked on your door, that is enough to start.
Houston’s two-bill problem
This is the thing we explain most often. It happens because of how Houston’s electricity market is set up.
In Houston, three different companies can touch your power every month:
A solar loan does not cancel any of those.
Even when a system works perfectly, most Houston homeowners still pay delivery charges. They still pay for power pulled from the grid at night. They still pay any fixed monthly fees in their plan.
And the credit you get for extra solar power is not the same everywhere. It changes by company and by plan. Some plans pay you far less for the power you send out than they charge you for the power you take in.
If the salesperson worked out your savings using a rate you were never actually signed up for, then the promise and the paperwork do not match. That is worth writing down.
A solar payment does not automatically replace a Houston electric bill. If someone told you it would, what you were told and what you signed may be two different things.
Who is responsible
When a Houston solar job goes wrong, every company has a reason to point at another one. Knowing who is actually responsible for what is how you stop getting passed around.
Your solar lender
The loan. Your monthly payment, the interest, the payoff amount, and your credit reporting.
The installer or sales company
The system itself. Design, equipment, the install, permits, inspections, repairs and the warranty.
CenterPoint
Checking the design, signing the interconnection agreement, giving written permission to turn the system on, and setting up your meter.
Your retail electric provider
Your electric plan and bill. The rate you pay, and any credit for extra solar power you send out.
Notice who is not on that list. Nobody on it was responsible for making sure the promises made at your kitchen table were true. That is the gap these cases live in.
Permission to Operate
A solar system is not finished when the panels are bolted to the roof.
It is finished when CenterPoint gives written permission to turn it on and resets your meter. That written permission has a name — Permission to Operate. Until it arrives, your system is not allowed to send power back to the grid. It does not matter what the installer said as they packed up.
What a finished Houston job looks like
Go through these eight questions. If you cannot answer yes to all of them, your job may never have been finished — while your payments kept going out.
A missing Permission to Operate does not cancel a loan by itself. What it does give you is a dated record that the job was never finished. In a dispute, that can matter a great deal.
The paper trail
Houston homeowners have something homeowners in other cities do not. The process of hooking a system to the grid leaves a dated paper trail, kept by a company with nothing to gain from your dispute.
Those records can show, in writing and with dates:
If your payments started months before any of that happened, the dates themselves become evidence. We know how to ask for these records and how to read them against your contract.
Permits and inspections
Inside Houston city limits, home solar work usually needs a city electrical permit and an inspection. The electrician doing the work has to be licensed and registered with the city.
Your permit file should have
If your home is outside Houston city limits
A lot of the Houston area is outside city limits. If your home is in Katy, Cypress, Spring, Sugar Land, Pearland or an unincorporated part of Harris County, different rules may apply. It depends on which office covers your address. Working that out is part of the review.
Two problems come up again and again. Sometimes no permit was ever pulled. Sometimes a permit exists, but it was pulled by a contractor you never met and was never closed out. Either one is worth knowing before you decide anything.
Not sure whether your system was ever finished?
Send us what you have. We will pull the CenterPoint file and the permit records and tell you where the job actually stopped.
Electronic signatures
Almost every solar loan in Houston is signed on a screen. Often on the salesperson’s own device. Often all at once.
In Harris County court filings, homeowners have said solar contracts were created without their agreement or signature. Those are claims that have not been decided. But they point to something useful: signing on a screen leaves a detailed trail, and that trail either backs up the lender’s story or it does not.
A signature made in ninety seconds, from a device that is not yours, to an email you never opened, tells a very different story than one made over an afternoon on your own laptop. Getting that record is one of the first things we do.
How common this is
If it feels like this only happened to you, it did not. Here is the scale of it.
Most in Texas
Harris County has more home solar complaints than any other Texas county
Texas Appleseed review of Texas Attorney General complaints
818%
Growth in Texas solar complaints filed with the state
Texas Attorney General records, 2018 to 2023
54%
Of complaints reviewed came from people paying for systems that were unfinished or did not work
Reported newspaper review of more than 1,000 Texas complaints
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Houston, Katy and nearby
Texas Appleseed analysis of Texas Attorney General complaint data. These numbers are complaints people filed. They are not findings that any company did something wrong.
Harris County court records
You are not the first person in Houston to raise these problems. Public court records show solar lenders and installers have been named in consumer cases filed here.
In 2025, a solar loan dispute that started in the 189th District Court of Harris County reached the Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals. The lender had asked to move the case out of court and into arbitration. The lender later asked to drop its own appeal, and the court dismissed it.
The appeals record does not decide the homeowner’s claims. It does not say anyone did anything wrong. What it does show is that where a Houston solar case gets heard is itself worth fighting over.
A consumer case filed in Harris County in February 2023 named a solar lender and an installer. A public filing in that case says a door-to-door solar salesperson came to the homeowner’s Houston home. The homeowner claimed a contract was created without his agreement or signature.
Those are claims. They have not been proven, and a claim in a filing is not a finding by any court.
Another consumer case was filed against a solar lender in Harris County in July 2023. A public docket summary links it to a door-to-door solar sale. We have not described the details here, because the original filing should be pulled from the Harris County District Clerk first.
Put together, these filings show solar lenders and installers have been named in more than one Harris County consumer case, involving door-to-door sales, disputed contracts and arbitration. A lawsuit existing does not mean anyone was found responsible. None of these cases is a finding of wrongdoing.
What we hear most
Where your case is heard
Most solar loan agreements have an arbitration clause. That clause can decide whether a judge in Harris County hears your case, or a private arbitrator does. It can also affect whether you can join with other homeowners, and what the process costs.
These clauses are not all the same, and they are not always enforceable as written. Some hand even the question of their own validity to the arbitrator. Some have opt-out windows nobody told the homeowner about. The Harris County appeal above started as exactly this kind of fight.
We handle solar cases in arbitration regularly. If your case belongs there, that is not a dead end. It is a different room with different rules and different deadlines. We read your clause first, so you know which room you are in before you agree to anything.
Almost none of this needs you in a room with anyone.One homeowner. One solar loan.
Sunlight Financial relied on this homeowner not knowing her rights. Here's what Bennett Legal recovered when she called us.
$113,000
Solar loan cancelled in full
Sunlight Financial
$58,000
Cash paid to our client
Plus full credit repair
$170,000
Total financial recovery
UCC filing released
What Sunlight Financial agreed to:
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Each case is evaluated individually.
Your attorney
Attorney · State Bar of Texas No. 24086454
Charles Bennett represents Texas homeowners in solar loan disputes against lenders and installers. He has handled these cases in arbitration and in court. He founded Bennett Legal in Dallas and takes solar cases across Texas, including throughout Houston and Harris County.
Solar cases are paperwork cases. They turn on what the contract says, what the signature record shows, and whether the job was ever finished. Not on who argues loudest.
More about CharlesCommon questions
Each one has a different job. The lender handles the loan. The installer handles the equipment, the install, the permits and repairs. CenterPoint handles hooking you to the grid, the permission to turn on, and the meter. Your electric provider handles your bill. Getting passed between them is very common, and sorting out who owes you what is part of what we do.
The city keeps them, and we request them for you. The file should show the permit number, the licensed electrician who pulled it, the approved plans, whether it passed inspection, any correction notices, and the final sign-off. We read that against your contract and your install dates.
Not always. Much of the Houston area — Katy, Cypress, Spring, Sugar Land, Pearland and unincorporated Harris County — sits outside city limits, and the rules depend on which office covers your address. We work that out before asking for anything.
It may be a misrepresentation, depending on what you were shown and what you were actually signed up for. Texas does not guarantee that you get paid full price for the power your panels send out. Those credits change by company and by plan. If your savings estimate used a rate you never had, the gap between the promise and the plan can be documented.
It can matter. Whether you got documents in the language the sale happened in, whether a Spanish version exists at all, and whether required disclosures were ever given in a form you could read are all relevant to whether you really agreed. Bring what you have in either language.
That usually depends on your contract. Most solar loans have an arbitration clause, and some hand even the question of their own validity to the arbitrator. These clauses vary and are not always enforceable. We read yours first so you know which process you are in.
Often yes, but the loan and any filing against the equipment usually have to be handled at closing, and that can slow or complicate a sale. Many people find this out in the middle of selling. If you are thinking about selling or refinancing, get the documents looked at before you list.
Nothing, and you are not obligated to hire us afterward. If we do take your case, we will put the fee in writing before you agree to anything.
Where we work
We represent homeowners in solar loan disputes across the Houston area. Solar cases run on documents and records. You will not need to drive anywhere for us to help you.
We talk with people in English and Spanish.
It costs nothing and you are not committing to anything. Bring what you have and we will tell you where you stand.
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Bennett LegalCharles A. Bennett, Esq. — Texas State Bar No. 24086454. Principal office: Dallas, Texas. Bennett Legal serves clients in Houston, Katy, and the surrounding Harris County area.
Consumer complaints and allegations discussed on this page have not necessarily been proven in court. Prior cases and reported complaints do not guarantee a similar result in any individual matter. Each solar financing dispute depends on its specific contracts, communications, electronic records, and applicable law. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Permit and inspection requirements depend on the property location and the authority having jurisdiction. Solar export and buyback credits vary by retail electricity provider and plan.
Sources: Texas Appleseed, Dimming the Benefits of Residential Solar in Texas; Texas Attorney General complaint data as reported by Texas Appleseed; reported newspaper analysis of Texas solar complaints; CenterPoint Energy distributed generation and interconnection resources; Houston Permitting Center solar permit requirements; U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Houston City, Texas; public Harris County District Court and Texas Fourteenth Court of Appeals records.