Property Disclosure
What a seller must disclose under Texas law, and how the federal lead-paint rule layers on top.
Disclosure questions test a specific, practical skill: knowing what a seller actually has to tell a buyer, and what happens when they don't.
The Seller's Disclosure Notice
Texas generally requires a seller to complete a Seller's Disclosure Notice covering known conditions and defects — flooding history, structural issues, past repairs, and more. This is a disclosure of what the seller knows, not a guarantee or warranty about the property's condition; a seller isn't required to investigate or discover problems they're unaware of.
If a seller has actual knowledge of a past flooding issue, Texas disclosure practice generally requires disclosing it — even if the issue has since been fixed, and even if the seller genuinely believes it's no longer relevant. Actual knowledge is actual knowledge.
The federal lead-based paint overlay
Separate from Texas's own disclosure notice, federal law layers on an additional requirement for housing built before 1978: known lead-based paint hazards must be disclosed, and this requirement applies to a lease as well as a sale — not sales alone.
What disclosure doesn't cover
Disclosure obligations generally don't require a seller to hire an inspector or proactively investigate problems that aren't already within their actual knowledge. That gap is exactly why a buyer's own inspection contingency matters — disclosure and inspection are two different protections, not substitutes for each other.
The recurring theme across almost every disclosure question: the standard is the seller's actual knowledge, not what a diligent seller theoretically could have discovered.
Try Property Disclosure questions
5 free questions on this exact topic, no signup required.
Start free preview →