Freedom Forever Bankruptcy: What California Homeowners Should Do Now

Last verified: May 31, 2026. This is an active bankruptcy case, and the situation can change. We review this article every quarter and whenever a significant development is reported in the court record.

If you have a Freedom Forever solar system and you just heard the company filed for bankruptcy, start here: your panels are still making power right now, and nothing forces a decision today. What is in front of you is paperwork and timing, and you have a little room to do it right.

There is a lesson in this for everyone with solar on their roof or shopping for it: who installs your system matters more than the panel brand, and often more than the price. The company has to still be there in year eight, when something needs attention.

This guide walks through what actually happened, what it changes about your system, and the specific steps worth taking this week. It is written for the homeowner who did not choose this and now has to deal with it anyway.

What just happened

On April 15, 2026, Freedom Forever filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (case number 26-10522). The company is based in Temecula, California, and was one of the largest residential solar installers in the country. It ranked first on Solar Power World’s 2025 Top Solar Contractors list by kilowatts installed, and second in national market share behind Sunrun, according to Wood Mackenzie. Over its history, by the company’s own count, it installed more than 150,000 systems; reporting at the time of the filing put the number closer to 190,000 nationwide, across more than 35 states.

Court filings list estimated liabilities of $500 million to $1 billion against assets of $100 million to $500 million. In plain terms, the company owes far more than it holds. The filings also state that, after administrative costs of the bankruptcy are paid, no money is expected to be left for the company’s unsecured creditors.

One word in all of this matters more than the rest: Chapter 11.

What Chapter 11 actually means

Chapter 11 is a reorganization bankruptcy, not an immediate shutdown. In theory, it lets a company pause its debts, renegotiate its obligations, and try to emerge as a going concern. That is different from Chapter 7, which is a straight liquidation.

In practice, the outcome is not guaranteed either way. Several large residential solar companies that filed Chapter 11 over the past two years, among them Sunnova, the original SunPower, and Lumio, ended up liquidated or sold off for parts rather than recovering as independent companies. Freedom Forever has not announced a sale or a shutdown, and its path will get clearer as the case moves. In the early weeks of the case the court did approve a small arrangement, reported at around $1.5 million, to bring some workers back and finish solar projects that had been left incomplete, which matters if yours is one of them. But for most homeowners the takeaway is simple: plan around your own system, not around the company’s recovery.

And do not assume a buyer riding in to “take over your account” is the rescue it sounds like. When SunPower failed, its systems and app were taken over by a successor company; customers then found previously-free monitoring moved behind a paid subscription, an app that worked badly, and a servicer that, by some homeowners’ accounts, disputed whether their warranties had even carried over. A new name on the account is not the same as the help you were promised. Whatever happens to Freedom Forever, your leverage comes from controlling your own system, not from waiting to see who buys the carcass.

About the Texas investigation

You will see this one mentioned next to the bankruptcy, so here is the accurate version.

In early April 2026, about a week and a half before the filing, the Texas Attorney General announced an investigation into deceptive sales practices by residential solar companies and issued formal investigative demands to four installers, Freedom Forever among them. The timing, an investigation and then a bankruptcy days later, is why the two keep getting mentioned together.

The distinction matters, though. An attorney general opening an investigation and issuing a demand is a documented fact. The claim that the practices were fraudulent is an allegation by that office, not a court finding, and not proven. Freedom Forever said at the time it had not yet received any formal request, and investigations like this often resolve short of what the announcement implied. None of it changes what you should do this week; your steps below are the same however the investigation turns out.

The single most important thing to understand about your warranties

Read this part twice. It is where most of the fear comes from, and most of it is misplaced.

A warranty is only as good as the company that has to honor it. Your system has two completely different kinds of warranty, backed by two completely different companies. The bankruptcy affects one and not the other.

Warranties backed by Freedom Forever, at risk. These are the promises Freedom Forever made directly: the workmanship warranty on the installation labor, the roof-penetration warranty covering the holes they made in your roof, and any production guarantee promising a certain amount of energy. These are Freedom Forever’s own obligations, and a bankruptcy can delay, reduce, or wipe them out entirely. The court filings already say unsecured creditors are expected to get nothing, so the realistic planning assumption is blunt: act as though these installer-backed promises are gone, and treat anything you recover as a bonus. Hoping they survive is not a plan.

Warranties backed by the equipment manufacturers, not affected. The warranties on your actual hardware are obligations of the manufacturers, not of Freedom Forever. If your inverters are made by Enphase, Enphase still stands behind them. The same is true for a SolarEdge inverter, a Tesla or other battery, or Q CELLS, JA Solar, Trina, or Silfab panels. Freedom Forever’s name being on your contract never changed who actually guarantees the equipment, and the bankruptcy does not change it now.

There is one honest exception to watch. A manufacturer’s warranty is only good if that manufacturer is still in business, and some Freedom Forever systems carry panels from SunPower, which went bankrupt itself, or panels sold under Freedom Forever’s own house brand. Where the company that made the equipment has also failed, that hardware warranty may be weak or gone too. So check what is actually on your roof rather than assuming every component is covered; the serial numbers and your contract will tell you the brands.

So the picture is not “my whole system is unprotected,” and it is not “everything is fine” either. It splits cleanly: the labor and roof promises from your installer should be treated as gone, and the hardware is still fully covered by the companies that built it. Knowing which half is which is what keeps you from either panicking or waiting on help that will not come.

What still works, and what to watch

Your system keeps generating. The electricity does not know the company filed. Your panels, inverter, and battery operate exactly as they did the day before.

Your utility connection is unaffected, with one urgent exception. Your interconnection and net-metering arrangement is between you and your utility (PG&E, SCE, or SDG&E), not Freedom Forever. If your system already received Permission to Operate, that status does not evaporate. The exception is urgent: if your system was installed but had not yet received Permission to Operate when Freedom Forever stopped responding, you are in the most time-sensitive position of anyone. An unfinished interconnection needs a licensed installer to complete it, and California’s net-metering rules tie the value of your future energy credits to when your system is approved. If that describes you, treat finishing the interconnection as your first priority and document your timeline carefully.

Expect your monitoring to go dark, at least for a while. National installers enroll their customers’ systems under a single company-level monitoring account, and that account is exactly the kind of thing that lapses when the company collapses. Your system keeps generating either way; you just lose the dashboard that shows you it is working. This is recoverable, and the fix runs through your equipment manufacturer, which the resources below walk you through.

Service and repairs may go unanswered, and there is no replacement company to call. Be clear-eyed about this. As of late May 2026, no other company has taken over servicing Freedom Forever’s systems. No successor installer, no warranty company assigned in their place. Freedom Forever’s own support line is still published, but people who called after the filing report reaching a recorded bankruptcy message and nothing more. Waiting on a callback is the one thing guaranteed not to work; line up other service options yourself, which the resources below help you do. And if someone contacts you claiming to be the “official new servicer” for Freedom Forever systems, treat it as a red flag. No such company exists right now. The bankruptcy court’s official case page, linked below, is where any real change will show up first.

Keep paying your loan. If you financed your system, those payments continue regardless of the installer’s bankruptcy. The loan is a separate agreement with a separate company. Many Freedom Forever loans were originated through Mosaic, though Mosaic itself later went through bankruptcy and its loan servicing has changed hands, so do not assume the name on your old paperwork is still who you pay; your most recent statement will confirm your current servicer. Stopping payments can damage your credit and create new problems. That said, if your complaint is that Freedom Forever never delivered what it promised, you have a consumer protection on your side. See the note on the FTC Holder Rule below.

A lease or PPA likely transfers. If you do not own your system but have a lease or power purchase agreement, that contract is an asset the company will probably sell to another provider, who then takes over servicing and billing. Watch your mail for notice of who that becomes.

A consumer protection on your side: the FTC Holder Rule

If you financed your system with a solar loan, federal consumer protection law includes something called the FTC Holder Rule. In broad terms, it can allow a borrower to raise the same complaints against the lender that they would have had against the seller. For example, if the company that sold and installed the system failed to deliver on its promises. This is general information, not a determination about your situation, and how it applies depends on your specific contract and facts. It is worth raising with your lender in writing, and with a consumer attorney or your local legal aid office if the amounts involved justify it.

The four documents to gather this week

Whatever you decide to do next will go faster if you have these in hand. Find them now, while you are thinking about it:

Your original installation contract. This contains the warranty terms and any production guarantee language, the promises now in question.
Your permit package and interconnection agreement. These prove your system is permitted and granted Permission to Operate, and document your relationship with the utility.
Your equipment serial numbers or system Site ID. A new servicing company will need these to transfer your system at the manufacturer level.
Your loan or lease/PPA contract. This identifies who currently services your financing and what you owe.

If a few of these are missing, that is normal. Your utility, your lender, and the permitting office can help you reconstruct most of them.

How a system gets “adopted” by a new company: Change of Installer

When the original installer is gone, equipment manufacturers have a process to transfer your system’s records to a new, licensed servicing company. It is often called a Change of Installer or a system transfer. Once it is done, the new company can see your system in the manufacturer’s portal, restore your monitoring, and handle future equipment warranty service.

A few things to expect: each manufacturer runs its own process, and it differs by brand, but for a homeowner keeping their home this transfer is generally free at the manufacturer level. One large inverter maker briefly charged a transfer fee and reversed it in 2025. Any cost you do run into at this stage is usually the new servicing company’s own diagnostic or service charge, set by that company, not a manufacturer fee. The new servicer has to be a licensed contractor in good standing with the manufacturer, and you will generally need a signed authorization, your serial numbers or Site ID, and proof that you own the system.

This is the gateway step. Until it is done, your monitoring and warranty service stay in limbo, so start it sooner rather than later.

Your short list for this week

Gather the four documents above.
Stop waiting on Freedom Forever to call you back, and shift your energy to lining up alternatives.
Identify two or three licensed California solar contractors who take on orphaned-system service work.
Begin the Change of Installer process with your equipment manufacturers.
Keep making your loan payments.
Put your communications in writing and keep copies: every email, every letter, every ticket number.

None of this has to happen in a single afternoon. Doing it over the next week or two is fine.

The resources you actually need first

There is a lot of noise around a bankruptcy this size. These are the few official, first-stop resources, the ones that do the most for you with the least confusion. (A fuller directory, including every manufacturer’s service page, lives in our orphaned-system toolkit.)

To verify the case and protect any money you are owed

The bankruptcy court’s official case page is run by the court-appointed claims agent, Kroll, at restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FreedomForever. This is where hearing dates, filings, and the eventual deadline to file a claim are posted. As of the date at the top of this article, no claim deadline (the “bar date”) had been set yet; when one is, this is where it will appear, so check back. If Freedom Forever owes you money (a deposit, a promised rebate check, paid-for work that was never finished), you are a creditor, and this is where you will file. Kroll’s case line is 888-383-7184.

To reclaim your monitoring (pick the one that matches your equipment)

Enphase: Transfer of Ownership at enphase.com/store/services/transfer-ownership; homeowner support 877-797-4743.
SolarEdge: Site ownership transfer at solaredge.com/site-transfer.
Tesla (Powerwall): register and get service through the Tesla app; support at tesla.com/powerwall-customer-support.

You will need your equipment’s serial numbers (on the gateway or inverter) to do any of these.

To handle your financing

If your loan was originated through Mosaic, note that Mosaic later went through its own bankruptcy and its servicing has moved; your most recent statement will name the company that currently services your loan and how to reach them. If you have a lease or PPA, the finance company named in your contract (not Freedom Forever) is your service contact.

To exercise your California rights

The Contractors State License Board takes homeowner complaints about licensed contractors and lets you check a license: file at cslb.ca.gov or call 800-321-2752. Freedom Forever’s California license was already under a disciplinary probation before the bankruptcy: under a 2024 stipulated settlement, its license was placed on a three-year probation and a revocation was stayed, which is a matter of public record on the license board’s site. That matters here because a CSLB complaint creates a record and can be pursued against the contractor’s bond even when the company itself cannot pay. Be clear about what each path is actually worth. If you lost money, three avenues exist, and they are not equal. The contractor’s bond is real but small and shared: California requires a $25,000 bond, a homeowner improving their own residence can claim against the full amount, but one bond is split across every claimant and empties fast, so treat it as a partial backstop, not a refund. If you financed the system and it was never finished or never performed, your strongest lever is your lender, not the bankruptcy: a federal consumer protection called the FTC Holder Rule can let you raise the installer’s failures against the company that holds your loan (see the section above). And filing a claim in the bankruptcy itself preserves your rights, but be realistic, the court filings already signal that ordinary customers are unlikely to see meaningful money from the estate. File the claim to protect your position; do not plan your finances around it.

Why this happened, and what it means if you are still shopping

Freedom Forever is the largest name in what has become a long list. More than 100 solar companies have closed or filed for bankruptcy in recent years, including Sunnova, SunPower, PosiGen, Titan Solar, and the finance company Mosaic. The company’s own filing pointed to changes in federal policy and the financing markets that residential solar depends on, along with payment breakdowns among its finance partners, as the forces that drained its cash.

There is a structural story underneath the individual failures. A large part of this industry grew on a model that needs enormous scale to work: sell fast, install fast through subcontracted crews, book the financing, move to the next roof. It runs on cheap money and generous incentives staying in place. When those tightened, the companies built for volume instead of durability were the first to break. The homeowners left holding the service obligations are absorbing part of the cost of a model they never signed up for. That is not bad luck. It is what the incentive structure was always going to produce.

This is where the line at the top of this article comes back around. Solar itself remains a sound long-term decision for many California homeowners. Electricity prices keep climbing, and a well-built system delivers two to three decades of value. What Freedom Forever’s customers are learning the hard way is that the durability of the installer turned out to matter as much as the durability of the panels. The hardware on these roofs is mostly fine; it is the promises attached to it, the service, the workmanship warranty, the someone-to-call, that evaporated. If you are shopping in 2026, that is the question to press hardest on: not which panel, not the lowest bid, but whether the company quoting you will still be answering the phone in year eight.

Where general guidance ends

Everything above is the part any Freedom Forever customer can act on without hiring anyone. The general path (gather your documents, protect your financing, start a Change of Installer, keep records) is the same for most homeowners, and we would rather you simply do it than pay someone to tell you to.

Where it stops being general is your specific contract and your specific system. Whether your production guarantee is enforceable, which of your warranties survive, what your particular financing and ownership structure means for your options, and how to sequence the manufacturer transfers for your equipment stack: those depend on documents only you have, and reading them correctly is where professional judgment earns its place. If you reach that point and want a second set of eyes, that is the kind of situation The Installer’s View was built to help with.

The Installer’s View is an independent solar advisory practice for California homeowners. We do not sell or install solar equipment. This article is general educational information about a developing situation and is not legal, financial, or tax advice; for advice about your specific circumstances, consult a qualified professional. Facts about the Freedom Forever bankruptcy reflect the public court record and reporting as of the Last Verified date above, and the case is ongoing.