Funny you mention the water line to the fridge. I’m sorry that happened! I had floor damage from a leak once and I cut and cap all water lines to the fridge now, when I move into a or renovate a house, I can make ice cubes if I need them.
Your jurisdiction may have specific requirements and you should know those. But no, if there is no defect (not just if you covered it up, as some do, but you did not!), you need not disclose it.
You also do not need to disclose anything that is visible and obvious to the buyer, like peeling paint (unless it is hidden away). Disclosures are only for those defects of which you have personal knowledge and are not completely obvious (which some disclose anyway).
Consolation: No one has a sump pump in the cellar unless there is occasionally water. The asbestos insulation on the pipes was right there for anyone to see. And so forth.
Well, that’s not necessarily true. Everyone I know who has a low-lying house - or a basement - gets a sump pump because there is occasionally heavy rain here. It’s just protocol. Some have never had any damage and don’t want any!
Sure, asbestos needs to be disclosed IF known. Some sellers really are ignorant, yet others are concealing. It is hard to know.
We had asbestos removed when we moved in, but I think there’s still some behind one of the finished walls of the basement and might be more elsewhere. I’m sure there’s lead paint given the age of the house, but we haven’t had it tested. In our old house our agent gave us the required form to sign that said we didn’t know if there was lead paint in the house. I told her I wouldn’t sign it because we’d had the entire house tested. Most of the house was actually clean because the previous owners had stripped the downstairs windows and doors and had replaced all the exterior plaster walls with new gyp board. Upstairs we’d stripped the kid’s room and the hall. So for a house its age (1914) it was actually had much less paint than you’d expect.
Definitely look at the form itself. In Massachusetts, it’s very specific, but you are allowed to check “Unknown” for some categories, such as lead paint. If the house is, say, 150 years old, you KNOW there’s lead paint in it, but unless you have specifically been tested for it, you can check the box saying “seller is unaware of the presence of lead” or whatever it says. Anyone buying an antique house knows there is likely to be lead in it somewhere, but if the seller checks the box saying so definitively, he or she is on the hook for abatement if the buyer has children under 6.
Another question asks if the seller has ever seen water in the basement. “Why, yes,” we declared for the first house we ever sold, an antique built in 1783 on a former wetland in Salem, Mass. “Every single time it rains, you can float a rubber ducky across the floor toward the sump pump. That is why everything is on wooden pallets down there.”
The buyers did not care. They paid full asking price. You never know.
In WA, there is so called Form 17 (seller’s disclosure). One of the questions is “Does the property contain fill dirt?” How the hell would most folks know if any of the prior owners moved some dirt around? So naturally, the response is “do not know.”
Re: lead paint. Any house build prior to 1978 (?) is presumed to have lead paint here.
The law may have changed, but we weren’t on the hook for abatement that I can remember. The buyers had a baby and were grateful to know which rooms were clean.
Our house had no water in the basement from 1999 to 2007, storm sewers backed up while I was away on college visits with the older son and younger son and DH were both home with the flu. They did not enjoy bailing out the basement. We got a sump pump, but the town fixed the sewer issue in the meantime, so it’s unlike to happen again.
We’ve lived in our home nearly 30 years. It has had all kinds of leaks over that time. Some were early due to unknown maintenance issues (clogged leaves in a gutter, ice damming during an unusually severe winter, etc.), that we’ve learned to avoid with proper maintenance. Some were minor pipe or appliance issues which were subsequently fixed, and any damage corrected. One was a major pipe burst, which we had professionally abated, and made an insurance claim. These are all part of home ownership, and not due to any defect. I haven’t viewed our state’s disclosure forms, but it does make me nervous when it is time to sell. If we have to disclose “ANY” leaks, it could easily scare off a potential buyer, especially a new home owner, but it only feels long because we’ve been in the same home so many years. All homes are going to have issues that need repair over time.
Laws vary by state but the general rule is a seller must disclose any material defect that isn’t readily observable.
Generally speaking, disclosure forms are not developed to precisely conform with the requirements of state law, but rather to facilitate the process by reminding the seller of potential topics to disclose.
I’ve prepared and signed literally hundreds of real estate disclosure forms and my practice is to fully answer every question and to err on the side of overdisclosure.
For example, if asked about any past plumbing leaks, I would disclose if I’d replaced a toilet flapper.
There’s a certain benefit to a seller in a buyer reading the disclosure form and thinking “wow, this seller is crazy, telling us about every repair he’s made to the place, such as changing the burned out lightbulb in the oven, replacing the toilet flapper, telling us the year he replaced the shower head… this is boring… obviously the house is in good shape… let’s just close the damn thing.”
We are in the process of getting our house on the market and at least in Arizona, on the seller’s disclosure statement form, there is a specific question asking about whether or not there have been any water leaks in the house. If that question shows up on your form and if there has been a leak, you need to answer truthfully.
And even if it doesn’t, you should still list it on the “Anything else” section.
^ Exactly. The seller should write: “In June, 2017 the water like to the refrigerator burst, causing damage to the floor; the water line was replaced and the floor has been repaired” or something like that. Any disclosure obligation will have been satisfied and the buyer should take some comfort that they’re dealing with a responsible seller.
