If you’re taking solar quotes in Virginia this fall, you’re standing in the last stretch of the old rules. The good ones arrive January 1, 2027. Anything you sign before then runs on what’s on the books today, and that’s thinner than most buyers assume.
Start with what’s coming, because it’s genuinely good.
Virginia Code section 54.1-1117.1 takes effect January 1 and requires a written contract, printed in at least 10-point font, for a residential solar sale, lease, or power purchase agreement. The required list is specific in the places that matter. The installer’s state contractor license number. The down payment amount and the schedule for progress payments. System size, estimated first year production, and estimated annual production degradation. A description of every performance or production guarantee. Loan fees, dealer fees, program fees, and any buyer or seller points. Total cost including equipment, the battery, and reasonable estimates of labor and installation.
Then subsection F(5), which is the one the sales trade will hate. If the pitch carries a savings estimate, the contract has to disclose the “assumptions for increases to future rates for electric service” sitting behind it.
That’s the number that makes a twenty-five-year savings chart look the way it looks. Written down, next to your signature.
F(9) makes them state that “Tax and other state and federal incentives are subject to change or termination.” You get five business days to cancel without penalty. A willful violation carries a civil penalty of up to $2,500 apiece.
Now the part you’re actually living in.
Until January 1, your cancellation right in Virginia comes from the Home Solicitation Sales Act, and it runs three business days, not five. Section 59.1-21.3 gives you until midnight of the third business day after you sign.
It’s also narrower than the reputation suggests. The act reaches a sale where the seller personally solicits you at a residence that isn’t the seller’s. It excludes sales that grew out of prior negotiations between the parties, and deals done entirely by phone or online when you made the first contact.
Read that twice if you’re the kind of buyer who does homework before anyone knocks. Research the installers, call one yourself, sign in their office, and the three days may never have been yours.
The move for the next three and a half months is simple.
If you can wait, wait. January 1 costs you nothing and hands you a written contract, two more days to back out, and the escalation assumption in black and white.
If you can’t wait, don’t ask for the January protections. Demand them now, before you sign. Ask for the first year production estimate and the annual degradation rate. Ask what yearly percentage increase in your electric rate the savings number assumes. Ask for total cost with every financing charge folded in. Get all of it on paper.
A company that hands you that in October was the company you wanted anyway. One that turns vague until January just told you something.
Run your own numbers with the solar calculator, and check any quote against the solar hub before a pen touches anything.
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