How to File a CFPB Complaint Against a Solar Loan Company (2026)

The CFPB's jurisdiction over solar companies covers the financing, your loan with Mosaic, GoodLeap, Sunlight Financial, Dividend, or Sunnova, not the installation. File a CFPB complaint for loan terms, Truth in Lending disclosures, billing errors, payoff figures, dealer fees, or credit reporting. The FTC or state attorney general handles install, salesperson, and equipment disputes.

How to File a CFPB Complaint Against a Solar Loan Company: Step-by-Step

The CFPB complaint process is a defined federal procedure. The portal accepts solar loan complaints 24/7 at consumerfinance.gov/complaint. Seven steps:

1. Confirm CFPB jurisdiction. CFPB regulates the loan, originator, and servicer. Loan terms, dealer fees, TILA disclosures, billing, payoff, and credit reporting belong here. Install quality and the sales pitch route to FTC or state AG.
2. Identify the right respondent. Three parties can appear on paperwork: originator (funded the loan, e.g., GoodLeap), servicer (collects payments), and dealer/installer. The CFPB complaint targets the originator and/or servicer, not the dealer.
3. Open the CFPB portal. Go to consumerfinance.gov/complaint and choose Submit a Complaint. Free, saves drafts.
4. Choose product and sub-product correctly. Solar loans sit under Personal loan or Installment loan. Pick: Charged fees you didn't expect, Problem with payoff, Problem when making payments, or Incorrect credit-report information.
5. Write the narrative chronologically. Lead with originator, dollar amount, and date. Walk events in order. End with the specific outcome requested.
6. Attach evidence. Loan agreement, TILA disclosure, dealer-fee disclosure, disputed statement, written contact attempts. PDF/JPG/PNG up to 25 MB. Redact account number to last four digits.
7. Submit and capture confirmation. Save the complaint number. Lender has 15 calendar days to respond on the portal, up to 60 days for final response. Email alerts at every status change.

Does the CFPB Have Jurisdiction Over Your Solar Complaint?

Most-important question on the page. A CFPB complaint about an install defect gets logged but produces none of the loan-side leverage that makes the filing valuable.

Yes. These go to CFPB

• TILA disclosure errors: APR, finance charge, payment schedule
• Reg Z violations on closed-end installment credit
• Dealer fees rolled into principal without separate disclosure
• Payoff quotes that don't match amortization; prepayment-penalty disputes
• Billing errors, misapplied payments, autopay issues
• Servicer transfer disputes (originator-to-servicer handoff)
• FCRA credit reporting errors the lender won't correct
• ECOA discriminatory denial or pricing
• UDAAP: bundled credit insurance, hidden fees, deceptive practices

No: these route to FTC, state AG, or contractor licensing board

• Install defects, water intrusion, roof damage. See our roof damage guide
• Production-guarantee shortfalls. Installer warranty issue
• Door-to-door conduct, cooling-off violations, FTC complaint (different jurisdiction)
• Misrepresentation about utility savings. FTC and state AG (parallel filing)
• Unlicensed contractor work. State contractor licensing board

Why CFPB Differs From FTC and State AG Complaints

Four channels handle solar complaints; they are not interchangeable. The same dispute may belong in two or three channels in parallel. Routing logic:

CFPB is the only channel that compels a company response within a fixed window. FTC logs, state AG triages, BBB mediates only by consent.

What Happens After You Submit: 15-Day and 60-Day Windows

The CFPB timeline is procedural, not discretionary. The agency does not investigate the merits of your individual claim. It routes the complaint to the lender's compliance desk and tracks every flag.

Day 0. Submission

Automated confirmation with a complaint number. CFPB routes to the lender in 24-48 hours.

Day 1-15. Initial Response Window

The lender has 15 calendar days to post an initial response. Categories: in-progress, closed with monetary relief, closed with non-monetary relief, closed with explanation, or closed without relief. A missed 15-day deadline is itself a data point in the public database.

Day 16-60. Final Response Window

If the initial response was in-progress, the lender has up to 60 days from the forwarding date to post a final response: refund, account correction, credit-report deletion, or denial. One extension is allowed.

Post-Response. Consumer Feedback

You have 60 days to flag the response as not resolving. The flag does not reopen the case but is visible to enforcement.

Sample CFPB Complaint Narrative (Annotated)

The narrative frames the lender compliance team's response. Bracketed labels are annotations, not submitted text.

Three drafting principles: (1) lead with lender, dollar amount, and date, compliance reviewers triage by those fields; (2) state the legal basis precisely without overclaiming, "appears inconsistent with Regulation Z" works, "illegal fraud" does not; (3) end with a specific outcome the lender can grant or refuse.

What CFPB Action Actually Unlocks (and What It Doesn't)

A single CFPB complaint does not produce a refund. The CFPB does not award damages. The leverage value is structural.

What it unlocks

• A documented federal record: preserved indefinitely, admissible in subsequent litigation as evidence of notice and good-faith resolution attempt.
• A regulator-supervised response channel. The lender's compliance team handles the file, not the collections desk. Compliance teams are measured on CFPB response ratings and are more likely to settle than a collections rep.
• Pattern enforcement. Aggregated complaints raising the same UDAAP, TILA, or FCRA issue can trigger a CFPB enforcement action with class-wide restitution.
• Public-facing visibility. Narrative-consent complaints appear in the public-facing complaint database that plaintiffs' attorneys and class-action firms search.

What it does not unlock

• A guaranteed individual refund on the day you file. CFPB action may result in restitution if the agency finds a pattern.
• Loan cancellation or rescission. Those require a TILA rescission notice (15 USC §1635, narrow window), an attorney demand letter, or arbitration.
• Removal of a UCC-1 fixture filing. See our UCC lien removal guide.
• Halting collection activity. File a separate CFPB complaint against the collection agency under FDCPA. See our guide on what to do if already in collections.

The 2024 GoodLeap Consent Order as a Leverage Reference

In 2024, the CFPB entered a consent order against GoodLeap (the solar lender formerly known as Loanpal), reportedly addressing deceptive solar lending practices. Structurally, the order tells us three things.

First, the CFPB will use UDAAP authority against non-bank solar lenders: the entire stack of GoodLeap, Mosaic, Sunlight Financial, Dividend, and successors. Second, dealer-channel conduct is a basis for lender liability: when the lender controls the sales script or dealer-fee structure, the lender is the regulated party. Third, restitution under a consent order is class-wide, an individual complaint is most valuable as part of a pattern.

Practical takeaway: cite the lender's name, the dealer fee, and TILA disclosure specifics. Those are the axes the CFPB tracked in the GoodLeap order. Aligning your narrative with the agency's existing taxonomy makes the complaint more useful as pattern data.

After the CFPB Response: Escalation Options

The lender's posted response is rarely the end of the matter. It is one document in a longer escalation sequence.

If "closed with monetary relief"

Confirm in writing what is being settled. Accepting a refund of misapplied payments does not waive other claims unless the lender's settlement language says so. Partial offers become a documented baseline for further escalation.

If "closed with explanation" or "closed without relief"

This is the most-common outcome for solar loan disputes. Next tools depend on the underlying issue:

• Demand letter: citing the TILA, UDAAP, or FCRA basis with a deadline. Often surfaces a settlement the portal response did not.
• Parallel state AG complaint: file the same fact pattern as a state attorney general complaint. CA, NJ, NY, MN, MO actively investigate and layer state UDAP authority onto the federal CFPB record.
• Arbitration or lawsuit: most solar loan agreements include mandatory arbitration clauses. A CFPB complaint history establishes prior notice. Consult a consumer rights attorney instead of self-filing when the dollar amount warrants it.
• Cancellation pillar: for the broader exit strategy, see our cancellation pillar.

If the loan is already in collections

File a second CFPB complaint against the collection agency under the Debt Collection product. FDCPA validation rights and the 30-day window are separate from the loan-side complaint.

Frequently Asked Questions