Funding Packet Checklist

It is the set of documents and evidence a funding partner requires before releasing money on a deal. It typically spans four areas: borrower and credit items proving the approval is live and sufficient, executed contract and financing documents, property and approval evidence such as ownership and any HOA sign-off, and install evidence such as photos and a homeowner completion certificate. Which items are required depends on which draw you are claiming, since an early permit advance needs no install evidence and a final draw needs inspection and Permission to Operate.

Overwhelmingly for document problems rather than deal problems. The recurring causes are an expired credit approval on a deal that sat through a long permit wait; a contract amount that exceeded the approved amount after adders were added without a change order; a name mismatch between borrower, signer, and titleholder; an installed system that does not match the contracted design; and an incomplete photo set. Almost all of these are avoidable at zero cost if they are checked before submission rather than discovered by the funder.

Because nothing visible changes when it happens. Approvals are issued with a validity window, and residential solar routinely takes longer from signature to install than that window allows, especially in slow permitting jurisdictions. The deal looks healthy on every dashboard while the approval quietly lapses behind it, and the problem only surfaces at submission, after design, permit, and often material costs have all been spent. Tracking approval expiry as a live date is one of the cheapest process improvements available.

The funder will not advance more than it approved. The difference has to be re-approved, or paid by the homeowner, or the scope has to change, and all three take time and involve a conversation nobody wants to have late. This is why change orders are a funding requirement and not just good paperwork: an adder discovered at the site survey needs executed paper and, where it moves the total past the approval, a re-approval before the install goes ahead rather than after.

Because it usually depends on two things outside your control: the jurisdiction's final inspection sign-off and the utility's Permission to Operate. A clean install with a complete document set can still sit unfunded for weeks waiting on those. The practical response is to make sure everything you do control is already complete and submitted, so the only outstanding item is the one on someone else's clock, and to make sure the handoff of the inspection sign-off to the funder has a named owner.

No, and this tool should not be treated as any provider's submission specification. Required disclosures, photo specifications, completion documentation, validity windows, and which milestones are fundable at all vary by funding partner, by product, and by jurisdiction, and they change. This is a general working sequence for residential solar built to catch the common failures. Always confirm the current requirements with the applicable provider.