HERO and Ygrene PACE financing shut down. What does that mean for the roof or solar system you already paid for?

HERO stood for Home Energy Renovation Opportunity, and it was administered by Renovate America, a San Diego company. PACE, the broader category both programs belonged to, stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy: a way to finance energy upgrades through an assessment attached to the home's property taxes rather than a conventional loan.

Renovate America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December 2020, after years of scrutiny over how aggressively some contractors pitched the financing and how little income verification some of those loans required. Ygrene, the other big name in the same space, did not go through bankruptcy in the same way, but it stopped funding new residential PACE projects in 2022 and scaled its consumer-facing operations back sharply.

No. This is the part that surprises the most people. PACE obligations are structured as an assessment on the property itself, not a personal loan to you. Industry and court reporting on the Renovate America bankruptcy was consistent on this point: the bankruptcy did not erase outstanding assessments. They continue to be collected and serviced by successor entities through the normal county property tax bill.

In practical terms, that means the line item on your tax bill likely did not go away just because the company's name changed or disappeared from the news. If you are unsure who currently services your assessment, your county tax collector's records and your most recent tax bill are the places to check, not your roofing contractor.

What about mis-selling claims

Separately, court-supervised settlement programs have existed for certain HERO borrowers who believe they were mis-sold, for example on income that was not properly verified or terms that were not clearly disclosed. If that describes your situation, that is a question for the settlement administrator or an attorney, not for a roofing and solar contractor. We can tell you the condition of your roof. We cannot tell you whether your loan was sold to you fairly.

No, and this is worth being clear about because a lot of homeowners assume the whole category collapsed. What ended was HERO and Ygrene's era in the residential PACE market, not PACE itself. Active, regulated PACE programs still operate in California today under state oversight from the California Public Utilities Commission and the state's PACE Loss Reserve Program administered through the state treasurer's office.

We work with Renew Financial ourselves, alongside a full bench of loan and lease partners, and we will tell you honestly when PACE fits a project and when a conventional loan or lease makes more sense. PACE has real advantages in specific situations, mainly that it does not require the credit underwriting a personal loan does, and real drawbacks, mainly that it attaches to the property and can complicate a future sale. Those trade-offs did not change when HERO and Ygrene wound down; what changed is which company is offering them.

Here is the practical problem, and it has nothing to do with your tax bill. The contractor who installed the PACE-financed roof, solar array, or HVAC system is very often gone too. PACE financing and the installer selling the job were frequently packaged together by the same sales channel, and when the financing arm's business slowed down, a lot of the installers riding along with it closed as well.

That leaves a roof or a solar system that nobody has inspected since it went up, sometimes since 2016 or 2018. Small problems have had years to grow: a boot that started to crack, flashing that lifted slightly, a valley that was never quite sealed right. None of that shows up on a property tax bill. It shows up as a water stain, eventually.

• If a roofer is gone, any workmanship warranty they promised is only as good as the company behind it.
• If a solar installer is gone, the equipment warranty from the panel or inverter manufacturer usually survives, but filing a claim generally requires a licensed contractor to diagnose the failure.
• If both are gone, you are the only party left who knows the system exists, which is exactly why an inspection now is worth more than an inspection later.

If you're still paying an assessment on a roof no one has looked at since 2018, an inspection is overdue, especially before adding solar or a battery to it.

We hold one license, CSLB #1130793 (B, C-10, C-39), which means one crew can inspect and, if needed, work on the roof, the solar, and the electrical connecting them, without pointing you toward a second contractor for half the job.

1. 1A roof inspection with a written report, $399, credited in full toward any work if you hire us.
2. 2Repair or full replacement for tile, shingle, and flat roofs, regardless of who originally installed them.
3. 3Solar and battery service under one license, so a roof problem under a panel array does not become a two-contractor scheduling headache.
4. 4Detach-and-reset work when a PACE-era roof needs attention underneath an existing solar array.

If your PACE-financed project included solar, our solar panel repair and solar panel removal and reinstallation services cover most of what an orphaned system needs.

Start with your most recent county property tax bill, which will show the assessment line item and, in most cases, the name of the current servicer even if it is not Renovate America or Ygrene directly. Your county tax assessor's office can confirm the balance and payoff amount if you are selling or refinancing.

For anything involving a mis-selling claim or a settlement, an attorney or the settlement administrator named in your specific case is the right contact, not a contractor. The California Department of Real Estate and consumer protection resources maintained by the state are reasonable starting points if you are not sure where your paperwork stands.

Yes, and this is the piece that gets skipped most often. Adding a solar battery or a Tesla Powerwall to a roof nobody has checked in years means putting new equipment, new penetrations, and additional weight on a surface with an unknown, unverified condition.

It also matters for how you use the power once it is installed. SDG&E's current time-of-use pricing runs a peak window roughly from 4 to 9pm, and a battery or a well-sized solar system changes the math on that window considerably. Our utility companies page breaks down what that peak pricing actually means for a San Diego County home.

If you are ready to have someone look at a PACE-financed roof or system honestly, book a solar or roof inspection or contact us and we will tell you what we find, in writing, whether or not you hire us for the follow-up work.