Ohio Seller Disclosure Requirements: What Home Sellers Must Reveal

Yes. Ohio Revised Code 5302.30 requires the seller of a one-to-four-unit home to deliver the state’s Residential Property Disclosure Form “as soon as is practicable.” A buyer who receives it after signing may rescind within three business days, but no later than closing or 30 days after acceptance.

The section has applied to transfers since July 1, 1993. Its current text took effect May 6, 2005 (House Bill 231, 125th General Assembly), according to the Legislative Service Commission’s copy, and it exempts fourteen kinds of transfer, listed below.

Which Ohio sales fall under section 5302.30

The statute reaches “residential real property,” defined as land “improved by a building or other structure that has one to four dwelling units.” A five-unit building or a vacant lot is outside it. Ordinary sales are covered, and so are a land installment contract, a lease with option to purchase, an exchange, and a 99-year lease renewable forever. The duty attaches when the initial contract is signed, “regardless of when legal title is transferred.”

Division (B)(2) then lists fourteen transfers that need no form:

1. a transfer under court order, such as a probate sale during administration of an estate, a writ of execution, a bankruptcy trustee’s sale, eminent domain, or a decree of specific performance;
2. a deed in lieu of foreclosure, or a deed given in satisfaction of the mortgage debt, from mortgagor to mortgagee;
3. a transfer to the beneficiary of a deed of trust by a trustor in default;
4. a foreclosure sale after a default on a mortgage;
5. a sale under a power of sale after a default on a deed of trust or similar instrument;
6. a resale by a mortgagee or deed-of-trust beneficiary that took the house at such a sale or by deed in lieu;
7. a transfer by a fiduciary administering a decedent’s estate, a guardianship, a conservatorship, or a trust;
8. a transfer from one co-owner to other co-owners;
9. a transfer to the seller’s spouse or to a person “in the lineal line of consanguinity” of a seller;
10. a transfer between spouses or former spouses under a divorce, dissolution, annulment or legal-separation decree, or a settlement agreement incidental to one;
11. a transfer to or from the state, a political subdivision, or another governmental entity;
12. newly built housing that “previously has not been inhabited”;
13. a sale to a buyer who has lived in the house as a personal residence for at least one year right before the transfer;
14. a sale by someone who inherited the house and also has not lived in it as a personal residence within the year before the transfer. Both conditions must be true.

“As is” is not on that list. A seller who refuses repairs still owes the form.

The state form: fourteen lettered sections, all on actual knowledge

The Director of Commerce prescribes the form by rule, Ohio Administrative Code 1301:5-6-10. The version in force carries the stamp “Eff. 6/2022” and runs five pages plus a resource appendix. Every answer is framed as “THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS OF THE OWNER ARE BASED ON OWNER’S ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE.” Where an item is outside the owner’s knowledge, the instructions say to mark it Unknown, and item 4 of those instructions reads: “Complete this form yourself.”

Sections A through N ask about water supply; the sewer or septic system and its last inspection; the roof; water intrusion, including a question on mold inspections; structural components and fire or smoke damage; wood-destroying insects; twelve mechanical systems; lead-based paint, asbestos, urea-formaldehyde foam insulation, radon and other hazardous substances; underground storage tanks, oil and gas wells and mineral leases; whether the lot is in a designated flood plain or a Lake Erie Coastal Erosion Area; drainage and erosion; code violations, historic designation, assessments and association fees; boundary problems, shared driveways and party walls; and “other known material defects.” Several sections ask the owner to describe repairs, “but not longer than the past 5 years.”

The last page puts two notices on the buyer: check with the sheriff about Megan’s Law notices, and check the Ohio Department of Natural Resources map for abandoned underground mines. Those are the buyer’s own research, not answers the seller gives.

Timing, delivery, and the right to back out

Division (I) names the delivery methods: in person to the other side or its agent, ordinary mail, certified mail with return receipt, or fax. The buyer acknowledges receipt by signing and dating a copy and returning it.

• Form in hand before the offer. No statutory rescission. Division (K)(3)(d) bars it once the buyer received the form or an amendment before making the offer and signing.
• Form or amendment arrives after signing. The buyer may rescind by a written, signed and dated notice delivered “within three business days following the date on which the transferee or the transferee’s agent receives” it, and in any case by the earlier of 30 days after acceptance or closing. The seller must return the deposits.
• No form ever arrives. Division (K)(4) allows rescission with a written notice by the earlier of 30 days after acceptance or closing. It has no three-business-day window.

Outside those rescission rights, a missing form does not undo the deal: division (K)(1) says the transfer “shall not be invalidated” for that reason. The buyer may also waive the (K)(2) rescission right. A seller can amend the form at any time after delivering it; an amendment received after signing opens a new three-business-day window, still inside the closing and 30-day limits. A fact that changes after delivery, such as a roof leak that starts afterward, does not put the seller out of compliance under division (F)(2). The form itself says the owner “has no obligation to update” it.

Where a seller’s liability starts and stops

Division (F)(1) protects a seller from damages for an error or omission “not within the transferor’s actual knowledge.” The form must also state that it “is not a warranty of any kind” and is no substitute for an inspection. It does not shelter a lie. Division (J) keeps every duty that exists “to preclude fraud, either by misrepresentation, concealment, or nondisclosure,” and division (L) preserves the buyer’s other remedies.

Outside the form, Ohio still applies caveat emptor to defects a buyer could see. In Layman v. Binns, 35 Ohio St.3d 176 (1988), the Supreme Court of Ohio barred recovery where the condition was “open to observation or discoverable upon reasonable inspection,” the buyer had “the full and unimpeded opportunity to examine the premises,” and there was “no evidence of fraud.” The same opinion says “a vendor has a duty to disclose material facts which are latent, not readily observable or discoverable through a purchaser’s reasonable inspection.” A fraud claim must be filed within four years under R.C. 2305.09(C), and that period does not begin “until the fraud is discovered.”

Real estate agents under R.C. 4735.67

Licensees carry their own statutory duty, separate from the seller’s form. A licensee “shall disclose to any purchaser all material facts of which the licensee has actual knowledge pertaining to the physical condition of the property that the purchaser would not discover by a reasonably diligent inspection.” The agent does not have to find hidden defects or verify the seller’s answers, unless something should make the agent doubt them.

Pre-1978 houses: the federal lead-paint layer

Ohio’s form asks about lead, but the pamphlet, disclosure and inspection window come from federal law, 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 40 CFR part 745, subpart F. Before the buyer is bound, the seller must give the EPA pamphlet, disclose known lead-based paint and hazards, and allow “a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time)” for a risk assessment or inspection. The buyer can waive that in writing. Foreclosure sales are exempt, and the rule does not cover housing for the elderly or disabled, or a 0-bedroom dwelling, unless a child under 6 lives there or is expected to.

Further reading: the seller’s guide, the buyer’s guide, inspection services, and choosing an Ohio home inspector. For comparison, the pages on Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia cover the neighbors.

Ohio seller disclosure: questions people ask

I inherited my mother’s house in Dayton and never lived there. Do I owe the form?

Not if you took title by inheritance or devise and have not lived there as a personal residence in the year before the sale; division (B)(2)(n) excludes that transfer. If the executor sells during estate administration, the fiduciary exclusion in (B)(2)(g) applies instead.

We signed the purchase agreement and the form came afterward. How long do we have?

Three business days from the day you or your agent received it, and the written rescission must also arrive before closing and within 30 days of acceptance. Deliver it by one of the methods in division (I) and keep proof.

Can a buyer sign away the right to cancel?

Yes, for the late-form right. Division (K)(3)(c) says a buyer “may waive the right of rescission” described in (K)(2). The seller’s duty to complete and deliver the form stays in place.

The basement leaked after closing and the seller checked “No.” What now?

The seller answers for what he actually knew, not for what he missed. Evidence that he knew, such as a waterproofing invoice or a patched wall, supports a fraud claim, which R.C. 2305.09 gives four years from discovery to file.