California Seller Disclosure Requirements: What Home Sellers Must Reveal

Yes. California Civil Code § 1102 makes the seller of a one-to-four-unit home deliver a Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS), on the form written into § 1102.6, “as soon as practicable before transfer of title.” If it reaches the buyer after the offer is signed, the buyer may terminate within three days of hand delivery or five days of mailing.

Which California sales need a TDS

Article 1.5 of the Civil Code (§§ 1102–1102.19) covers a sale, an exchange, an installment land sale contract, a lease with an option to purchase, any other option to purchase, and a ground lease coupled with improvements of “single-family residential property.” The Business and Professions Code (§ 10018.08) defines that term broadly: real property with one to four dwelling units, a unit in a stock cooperative, condominium or planned unit development, and a mobilehome or manufactured home sold through a real estate broker. So a fourplex seller fills out the same form as a condo seller.

Buyer and seller cannot agree their way out of it. Section 1102(c): “Any waiver of the requirements of this article is void as against public policy.”

What the § 1102.6 form asks

The Legislature printed the whole form in the statute (last rewritten by SB 1371, Stats. 2020, ch. 370). The seller’s part, Section II, has a checklist of fixtures and systems (part A), a question about “significant defects/malfunctions” in walls, roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing and septic (part B), and sixteen yes/no questions in part C. Question 1 names “asbestos, formaldehyde, radon gas, lead-based paint, mold, fuel or chemical storage tanks”; other questions ask about unpermitted work, soil and drainage problems, major fire, flood or earthquake damage, zoning violations, HOA authority, abatement notices and lawsuits. In part D the seller certifies that at close of escrow the home will have working smoke detectors (Health and Safety Code § 13113.8) and a braced, anchored or strapped water heater (§ 19211).

The form’s header tells the reader what it is not: “IT IS NOT A WARRANTY OF ANY KIND BY THE SELLER(S) OR ANY AGENT(S).” It still warns the seller that “prospective Buyers may rely on this information.” Section 1102.7 requires every disclosure to be made in good faith, defined as “honesty in fact in the conduct of the transaction.”

Sections III and IV belong to the brokers, not the seller. Civil Code § 2079 puts a separate duty on a licensee who has a listing contract, or who cooperates with the listing broker, to “conduct a reasonably competent and diligent visual inspection of the property” and disclose what that inspection would reveal. That duty falls on the agent and does not transfer to the seller.

Sales that § 1102.2 takes out of the TDS rule

The statute lists twelve categories. In its own order:

• (a) subdivision sales that require a Department of Real Estate public report under Bus. & Prof. Code § 11018.1, and transfers that can be made without one under § 11010.4;
• (b) transfers under court order, including probate sales in estate administration, sales under a writ of execution, foreclosure sales, transfers by a bankruptcy trustee, eminent domain, and sales under a decree for specific performance;
• (c) a defaulting borrower’s transfer to the lender, foreclosure sales, and resales by a lender that took the property at a foreclosure sale or by deed in lieu of foreclosure (plus the mobilehome equivalents);
• (d) sales by a fiduciary administering a trust, guardianship, conservatorship or decedent’s estate, except where the trustee is a natural person trustee of a revocable trust who is a former owner of the property or was an occupant in possession within the preceding year;
• (e) one co-owner to one or more other co-owners;
• (f) transfers to a spouse, or to a person in the line of consanguinity of a seller;
• (g) transfers between spouses under a judgment of dissolution or legal separation, or a property settlement agreement incidental to it;
• (h) sales by the State Controller under the unclaimed property law;
• (i) tax-default sales under Revenue and Taxation Code Part 6, chapters 7 and 8;
• (j) transfers to or from any governmental entity;
• (k) any portion of a property that is not single-family residential property;
• (l) leases of any duration, other than a lease with an option to purchase or a ground lease coupled with improvements.

An exempt sale is still not a license to conceal. Section 1102.1(a) states that the Legislature “did not intend to affect the existing obligations of the parties to a real estate contract, or their agents, to disclose any fact materially affecting the value and desirability of the property.”

The three-day and five-day termination window in § 1102.3

For an ordinary sale, the deadline is “as soon as practicable before transfer of title.” For an installment land contract, a lease with an option or a ground lease, it is “as soon as practicable before execution of the contract,” and execution “means the making or acceptance of an offer.”

If the TDS, or “any material amendment” of it, reaches the buyer after an offer has been signed, the buyer “shall have three days after delivery in person, five days after delivery by deposit in the mail, or five days after delivery of an electronic record” (where the parties agreed to deal electronically) to terminate the offer by written notice to the seller or the seller’s agent. The clock does not start until Sections I and II, and Section III when the seller has an agent, are completed and delivered. A written amendment under § 1102.9 is subject to the same rule, so a late material correction opens a new window.

What if the seller never delivers the form at all? Section 1102.13 says the sale is not “invalidated solely because of the failure of any person to comply,” but anyone “who willfully or negligently violates or fails to perform any duty” under the article “shall be liable in the amount of actual damages suffered by a transferee.” Section 1102.4 protects a seller from liability for an error that “was not within the personal knowledge of the seller,” if it came from a public agency or from a report by a licensed engineer or other expert and “ordinary care was exercised in obtaining and transmitting it.” Section 1102.8 keeps every other disclosure duty “which may exist in order to avoid fraud, misrepresentation, or deceit” in force.

The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement (§ 1103.2)

A second statutory form applies when the home sits in a mapped hazard area and the seller or agent knows it, or the parcel list or map notice has been posted at the county recorder, assessor and planning offices (§ 1103(c)). The triggers are a FEMA special flood hazard area (any Zone “A” or “V”), a dam-failure area of potential flooding, a very high fire hazard severity zone, a state-responsibility wildland area, an earthquake fault zone and a seismic hazard zone; the form itself also asks about high fire hazard severity zones. The current form text dates from SB 1525 (Stats. 2024, ch. 80), effective January 1, 2025. Section 1103.3(c) gives the same three-day and five-day termination right as the TDS, and § 1103.13 the same actual-damages rule. Article 1.7 has its own exemption list (§ 1103.1), and that list does not include the public-report exemption found in § 1102.2(a).

Other California statutes that attach to a resale

Pre-1978 homes add a federal layer that has nothing to do with the Civil Code. Under 40 CFR 745.107 and 745.110, before the buyer is bound the seller hands over the EPA pamphlet, discloses known lead-based paint and any reports, and allows “a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time)” for an inspection, which the buyer may waive in writing. Foreclosure sales are excluded (§ 745.101), as are 0-bedroom units and housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities unless a child under 6 lives or is expected to live there.

For the rest of the transaction, see the home selling guide, closing costs in California, the California homeowner insurance guide and California real estate overview. Buyers can use the home buying checklist and our notes on inspection red flags, and can book a home inspection. Neighboring rules: Nevada, Oregon, Arizona.

Questions California sellers and buyers ask

I’m the trustee of my late father’s trust. Do I owe the buyer a TDS?

Not while you are selling in the administration of the trust: § 1102.2(d) exempts a fiduciary selling in the administration of a trust or decedent’s estate. The exception is a natural person who is trustee of a revocable trust and either used to own the house or lived in it within the preceding year. That trustee fills out the form like any owner.

Can I list the house “as is” and skip the form?

No. Section 1102.1(a) says delivery of the TDS “may not be waived in an ‘as is’ sale, as held in Loughrin v. Superior Court (1993) 15 Cal. App. 4th 1188.” An as-is clause limits repairs; it does not remove the statement. If you have old inspection or pest reports, attach them. Our as-is selling guide and guide to selling with mold cover the practical side.

The disclosure came after I signed my offer. How long do I have to back out?

Three days after hand delivery, or five days after it was mailed or delivered as an agreed electronic record (§ 1102.3). Send the termination in writing to the seller or the seller’s agent. The period starts only once the seller’s sections, and the listing agent’s section if there is one, are completed and delivered.

Do I have to tell buyers someone died in the house?

Not if the death occurred more than three years before the buyer’s offer. Civil Code § 1710.2 says such a death, and the fact that an occupant had HIV or died of AIDS-related complications, are “not material facts that require disclosure.” The section gives no cover for an intentional misrepresentation made in answer to a buyer’s direct question about deaths on the property.

We found a defect after closing that the seller must have known about. What now?

Section 1102.13 makes a seller who willfully or negligently fails in a disclosure duty liable for your actual damages; the sale itself stays in place. A fraud claim is subject to Code of Civil Procedure § 338(d): three years, and the claim “is not deemed to have accrued until the discovery, by the aggrieved party, of the facts constituting the fraud.” Keep the TDS you signed. Your claim depends on what it says.