A California Solar Contractor Took Your Money. Here's What to Do.

Start With a Written Demand — Before You File Anything Else

Before CSLB will act on a complaint, it expects you to have already asked the contractor in writing to fix the problem. CSLB posts sample demand letters in English and Spanish on its site for exactly this reason — use one as a template rather than writing from scratch.

Your letter should state the contract date, every amount you've paid, exactly what's incomplete or wrong, and a deadline (10 business days is standard) for the contractor to respond or finish the work. Send it in a way you can prove was received — email with read confirmation, or certified mail.

This isn't a formality you can skip. It creates the paper trail that CSLB, small claims court, and your lender will all ask for later, and it starts the clock that shows you tried to resolve this directly before escalating. Keep copies of everything: the original contract, every payment record, photos of the incomplete installation, and any texts or emails where the contractor acknowledged the problem. If the company has gone through bankruptcy, send the demand letter anyway and keep it on file — it still documents your claim for every other step below.

Your Three-Day Right to Cancel — If You're Still in the Window

California Civil Code §§ 1689.5–1689.14 cover "home solicitation contracts" — any contract over $25 for goods or services signed at your home, workplace, or a temporary location like a hotel or trade show, as a result of a sales visit you didn't initiate. Nearly all in-home and door-to-door solar sales fall into this category.

Under Civil Code § 1689.7, a standard buyer can cancel until midnight of the third business day after signing. Senior citizens get five business days; contracts tied to disaster or emergency repairs get seven. The seller was required to give you a signed duplicate "Notice of Cancellation" form, in the same language as the sales pitch, with boldface disclosures near the signature line — and to tell you about the cancellation right out loud at signing.

If you cancel in writing within the deadline, the seller must refund every payment and any trade-in within 10 days of receiving your notice. If the contractor never gave you the required cancellation form or disclosures in the first place, that's a separate violation worth raising in any later CSLB complaint — but it doesn't extend your own deadline to cancel, so act on the calendar date, not the paperwork gap.

The Down Payment Rule Most Solar Contracts Break

Business & Professions Code § 7159.5 caps the down payment a licensed contractor can collect at $1,000 or 10% of the contract price, whichever is less. A separate section, § 7159, requires the contract to state this in at least 12-point boldface: "THE DOWNPAYMENT MAY NOT EXCEED $1,000 OR 10 PERCENT OF THE CONTRACT PRICE, WHICHEVER IS LESS."

After that, progress payments have to track a dollar-and-cents schedule tied to work actually completed or materials actually delivered — the contractor "shall neither request nor accept payment that exceeds the value of the work performed or material delivered." A contractor who collects a large deposit before racking or panels go on the roof, or who front-loads payment ahead of completed work, is very often violating this section outright. (Contractors who post their own performance bond or use registrar-approved joint control are exempt from these timing rules — check your contract for that language.)

Pull your contract and add up what you paid against what was actually finished on the roof. If the down payment exceeded the cap, or later payments outran the work performed, write that down with dollar figures and dates — it's a specific, citable license law violation, not just a general complaint that the company is slow.

Filing a CSLB Complaint, Step by Step

File at cslb.ca.gov/consumers/filing_a_complaint — there's a solar-specific complaint form in English and Spanish, separate from the general contractor complaint form. CSLB has jurisdiction over licensed and unlicensed contractor conduct for up to four years from the act you're complaining about.

What happens next, per CSLB's own published process: intake and jurisdiction review, a notice to the contractor encouraging voluntary resolution, prioritization by severity and order received, a mediation attempt, and — if that fails — assignment to an investigative unit applying a "clear and convincing evidence" standard. Outcomes range from a citation and correction order up to an accusation that can suspend or revoke the license.

Cite specific code sections in your narrative rather than describing the problem in general terms: Business & Professions Code § 7107 (abandonment of a project without legal excuse), § 7108 (diversion of funds meant for your project, or failing to account for how they were used), and § 7090 (the registrar's authority to cite, suspend, or revoke). Those three sections are the direct hooks for a "took my money and didn't finish" complaint.

One hard limit CSLB states plainly on its own site: its investigations are not designed to get you restitution, and don't guarantee you'll recover money. For that, CSLB itself points you to small claims court or a private attorney — which is why this complaint is about the license record, not your bank balance.

The $25,000 License Bond — What It Covers and Where It Runs Out

Every active CSLB license is backed by a surety bond, currently $25,000 under Business & Professions Code § 7071.6 (raised from $15,000 by SB 607, effective January 2023). LLC contractors carry an additional $100,000 employee/worker bond under § 7071.6.5, on top of that. Property owners can claim against the bond for damages from incomplete, defective, or abandoned work, alongside unpaid employees, unpaid suppliers and subcontractors, and the state for unpaid taxes.

The number that matters most: total payout from the bond is capped at its face value, full stop, no matter how much you personally lost. And that $25,000 is per license — not per homeowner. If a contractor collapses with hundreds or thousands of customers in the same position, everyone with a valid claim is drawing against the same fixed pool, which can mean pennies on the dollar once it's divided.

Honestly: the exact mechanics of filing a bond claim — whether you go through CSLB or the surety company directly, what documentation they want, and how claims get prioritized once a bond is oversubscribed — weren't something we could confirm from a live CSLB page in this pass. Call CSLB at (800) 321-2752 and ask them to walk you through the current claim procedure before you assume the bond will cover your loss, or that it won't.

Small Claims Court: The Backstop That Actually Pays

California's small claims limit is $12,500 for an individual plaintiff, $6,250 if you're filing as a business, per the official California Courts self-help page. Filing fees run $30 to $100 depending on the claim amount and how many claims you've filed that year, with fee waivers for those who qualify.

No attorneys are allowed in the hearing itself, which keeps it accessible without hiring counsel — but only the defendant can appeal a small claims judgment; you can't appeal if you lose. And winning a judgment isn't the same as getting paid: the court doesn't collect it for you. Enforcement — wage garnishment, a bank levy — is on you as the winning party, which usually means another form to file and possibly a small additional fee.

Small claims is the most direct path to actual money if your loss is at or under $12,500, and it works well alongside a CSLB complaint rather than instead of one — the CSLB complaint builds the record; small claims is where you ask for the check. For losses well above $12,500, this venue alone won't make you whole, and that's worth knowing going in rather than after you've filed.

Stopping Payment: Your Lender, Your Card, and the Fine Print

If you financed the system with a solar loan rather than paying cash, look at the loan documents for a Federal Trade Commission "Holder" notice near the signature page. Where that notice is present, federal rule (16 C.F.R. Part 433) is designed to let you raise the same claims and defenses against the lender that you could raise against the contractor — up to the amount you've paid — because the lender bought the loan knowing it carried that condition.

Whether your specific note includes that notice, and how a lender actually handles an assertion under it, varies by lender and loan structure — we'd treat this as a starting point for a conversation with the lender or a consumer attorney, not a guarantee. If you paid the deposit on a credit card, a separate dispute right may apply under the Fair Credit Billing Act; call your card issuer's dispute line directly and reference the incomplete work.

Don't simply stop paying a solar loan on your own theory of the case without doing this homework first — missed payments can hit your credit regardless of who's at fault, and a lender that isn't yet aware of a dispute has no reason to pause collections. Put the dispute in writing to the lender before you change your payment behavior.

DFPI, the California Attorney General, and the CPUC Solar Guide

If your complaint is really about the financing — a solar loan, a PPA structured as financing, or PACE assessment — file with the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation at portal.dfpi.ca.gov or dfpi.ca.gov/submit-a-complaint, or call 1-866-275-2677. DFPI can issue administrative orders, suspend or revoke licenses, levy penalties, and file civil actions seeking restitution on top of penalties — broader authority than CSLB has, but scoped to financing conduct rather than installation quality.

The California Attorney General's office takes complaints at oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company, in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Be clear-eyed about what this does: the AG's office states plainly that it doesn't act as your personal attorney and typically doesn't litigate individual consumer cases. Its value is pattern detection — when enough homeowners file the same complaint about the same sales pitch, it can support a broader enforcement action under the state's unfair competition law.

One more thing worth checking: if your utility is PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, Bear Valley Electric Service, PacifiCorp, or Liberty, your solar provider was required to collect your initials and signature on the CPUC's Solar Consumer Protection Guide before your system could be interconnected — we couldn't confirm an exact page count for that signature requirement on a live CPUC page, so don't rely on any specific figure there. If you never saw or signed that document, that's worth mentioning in a CSLB or CPUC complaint. If you're served by a publicly owned utility — LADWP, SMUD, MID, Anaheim, Roseville, Lodi, or an irrigation district — this CPUC requirement doesn't apply to you at all; ask your utility directly what paperwork it requires instead.