Buying a Las Vegas house that already has solar

Two questions decide everything about a Las Vegas house with panels on it, and neither one is about the panels. The first is which net metering rate the address carries, because that rate is locked to the address for 20 years and you inherit it. The second is who owns the equipment, because a lease or a power purchase agreement has to be dealt with before escrow closes, and that is what wrecks these deals.

Answer both in writing before your contingency ends, and a solar house is a good buy. Answer neither and you can be a week from closing before anyone finds out.

The good news: the rate belongs to the address

Nevada wrote this into statute. NRS 704.773, subsection 8, says the Commission and the utility must allow a customer-generator to continue net metering at the location at which the net metering system is originally installed for 20 years, and it then says that continuing includes retaining the tier percentage that applies to that customer.

The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada repeats it on its net metering page, once for each tier, in the same words: customers who signed up under that rate "will keep it for a period of 20 years at the location where the net metering system was originally installed."

NV Energy's own NMR-405 page puts the term on the credit itself: the Tier 4 credit rate is 75 percent of the retail volumetric electricity rate, excluding public policy charges, and "will apply for 20 years."

So the tier is written against a location, not against a person. A buyer walks into the rate the seller was given, and if that address was approved before June 2020 it is a rate no new installation in Nevada can get.

Which rate does this address actually have?

The tier is set by the date the net metering application was received, not by the date the panels went on the roof. NV Energy's NMR-405 page says the four tiers "are assigned based on the date of the customer's net metering application." The Commission publishes the open and close dates, and NV Energy's net metering answers describe the two older closed rates.

Tier 4 has no capacity limit and the Commission says the rate stays at 75 percent unless the Legislature changes it. Its capacity table, last updated August 3 2026, shows Tier 4 at 755.785 MW of applied and installed capacity against roughly 75 MW in each of the closed tiers. Everything installed in Clark County for the last six years is on the bottom rung.

Which means the older the interconnection, the more the inherited rate is worth, and it is the one thing about a solar house that genuinely cannot be bought new. What 75 percent of retail actually costs you does the arithmetic on the difference between using a kilowatt hour and exporting one.

The clock started without you. NRS 704.773 subsection 8 ties the 20 years to the date the originally installed system went in. A 2018 house has about a dozen years of its tier left. Ask for the permission to operate date and count from it, and treat any listing that advertises "20 years of locked net metering" on a system that is already seven years old as a mistake.

What we could not verify, and what to do about it

We checked this against three documents. NRS 704.773 and the Commission's page both anchor the 20 years to the location, and NV Energy's NMR-405 page carries the 20 year term. NV Energy's Net Metering and Energy Storage Interconnection Handbook, revision 7 dated October 16 2025, does not address it at all. The handbook describes how an account is placed on a net metering rate after permission to operate, and it lists which closed rates a system replacement may keep, but it sets out no procedure for a change of owner.

So the entitlement is clear and the mechanics are not published. Before you remove a contingency, telephone NV Energy's net metering billing team on the number printed on the NMR-405 page, southern Nevada (702) 402-2330, give them the premise address, and ask them to confirm in writing which net metering rate that premise is on and that it continues for a new account holder. Put the answer in the file. An email you can produce later is worth more than a page on a solar company's website, including this one.

What does not come with the house

The rate travels. The bank of credit probably does not.

NV Energy's NMR-405 page says credits are tied to the premise, and in the next breath that if you transfer service to another location or end service with NV Energy, remaining credits are non transferrable and non payable. NRS 704.775 is blunter: a customer-generator is not entitled to compensation for any excess that remains once the system stops operating, once they cease to be a customer at the premises served by the system, or once they transfer the system to another person.

What none of those documents says is that the balance passes to the next account holder. So the seller is not getting paid out, and you should not budget for arriving to a full bank. Ask, get the answer in writing, and price the house as though the bank is zero.

The part that actually kills escrow: who owns the equipment

Four structures, four completely different closings.

Fannie Mae's selling guide, topic B2-3-04, version dated October 8 2025, is where the lending consequences live, and it is worth reading the four that bite.

• The lender must obtain and review the lease or power purchase agreement. There is no version of this where the document stays unseen.
• The payment counts against you. The monthly lease payment must be included in the debt to income calculation unless the lease delivers a specific amount of energy at a fixed payment with a production guarantee that compensates you pro rata when the system falls short. Payments under a power purchase agreement calculated solely on energy produced may be excluded. This is the clause that turns a qualified buyer into an unqualified one, and it usually surfaces late.
• The panels add nothing to the appraisal. For a leased or power purchase system the guide states that the value of the solar panels cannot be included in the appraised value of the property, and must not be included in the loan to value or combined loan to value calculations.
• A senior fixture filing has to be subordinated. Where the panels are collateral for a separate debt and a UCC fixture filing sits in the land records ahead of the mortgage, the guide says it must be subordinated.

The guide also sets conditions that a lease or power purchase agreement has to meet: damage from installation, malfunction, manufacturing defect or removal has to be the equipment owner's responsibility to repair, the equipment owner must not be a named loss payee on your property insurance, and on foreclosure the lender must be able to terminate the agreement and require removal, take over the agreement without a transfer fee, or negotiate new terms.

Assumption is the hard part, and Nevada law says the answer is already written down

You do not have to guess at the transfer terms, because a Nevada solar agreement is required to contain them.

For a lease, NRS 598.9811 subsection 19 requires a description of all options available to the lessee in connection with the continuation, termination or transfer of the lease on a sale or transfer of the property, including whether the lessee may transfer the obligations to the purchaser, the conditions of any such transfer, and the process to complete a payoff of any amount owed.

For a power purchase agreement, NRS 598.9817 subsection 15 requires the same description in the same terms for the host customer.

There is a separate disclosure document too. NRS 598.9812 requires a lease disclosure of not more than three pages which must include notice of the lessor's intent to file a fixture filing on the system, and a description of the transferability of the lease and any conditions on transferring it in connection with the lessee selling their property. NRS 598.9818 requires the equivalent for a power purchase agreement.

So ask for three things by name and do not accept a summary: the agreement, the separate disclosure, and a current payoff quote from the provider.

Then read for the six items that decide whether the deal survives.

1. Is it assumable at all, or only payable off.
2. What the provider's credit requirement is for the incoming owner, and what happens if you do not meet it.
3. The remaining term and the escalator, if any, so you can price years eleven to twenty rather than year one.
4. The transfer fee, and who is paying it.
5. The buyout figure today, which is the seller's alternative and therefore your negotiating position.
6. What happens on the roof at end of term: removal, renewal, or purchase, and at whose cost.

A seller who cannot produce these within a few days is telling you something about how the sale was made in the first place.

The disclosure form already asks the question

Nevada's Seller's Real Property Disclosure Form, form 547, revised June 1 2023, puts it at question 15: are any solar panels installed on the property, and if yes, are the solar panels owned, leased or financed.

NRS 113.130 requires the seller to complete that form and serve it on the purchaser at least 10 days before the property is conveyed, and a purchaser may not waive it. The statute defines a defect as a condition that materially affects the value or use of the property in an adverse manner, and a lease obligation you were not told about is not a hard case.

One exception matters here more than any other. NRS 113.130 subsection 2 says the requirement does not apply to a sale by foreclosure under chapter 107. On a foreclosure or a bank owned property in Clark County, nobody is obliged to fill that box in, and that is precisely the kind of house most likely to have an unresolved solar agreement attached to it. Do your own search.

How to check it yourself, before you pay anyone

A fixture filing is a public record. NRS 104.9501 subsection 1 says the office in which to file is the office designated for the filing or recording of a mortgage on the real property when the statement is filed as a fixture filing on goods that are or will become fixtures, and the Office of the Secretary of State in other cases. In Clark County that first office is the County Recorder, and the second is Nevada's Secretary of State.

So there are two searches, and a buyer can run both:

• The county real estate records, against the property, for a fixture filing naming solar equipment.
• The Secretary of State's filings, against the seller's name, for a financing statement that never made it into the land records.

Fannie Mae's guide notes that where the only collateral described is the solar equipment and not the home or the land, a precautionary filing by a lessor is acceptable and a minor impediment to title. What you are looking for is not the existence of a filing. It is a filing nobody has mentioned to you.

While you are in the records, ask for the permitting and interconnection file too. NV Energy's handbook shows the interconnection agreement naming a Host Customer, a Property Owner and a System Owner, and it requires a Property Transfer Agreement where the host customer is not an owner of the property per the county assessor. Those three names can be three different parties. Ask which is which on this house, and check that the county permit was finalled. Solar permits in Las Vegas covers what a closed permit looks like in each jurisdiction.

The condition question nobody asks

Most solar houses on the market in the valley today carry systems installed between 2016 and 2022, which means two things.

The workmanship warranty may have no one behind it. NRS 598.9821 requires an express written warranty for the installation and for the penetration into the roof, expiring not earlier than 10 years after installation. On a 2017 system that warranty runs out in 2027, and if the installing company has closed there is nobody to call before then either. A great many Las Vegas systems are in exactly that position, and what to do when your solar company goes out of business is the honest version of what your options are.

Nobody has been reading the bill. Ask the seller for 12 months of NV Energy statements, not a screenshot from a monitoring app. The meter registers tell you whether the system has been exporting, and a month of clear weather with no kWhR on it is a fault, not a quirk. How to read your NV Energy bill once you have solar shows where to look.

We will do that reading with you, and inspect the array, for a fixed price, before you close. You keep the report either way.

Do not add panels without doing this arithmetic first

This is the trap at the end. You buy a house on Tier 2 at 88 percent, you want a bigger system, and you add eight panels.

NV Energy's interconnection handbook, revision 7 dated October 16 2025, sets out three rules:

• A system expansion that adds additional renewable capacity results in a net metering rate change if the customer is not already on the applicable rate. In practice that means the whole system moves to Tier 4.
• A system expansion that only adds an energy storage system, with no additional renewable capacity, does not result in a rate change.
• A system replacement may allow a customer to keep an existing closed rate, and every replacement application goes through Engineering Review.

So repairing what broke is one thing and enlarging the array is another. If the address carries an older tier with years left on it, the extra panels have to beat the loss of that tier across the remaining term before they are worth doing. That is a calculation, not an opinion, and it is one of the few in this business where the honest answer is often no.

A short note on the federal credit

Section 25D, the residential credit a homeowner claimed on their own system, does not apply to expenditures made after December 31 2025. There is nothing to inherit with the house and nothing to claim on somebody else's installation. We set out what did and did not survive in what the federal solar tax credit is worth to you in 2026. Take your own position to an independent tax professional before you rely on any of it.

The one page version

Before you remove your contingency, have these in the file:

1. Written confirmation from NV Energy of the net metering rate on the premise and its permission to operate date.
2. The disclosure form, question 15 answered, owned, leased or financed.
3. If it is not owned: the agreement, the separate Nevada disclosure, the transfer terms, the provider's credit requirement, the transfer fee and a current payoff quote.
4. A county records search for a fixture filing, and a Secretary of State search against the seller's name.
5. Twelve months of NV Energy statements, read for kWhR.
6. An inspection of the array by somebody licensed who is not connected to whoever installed it.

Six items. Most of them are free. All of them are easier now than they will be on the day you are due to sign.

Questions people ask us

Does net metering transfer to the new owner in Nevada?

The right is written against the address, not the person. NRS 704.773 subsection 8 says the Commission and the utility must allow net metering to continue at the location at which the system was originally installed for 20 years, and that continuing includes retaining the tier percentage. The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada says the same in plain words on its net metering page.

How long does the 20 years last on a house I buy?

It runs from the original installation, not from your purchase. NRS 704.773 subsection 8 ties the period to the date the originally installed system went in. A system interconnected in 2018 has about a dozen years left on it, not twenty. Ask for the permission to operate date and count from there.

What happens to the seller's credit bank?

Do not assume you get it. NV Energy's NMR-405 page says credits are tied to the premise, and that if you transfer service to another location or end service, remaining credits are non transferrable and non payable. NRS 704.775 says a customer is not entitled to compensation for excess that remains once they stop being a customer at that address. Nothing published says the balance passes to a buyer.

Can I assume a solar lease when I buy the house?

Only on the terms in that specific agreement, and usually only if the provider credit qualifies you. Nevada law requires a lease to describe all the options on a sale of the property, including whether the obligations may be transferred to the buyer, the conditions of any transfer, and the process to pay the balance off. Get that clause before your contingency ends.

Will a solar lease stop me getting a mortgage?

It can change what you qualify for. Fannie Mae's selling guide requires the lender to obtain and review the lease or power purchase agreement, and the monthly lease payment goes into your debt to income calculation unless the lease is a fixed payment with a production guarantee. Payments calculated solely on energy produced may be excluded.

Does the seller have to tell me the panels are leased?

Nevada's Seller's Real Property Disclosure Form asks directly. Question 15 asks whether any solar panels are installed and, if so, whether they are owned, leased or financed. NRS 113.130 requires the completed form to be served at least 10 days before the property is conveyed. The requirement does not apply to a foreclosure sale.

Should I add panels to the system after I buy?

Think about it carefully first. NV Energy's interconnection handbook says a system expansion that adds renewable capacity results in a net metering rate change if you are not already on the current rate. Adding only storage does not. If the address carries an older, better tier, extra panels can cost you that tier for the remaining years.

Where these numbers come from

1. NRS 704.773 subsection 8, right of a customer-generator to continue net metering for 20 years at the location at which the system was originally installed, including retaining the tier percentage, Nevada Revised Statutes as posted by the Nevada Legislature checked 2026-09-20
2. NRS 704.775 subsection 2, treatment of excess electricity, including that a customer-generator is not entitled to compensation for remaining excess once they cease to be a customer at the premises or transfer the system checked 2026-09-20
3. Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, Net Metering in Nevada, the four AB 405 tiers with their open and close dates, the 20 years at the original location, and the capacity table last updated 2026-08-03 checked 2026-09-20
4. NV Energy, NMR-405 Tier 4 net metering rate page, on the 20 year term, that tiers are assigned by the date of the net metering application, and that credits are tied to the premise (read through the site's own content endpoint, because the public page renders its text from script) checked 2026-09-20
5. NV Energy, Net Metering Frequently Asked Questions, the NMR-G and NMR-A closed rates and the four NMR-405 tier percentages (read through the site's own content endpoint) checked 2026-09-20
6. NV Energy, Net Metering and Energy Storage Interconnection Handbook, revision 7 dated 10/16/2025, on the parties to the interconnection agreement, the Property Transfer Agreement, system expansions and replacements, and the closed net metering rates checked 2026-09-20
7. Fannie Mae Selling Guide B2-3-04, Special Property Eligibility Considerations, version dated 10/08/2025, Properties with Solar Panels checked 2026-09-20
8. Nevada Real Estate Division, Seller's Real Property Disclosure Form 547, revised 6/1/2023, question 15 on solar panels checked 2026-09-20
9. NRS 113.130, completion and service of the disclosure form at least 10 days before conveyance, and the exceptions at subsection 2 checked 2026-09-20
10. NRS 598.9811 subsection 19 (lease contents, effective through December 31 2027), NRS 598.9817 subsection 15 (power purchase agreement contents), NRS 598.9812 and NRS 598.9818 (the separate disclosures, including the fixture filing notice), and NRS 598.9821 (the 10 year installation and roof penetration warranty) checked 2026-09-20
11. NRS 104.9501 subsection 1, filing office: a fixture filing goes in the office designated for recording a mortgage on the real property, and the Office of the Secretary of State in other cases checked 2026-09-20

We recheck this page quarterly. Last checked 2026-09-20. If a number here has moved, tell us and we will fix it the same week.