The credit no longer reaches a purchaser
The 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025. A purchase made now does not receive it, and a quote that still applies it is overstating your return substantially.
Section 48E, the commercial Clean Electricity Investment Credit, survives at 30 percent and is available to third-party owners of residential systems under leases and power purchase agreements. The credit exists, it simply no longer flows to a homeowner who buys.
Lease providers are not wrong to raise that. The separate question, and the one that matters to you, is how much of the value actually reaches you in the rate you are offered.
Ask any such provider two things in writing: what do you claim, and what of that value is reflected in my rate. Then confirm with a tax advisor rather than with the sales material, since the person explaining the tax treatment has an interest in your conclusion.
What each structure gives you, and costs you
If you buy outright you own the system, it is part of the house when you sell, and you carry the maintenance and the risk. If you finance with a loan you own it on the same terms, with the debt as a separate obligation that generally has to be settled at closing.
Under a lease or a power purchase agreement you do not own the array. A buyer of your home generally has to qualify for and assume the agreement, or you buy it out. Ask in writing what a transfer involves, what a buyer must qualify for, and what a buyout would cost, before signing rather than when you list.
Compare on total cost over the full term rather than on the monthly payment. Ask about any escalation rate if the payment rises over time, what maintenance is included, what happens at the end of the agreement, and what the exit terms are.
A payment that rises every year for twenty years is a very different product from a fixed one, and that difference does not appear in the first month, which is the number people compare.
Check the underlying assumptions either way
Florida investor-owned utilities credit excess solar at the retail rate and roll it forward monthly under Rule 25-6.065, with an annual true-up at the utility's lower avoided-cost rate, and systems are generally sized to no more than 115 percent of annual usage.
An optimistic assumption inflates a lease projection just as easily as a purchase one. Ask each provider what percentage of your annual usage the system covers and how the annual true-up was treated, and ask for the design to be built from your last twelve months of bills.
Broward is inside the High Velocity Hurricane Zone as defined by the Florida Building Code, so ask whichever party is installing which racking, clamps, flashing and fasteners are proposed and whether each carries a current Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance or a Florida Product Approval with HVHZ certification.
Under a lease or power purchase agreement, ask who is responsible for maintaining and repairing the system, including roof penetrations, and what happens if the provider leaves the market. Those obligations run for decades and they are worth reading rather than assuming.
Your association cannot say no, and the annual true-up to plan for
Florida Statute 163.04 provides that a deed restriction, covenant, declaration or similar binding agreement may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors from being installed, and that a property owner may not be denied permission by any entity granted the power to approve, forbid, control or direct alteration of property.
An association keeps one power: it may determine where on the roof collectors go, within an orientation to the south or within 45 degrees east or west of due south, and only if that does not impair their effective operation. If a proposed relocation would cost meaningful production, ask your installer to model both placements and put the difference in writing.
On the utility side, Florida investor-owned utilities credit excess solar at the retail rate and roll it forward monthly under Rule 25-6.065, with an annual true-up at the utility's lower avoided-cost rate, and systems are generally sized to no more than 115 percent of annual usage. Building deliberately large to bank credit gives value away once a year.
Confirm which utility serves your address before applying any of that, since municipal electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives set their own net metering policies and credit rates. And note that the 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a purchase now receives no federal credit.