We ensure clients are compliant with all aspects of the regulations governing solar leasing and financing, including indirect (retail installment contract), direct loan, lease, and PPA products for residential and commercial customers. Our practice includes:
- Advising on the applicability of laws and regulations to solar finance business models. We have deep experience with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and Regulation F, Unfair, Deceptive, or Abusive Acts or Practices (UDAP/UDAAP), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), all other federal consumer protection laws, the FTC Holder Rule, and state laws regulating sales and leases, as well as electronic signature laws, home solicitation sales laws, credit sale laws, state electronic transaction laws, prescreening issues, adverse action notices, and anti-discrimination laws.
- Analyzing, reviewing, and revising debt collection policies and procedures to ensure compliance, including developing compliant customer-facing communications such as default letters and right-to-cure notices.
- Assisting with on- and off-site collection compliance audits, drafting training and compliance manuals and materials, and preparing multistate analyses of state and federal laws.
Representative Experience
- Representing a solar company in a variety of collections-related issues, including conducting compliance due diligence for potential third-party collection partners, evaluating and ensuring compliance with applicable state collection laws, drafting consumer-facing email, text, and letter communications, conducting policy and procedure reviews, and evaluating credit reporting-related dispute response policies and procedures.
- Advising a solar industry client on compliance issues, forms, and risks in servicing, payments, and collections on solar financing products.
- Advising multiple rooftop and other solar system providers and solar finance companies on compliance with user and furnisher requirements under the FCRA regarding the marketing, origination, and servicing of sales and lease transactions involving consumer solar energy installations.
- Drafting agreements for a solar leasing company related to installment loans, retail installment sales, and home improvement financing.
- Advising a solar power and energy company on FCRA and ban-the-box compliance in background screening.
We have a successful track record in consumer protection litigation, regularly achieving victories for solar companies in individual and class actions in state and federal courts. Our team understands the complex interplay between parallel civil litigation and government investigations involving the same conduct and develops strategies that protect our clients’ interests. We have resolved more FCRA and Regulation V, FDCPA, and TCPA litigation than nearly any other firm, as well as individual and class actions related to ACH processing, sales practices, the Military Lending Act, and other consumer protection statutes. Our experience litigating cases involving the consumer protection laws most relevant to solar companies — particularly in challenging jurisdictions — ensures that we can move swiftly and decisively when disputes arise.
Representative Experience
- Defended a solar panel company in a portfolio of FCRA cases in state and federal courts throughout the U.S.
- Successfully defended a solar finance company in class actions, individual state and federal litigation matters, and arbitrations involving statutory, fraud, and contract claims.
- Obtained a dismissal of litigation asserting UDAP, false advertising, breach of contract, and misappropriation of trade secret claims against a residential solar installation company in Virginia.
- Defended a residential solar installation company in North Carolina Business Court against UDAP, false advertising, breach of contract, and misappropriation of trade secrets claims.
Solar companies operate in a highly regulated and shifting environment. We advise clients on the changing scope of regulatory authority, emerging trends, and risk areas relevant to their businesses, including through mock regulatory examinations. We represent clients before the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as state attorneys general and state public utility commissions. We are experienced in counseling clients through investigations and enforcement actions brought by state, federal, and industry regulatory bodies related to debt collection, fair lending, short-term lending, loan origination and servicing, credit cards, and payment processing.
Representative Experience
- Represented a renewable energy company in proceedings before the state utilities commission to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity for multiple solar projects.
- Defended a solar finance company in litigation brought by the Tennessee and Kentucky state attorneys general involving a UDAP claim, a TILA and Reg Z claim, and other federal and state statutory claims.
- Defended a major residential solar installer against unfair business practices claims, including asserting novel counterclaims for the first time in the U.S., resulting in several state attorneys general adopting a strategy to bring virtually identical deceptive practices act claims in this industry.
- Represented a solar developer in the application for a certificate of public convenience and necessity before a state public utility commission.
Troutman represents lenders, developers, manufacturers, utilities, investors, tax equity providers, and leading residential solar owners and operators in the structuring, negotiation, and financing of residential solar leasing platforms and portfolios. Active in this space since 2007, we have closed several of the first portfolio financings and more than 500 tax equity financings for community solar and distributed generation (DG) projects across 34 states. Our team regularly helps clients design and implement residential lease and solar service agreement programs, including standard-form lease and subscription documentation, consumer protection and disclosure compliance, and programmatic financing structures. We also advise on related community solar and DG/C&I platforms, and on the development, construction, operation, and subscription management of these projects nationwide.
Our practice focuses on the full lifecycle of residential solar leasing transactions, from platform formation and growth to exit. We guide clients through complex acquisitions and sales of residential lease portfolios and multistate residential solar platforms and support significant debt financings and securitizations backed by residential solar leases and related cash flows. We have deep experience with leasing-based tax equity and debt structures — including sale‑leasebacks, inverted leases, and yield- and time-based flips — along with construction, back leverage, and mezzanine financings. Our work spans the full suite of offtake and related arrangements, including solar leases, solar service agreements, PPAs, synthetic PPAs, and net metering agreements, and we leverage our federal and state regulatory experience to negotiate and document the utility, interconnection, and transmission agreements needed to successfully develop, finance, and operate residential solar leasing platforms at scale.
Representative Experience
- Represented a leading energy private equity firm in a joint venture investment in a multistate DG solar platform with tax equity–financed projects.
- Represented an energy company in its sale of a DG solar development subsidiary to a DG platform.
- Represented a solar energy company in $124 million debt financing for a portfolio of residential solar PPAs and leases with infrastructure fund investors.
- Represented a solar energy company in multiple residential solar acquisitions and financings.
- Advised a community solar developer in first tax equity and debt financings for a New York community solar portfolio; advised on corporate and tax structuring.
- Represented a leading tax equity investor in tax equity financing of a $100+ million portfolio of C&I/DG solar projects.
- Represented a company in its sale of 25+ C&I/DG solar projects to a leading asset management and investment company.
- Represented a company in its sale of substantially all C&I/DG projects and servicing business to a solar platform.
- Represented a solar power company in its acquisition of a 20 MWac residential solar portfolio.
- Represented lender on a $16.4 million construction‑to‑term facility financing rooftop and ground‑mount solar for municipal/state sites (City of Atlanta, City of Macon, and Jekyll Island State Park).
