Mississippi Seller Disclosure Requirements: What Home Sellers Must Reveal
When a licensed broker or salesperson helps sell a one- to four-unit Mississippi home, the seller owes a Property Condition Disclosure Statement (Miss. Code §§ 89-1-501, -503) “as soon as practicable before transfer of title.” Delivered after an offer, it gives the buyer 3 days (5 if mailed) to terminate.
The statute is Mississippi’s Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Requirements, §§ 89-1-501 through 89-1-527. House Bill 1271, approved April 23, 2024 and effective on passage, amended §§ 89-1-503 and 89-1-523 and repealed § 89-1-519. The Mississippi Real Estate Commission’s July 1, 2026 compilation of the license law prints that text, and no 2025 or 2026 bill amended these sections.
A licensee in the deal is a precondition
Section 89-1-501(1) limits §§ 89-1-501 through 89-1-523. They apply only to a sale, exchange, installment land sale contract, lease with an option to purchase, other option to purchase or ground lease coupled with improvements, of real property on which a dwelling unit is located, or a residential stock cooperative, “consisting of not less than one (1) nor more than four (4) dwelling units, when the execution of such transfers is by, or with the aid of, a duly licensed real estate broker or salesperson.” A true for-sale-by-owner deal with no licensee on either side is outside that language, and so is a building with five or more units.
The content is set by the Commission, not written into the Code: disclosures “shall be made on a copy of a disclosure form, the structure and composition of which shall be determined by the Mississippi Real Estate Commission” (§ 89-1-509). The Commission’s Forms page posts the Property Condition Disclosure Statement (PCDS) as a file dated April 25, 2023. Its sections are General Information; Roof; Utilities, Internet and Television Services; Structural Items & Soils; Land and Site Data; and Built-In Appliances, Systems and Mechanical Equipment, followed by a seller certification. The Land and Site Data part asks whether the seller is aware that any part of the property is in a “FEMA Designated Flood Hazard Zone” and whether it “has ever been flooded by rising water from the outside.” The seller signs again at closing, certifying the answers are still “true and complete.”
Section 89-1-501(2): nine exclusions
- Transfers under court order, “including, but not limited to” probate-court estate administration, writs of execution, foreclosure sales, bankruptcy trustees, eminent domain and specific-performance decrees.
- Transfers to a mortgagee by a mortgagor, or to a beneficiary of a deed of trust by a trustor, who is in default (or by a successor in interest in default); foreclosure sales and sales under a power of sale after default on a mortgage, deed of trust or other instrument containing a power of sale; and transfers by a mortgagee or deed-of-trust beneficiary that acquired the property at such a sale or by “a deed in lieu of foreclosure.”
- Transfers “by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent’s estate, guardianship, conservatorship or trust.”
- Transfers “from one co-owner to one or more other co-owners.”
- Transfers to a spouse or “to a person or persons in the lineal line of consanguinity of one or more of the transferors.”
- Transfers between spouses under a divorce or legal-separation decree or a property settlement incidental to it.
- Transfers to or from a governmental entity.
- Transfers of land “on which no dwelling is located.”
- “The provisions of Section 89-1-527” (the stigma and sex-offender rules below).
The Commission’s form has a checkbox page for these exclusions and a pair of boxes for a seller when no seller has occupied the house and no seller has any knowledge of its condition. A seller who checks both boxes signs and leaves the rest blank.
Three days in person, five by mail
Section 89-1-503(1) has two delivery rules. In a sale, the statement is due “as soon as practicable before transfer of title.” In a real property sales contract, lease with option or ground lease, it is due “as soon as practicable before execution of the contract,” and “execution” means “the making or acceptance of an offer.” The seller notes compliance on the deposit receipt, the contract, an addendum or a separate paper. Delivery is “by personal delivery to the transferee or by mail,” and handing it to the buyer’s spouse counts unless the contract says otherwise (§ 89-1-517).
The buyer’s exit right: if the statement or “any material amendment” arrives “after the execution of an offer to purchase, the transferee shall have three (3) days after delivery in person or five (5) days after delivery by deposit in the mail, to terminate his or her offer by delivery of a written notice of termination to the transferor or the transferor’s agent.” The statute does not say business days. Because an amendment is “subject to the provisions of Section 89-1-503” (§ 89-1-515), a material amendment reopens the window. The Commission’s form adds, in its note to buyers, that on such a termination “your earnest money will be fully returned.”
If the seller never delivers a statement, or leaves part of it blank, § 89-1-503(2) provides that “the prospective transferee is presumed to be on notice to inquire of the transferor concerning the content of the disclosure or the lack thereof.” A missing form does not undo a closed sale: “No transfer … shall be invalidated solely because of the failure of any person to comply” (§ 89-1-523(1)).
How far the seller’s answers bind
Each answer must be made “in good faith,” which § 89-1-511 defines as “honesty in fact in the conduct of the transaction.” The seller is not liable for an error that “was not within the personal knowledge of the transferor,” was based on information “timely provided by public agencies” or by other providers covered by subsection (2), and was obtained and passed on with “ordinary care” (§ 89-1-505(1)). A report or opinion from a licensed engineer, land surveyor, geologist, structural pest control operator, contractor or other expert, on matters within that expert’s license or expertise, satisfies that rule if it is provided to the buyer “pursuant to a request therefor, whether written or oral” (§ 89-1-505(3)). A seller who could not find an item after “a reasonable effort” may give a clearly labeled approximation (§ 89-1-507). A later event that makes an answer inaccurate is not a violation.
The article is not the whole law. Section 89-1-513 keeps “any obligation for disclosure created by any other provision of law or which may exist in order to avoid fraud, misrepresentation, or deceit.” In Lancaster v. Miller, No. 2019-CA-01715-COA (Miss. Ct. App. Feb. 23, 2021), buyers whose PCDS said the house had been “totally renovated” sued over plumbing, electrical and roof problems. The court reversed summary judgment for the individual sellers. It restated that fraud must be proved “by clear and convincing evidence” through nine elements, from “a representation” and “its falsity” to the buyer’s reliance and “consequent and proximate injury.”
Agents: no liability for the form’s contents
“No listing or selling agent shall be liable for any error, inaccuracy or omission of any information delivered pursuant to” the article (§ 89-1-505(4)). Under § 89-1-523(2), as amended in 2024, “no real estate licensee shall be subject to discipline or other action of any kind by any licensing authority” over the required information or its delivery. Section 89-1-503(2) says the same for any licensee involved in the transaction: “no duty or obligation” and no discipline over the disclosure or its failure to comply, “or the delivery thereof” (the last four words added in 2024).
Deaths, crimes and the sex-offender registry: § 89-1-527
The fact or suspicion that a property was “the site of a natural death, suicide, homicide, or felony crime,” or of an event with no effect on its physical condition, or was occupied by someone with a disease “not known to be transmitted through common occupancy,” is not “a material fact that must be disclosed.” Illegal drug activity that affects the property’s physical condition is carved out of that rule. Failing to disclose sex-offender registry information gives no cause of action either. Neither omission is grounds to terminate or rescind. Two limits apply. Registry-related factors “if known to a property owner or licensee shall be disclosed if requested by a consumer.” And an owner who makes “intentional or fraudulent misrepresentations in response to a direct inquiry” can still be sued.
Homes built before 1978
The PCDS only encourages buyers of pre-1978 homes to investigate lead paint; the binding rule is federal (42 U.S.C. § 4852d; 40 C.F.R. part 745, subpart F). Before the buyer is obligated, the seller gives the EPA pamphlet, discloses known lead-based paint and hazards, lists available records, and allows “a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time)” for a risk assessment or inspection, which the buyer can waive in writing (40 C.F.R. § 745.110). Foreclosure sales are exempt (§ 745.101).
What Mississippi sellers and buyers ask
We’re selling our house ourselves, with no agent. Is the PCDS required?
Not by § 89-1-501, which reaches only transfers made “by, or with the aid of, a duly licensed real estate broker or salesperson.” A fraud claim does not depend on that statute, so any answer you give a buyer still has to be true.
I’m executor of my mother’s estate and never lived in the house. What do I sign?
A sale “by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent’s estate” is excluded (§ 89-1-501(2)(c)). On the Commission’s form, check the fiduciary exclusion and sign; the no-occupancy, no-knowledge boxes are available only if no seller has occupied the property and no seller has any knowledge of its condition.
Must I tell buyers that the previous owner died in the house?
No. Section 89-1-527 says a death on the property is not a material fact that must be disclosed. If a buyer asks you directly, do not lie: intentional misrepresentation in answer to a direct question remains actionable.
We closed two years ago and just found rot the sellers painted over. Too late?
Mississippi’s catch-all limitation is three years from accrual (§ 15-1-49). If the defendant “shall fraudulently conceal the cause of action,” it accrues only when the fraud “shall be, or with reasonable diligence might have been, first known or discovered” (§ 15-1-67).