Virginia Seller Disclosure Requirements: What Home Sellers Must Reveal
Virginia writes “buyer beware” into its Code: under § 55.1-703 the owner furnishes a Real Estate Board statement saying the owner makes no representations about condition. It is due before ratification. If it comes later, the buyer’s sole remedy is to terminate, within three days of hand or electronic delivery (five after a mailed postmark) and before settlement, occupancy or the other cut-offs listed below.
The § 55.1-703 statement tells the buyer to investigate
The Residential Property Disclosure Statement is not a checklist of defects. Each item says the owner makes no representation on a topic, and most then advise the purchaser to do “whatever due diligence a particular purchaser deems necessary,” often “prior to settlement.” The first item covers the condition of the property itself and names a home inspection, a mold assessment following EPA guidelines, and a residential building energy analysis.
The Real Estate Board publishes the statement on the DPOR website; the version posted in September 2026 is marked effective July 1, 2026. Its nineteen headings are:
- Condition of the property, recorded covenants, mineral-rights conveyances
- Lot lines and the ability to expand or build
- Adjacent parcels and their zoning
- Historic district ordinances
- Chesapeake Bay resource protection areas
- Registered sex offenders
- Dam break inundation zones
- Wastewater systems, including septic pump-out costs
- Any right to install or use solar collectors
- Special flood hazard areas (with a separate Flood Risk Information Form)
- Conservation or other easements
- Community development authorities
- Marine clays (marumsco soils)
- EPA radon Zone 1 or Zone 2 localities
- Pipes, fittings or solder that are not “lead free” under the Safe Drinking Water Act
- Defective drywall
- Dams or impounding structures on the lot or owned by the community association
- Proximity to a public use airport and aircraft noise
- Proximity to a military ground installation
Item 19 was added by Acts 2026, chapter 510. Another amendment takes effect January 1, 2027: item 20 will warn that land in a use-value (land-use) taxation program can owe roll-back taxes and interest after a change in use.
What the owner gives is “notification,” defined in § 55.1-700 as “a statement acknowledging that the purchaser has been advised of any disclosures required by this chapter on the Real Estate Board’s website or delivery of any such disclosures to the purchaser.” Section 55.1-714 has the Board write the signature form; DPOR’s acknowledgement form is revision 07/2021.
Covered sales: one to four units, minus nine kinds of transfer
The Act reaches sales, exchanges, installment land contracts and leases with an option to buy of residential property “consisting of not less than one nor more than four dwelling units,” with or without a broker (§ 55.1-701). Section 55.1-702(A) excludes:
- Court-ordered transfers, including estate administration by a court, writs of execution, foreclosure sales or deeds in lieu, bankruptcy trustees, eminent domain, specific-performance judgments, assignments for creditors and escheats
- Transfers to or by a deed-of-trust beneficiary through foreclosure or a deed in lieu
- Transfers by a fiduciary administering a decedent’s estate, guardianship, conservatorship or trust
- Transfers from co-owners solely to other co-owners
- Transfers solely to a spouse or lineal relatives of a transferor
- Transfers between spouses under a divorce decree or property settlement
- Transfers for unpaid federal, state or local taxes
- Transfers to or from a government entity or public housing authority
- The first sale of a dwelling, except the military air installation disclosure still applies
A builder selling a new home still has to disclose in writing “all known material defects that would constitute a violation of any applicable building code” (§ 55.1-702(B)). In Planning District 15, the builder or owner must also say whether they know of past mining or abandoned mines, shafts or pits on the property.
Facts a Virginia owner must state affirmatively
Several sections add written disclosures on Board forms. Three of them apply “notwithstanding the exemptions in § 55.1-702,” so they reach even an estate or foreclosure sale:
- Pending code or zoning violations (§ 55.1-706), when the owner has actual knowledge and was notified in writing by the locality. Applies notwithstanding the exemptions.
- A lis pendens filed against the unit (§ 55.1-706.1). Applies notwithstanding the exemptions.
- Former meth manufacture that was never cleaned up to state guidelines (§ 55.1-708). Applies notwithstanding the exemptions.
- Military air installation zones (§ 55.1-704): in a locality with such an installation, whether the parcel lies in a designated noise zone or accident potential zone on the zoning map.
- A privately owned stormwater facility (§ 55.1-708.1): its long-term maintenance and inspection requirements.
- Repetitive risk loss (§ 55.1-708.2): actual knowledge that the National Flood Insurance Program paid “two or more claims of more than $1,000 … within any rolling 10-year period, since 1978.”
- A septic waiver (§ 32.1-164.1:1(B)): a waiver granted for a failing or voluntarily upgraded system is void on sale, and the owner must disclose that on a separate Board form before the contract is accepted (subsection D). The exceptions are the transfers listed in § 32.1-164.1:1(C), not the § 55.1-702 list: court-ordered transfers (including a court-ordered estate administration, foreclosure sale or bankruptcy), deed-of-trust foreclosures and deeds in lieu, a fiduciary’s transfer “not for value,” divorce transfers between spouses, transfers to or from a government entity or housing authority, sales where the owner holds a voluntary-upgrade permit, and other transfers meeting criteria set by the Board of Health and the Real Estate Board. An estate sale for value is covered unless a court orders it in administering the estate.
Late notice and the § 55.1-709 exit
Notification must come “prior to the ratification of a real estate purchase contract.” If it comes after, “the purchaser’s sole remedy shall be to terminate” upon or before the earliest of: three days after delivery in person or electronically; five days after the postmark if mailed; settlement; occupancy; a written mortgage loan application whose disclosure says the right ends on application; or a written waiver the buyer signs after receiving the statement, in a writing separate from the contract. The statute writes “three days” and “five days” without calling them business days. The buyer’s notice to terminate goes by hand delivery, mail with proof of mailing, electronic delivery or overnight service, and the deposit comes back “promptly” with no penalty.
One carve-out: a buyer of property in a designated noise zone below 65 decibels day-night average cannot terminate over a late disclosure (§ 55.1-709(C)) and has no damages action under § 55.1-713(B).
Damages: actual losses, sued within one year
Section 55.1-713(B) lets the buyer recover “actual damages” when the owner fails to provide a required disclosure or “misrepresents, willfully or otherwise,” the information in it. The suit must start within one year of receiving the disclosures, or, if none were delivered, one year from settlement. The owner is not liable for errors outside the owner’s “actual knowledge,” or for information from public agencies or others the owner reasonably believed, unless the owner was grossly negligent in obtaining and passing it on (§ 55.1-710); the military air zone disclosure has its own narrower rule. If something changes before closing, “at or before settlement, the owner shall be required to disclose any material change” (§ 55.1-711).
The Act also says no cause of action arises against an owner or licensee for failing to disclose that the property was the site of “a homicide, felony, or suicide,” or of an event that had no effect on the physical structure or environment (§ 55.1-713(A)).
Hiding a defect is still fraud
The one-year rule does not cap everything. The Act states that it does not stop a purchaser from pursuing other remedies “in the event of an owner’s intentional or willful misrepresentation of the condition of the subject property.” In Van Deusen v. Snead, 441 S.E.2d 207 (Va. 1994), the buyers alleged that the sellers had put new mortar in foundation cracks and placed materials in front of basement cracks. The Supreme Court of Virginia wrote that “the burden is upon a purchaser of real property to discover defects,” but that the seller “must not say or do anything to throw the purchaser off his guard.” Concealment, it held, “may constitute the element of misrepresentation.” A fraud action must be filed within two years (§ 8.01-243(A)), counted from when the fraud “is discovered or by the exercise of due diligence reasonably should have been discovered” (§ 8.01-249(1)).
The listing agent writes down what the seller will not
This duty is the licensee’s, not the owner’s. A licensee engaged by a seller “shall disclose to prospective buyers all material adverse facts pertaining to the physical condition of the property that are actually known by the licensee,” and the disclosure “shall be made in writing” (§ 54.1-2131(B)). The statute limits “physical condition” to the land and its improvements, not neighboring parcels, land-use rules or roads. Separately, § 55.1-712 makes the listing agent tell the seller, and the buyer’s agent tell the buyer, their rights under the Act.
Condos and HOA lots: the resale certificate
For a unit in a condominium, cooperative or property owners’ association, the Resale Disclosure Act adds its own paperwork. The seller must obtain a resale certificate from the association (§ 55.1-2309), which has 14 days to deliver it after a written request. Unless the contract sets another period, the buyer may cancel within three days, and “days” there “means calendar days” (§§ 55.1-2307, 55.1-2312). With no certificate delivered, the buyer can cancel any time before settlement. Section 55.1-2317(A) lists six exemptions: an initial disposition to a buyer who is not acquiring the unit for its own residence (unless that buyer asks for a certificate), gifts, court-ordered sales where the court so directs, foreclosures or deeds in lieu, auctions where the certificate was in the auction package, and communities with no residential units.
Pre-1978 houses: EPA’s lead rule
This part is federal. Before a buyer is obligated on a home built before 1978 (housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities and 0-bedroom dwellings are excluded “unless any child who is less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in such housing,” 745.103), the seller gives an EPA-approved pamphlet, discloses known lead-based paint or hazards and any available reports (40 CFR 745.107), and permits “a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time)” to inspect, which the buyer may waive in writing (745.110). Foreclosure sales are outside the rule (745.101).
Virginia buyer and seller questions
Can the seller say nothing at all about the roof?
Yes, as far as the statement goes: it says the owner “makes no representations or warranties as to the condition.” Hiding the problem is different. In Van Deusen, the buyers alleged the sellers had re-mortared foundation cracks, and the court held that was enough for the fraud claim to go forward. A listing agent who knows of a roof leak must also disclose it in writing.
I’m the executor selling my father’s house. Does the Act apply?
Mostly no: § 55.1-702(A)(3) exempts transfers by a fiduciary administering a decedent’s estate. The pending-violation, lis pendens and meth disclosures still apply, because those sections override the exemptions. The septic-waiver disclosure sits in a different statute with its own list of transfers that keep a waiver alive (§ 32.1-164.1:1(C)); for an estate, that list covers a fiduciary transfer “not for value” and a transfer a court orders in administering the estate, so an executor who sells for value, without a court order, a house whose septic system has a waiver must still disclose that the waiver ends at the sale. The federal lead rule and, for a condo or HOA unit, the resale certificate sit outside this Act.
The seller never gave us anything. What can we do?
You may terminate under § 55.1-709(B) until the first cut-off arrives, and you may sue for actual damages. That claim must be filed within one year of settlement (§ 55.1-713(C)).
We’re buying a brand-new house from the builder.
The first sale of a dwelling is exempt from the Act except the military air installation disclosure, and the builder must disclose known building-code violations in writing. A builder that knows of none owes no written code-violation disclosure (§ 55.1-702(B)). In Planning District 15, the mining question still has to be answered.