A transferable contract locked in for years for a system sized for someone with higher than average energy usage. This seems like an outlier in things to consider for buying a house with solar.

You are paying more but also receive a maintenance service which may or may not save you money and time. Similar to insurance.

It has to do with solar panels to the extent that there's very little else that anyone would put on their house that uses a transferable contract. Solar panels are the most common instance in which anyone would run into this situation. I'm struggling to think of anything else, actually.

When we toured our home, the water softener system said rental on it. We inquired and the home owner confirmed the unit was purchased out right. So water softener systems is another potential example.

A water well was the first thing I thought of as a possible transferable lease, I could see septic systems possibly being leased too.

Edit- Some houses are also still heated by oil that has to be delivered on a routine basis and I could see that having a lease as well.

How do you lease oil delivery? Or do you mean the tank itself?

If you have an agreement for an oil company to come fill your oil when it gets low, you just terminate your agreement when you sell your house.

Tank installation + piping + maintenance + exclusive oil supplier, all wrapped up in a 10 year contract attached to the property. I'm not saying there are companies that do that, but I could see it being a possible business model.

Oil tanks + installation are cheap enough I'm not sure it would make financial sense for this to be a business model (we were quoted a ballpark figure of $1,500 to replace ours). Oil tanks require no maintenance whatsoever, just replacement every 15-30 years.

I have an agreement from a company that they deliver oil automatically when I need it, but I don't pay anything extra vs just calling them for a one time delivery and I can terminate the agreement at any time.

> Solar panels are the most common instance in which anyone would run into this situation. I'm struggling to think of anything else, actually.

Furnaces, air conditioners, water heaters, and water softeners are all often installed on contract.

They are? First I've ever heard of it. I just got a new furnance and some sort of contract wasn't even offered to me as an option.

These contracts aren't available through the same channels that you'd purchase equipment through. They're often offered to low-income homeowners, or sold by (shady, IMO) repair workers.

Many home equipment leases are abusive in nature -- they're deliberately made hard to cancel, with many leasors attaching extortionate "equipment removal" fees to cancellation.

Oh, okay. I guess I'm just not familiar with them because I never sought them out. I was assuming if they were common the installer would say "here's the quote for installation and here's the quote for leasing"

When I wrote that, I was thinking outside of capital goods and including things like land use contracts, mineral/water rights, and perhaps other things in cases like condos.

Cell phone towers, possibly?