How to read a disclosure package

Why this stack exists

California requires sellers to disclose what they know about a property's condition. The package is the seller telling you what they are aware of - it is not a guarantee, and it is not a substitute for your own inspection. Those are different instruments doing different jobs.

You will have a period set by your contract to review it and respond. That period is short relative to how long the stack is, which is why knowing where to look matters.

The main pieces

Transfer Disclosure Statement

The seller's own account of known defects and conditions - roof, plumbing, electrical, appliances, drainage, additions, and anything they are aware of that affects value or desirability.

Read every "yes" and read the explanation lines. A ticked box with a vague comment beside it is the single most productive thing to ask about. Blanks are also information: an unusually empty form from a long-term owner is worth a question.

Natural Hazard Disclosure

A third-party report on whether the property sits in mapped flood, fire or seismic zones. Increasingly consequential in Southern California, because it drives insurance availability and cost.

Get an actual insurance quote during your contingency period rather than assuming. In fire-mapped areas, insurance has become genuinely difficult in parts of California, and discovering the cost - or that a carrier will not write it at all - after your contingencies are removed is a bad way to find out.

This section commonly also carries the Mello-Roos and special assessment disclosure. Why that number varies street to street →

HOA documents

Where the property is in an association: governing documents, budget, reserves, meeting minutes and any pending litigation or special assessment. What to actually look for in these →

Statutory booklets

Environmental hazards, earthquake safety, lead paint for older homes. Largely generic, mostly skippable - but the lead-based paint acknowledgment for pre-1978 construction is a real disclosure obligation, not a formality.

Preliminary title report

Frequently the most overlooked document in the stack, and one of the most important. It shows who actually owns the property and what is recorded against it - liens, easements, CC&Rs, encroachments.

Read the easements. A utility easement across the back of a lot may decide whether you can build what you were imagining. A shared driveway or access easement is a relationship with a neighbor that comes with the house.

What buyers skim past and regret

• Work done without permits. Often mentioned in one line. It affects insurability, financing, future permitted work and your obligations when you eventually sell.
• Anything about water. Drainage, leaks, prior flooding, slope. Water is the most expensive category of problem in a house and the most likely to recur.
• Prior insurance claims. A repaired claim tells you something happened, and claim history can affect what future coverage costs.
• Boundary and fence-line uncertainty. Cheap to survey before you buy; expensive to resolve afterwards.
• The neighbor dispute box. When ticked, it is nearly always worth the follow-up question.
• Death or crime on the property. California has specific rules about what must be disclosed and over what period. If it matters to you, ask directly rather than assuming silence is an answer.

What your agent can and cannot tell you

We will go through the package with you, explain what a disclosure actually means, tell you which items warrant a specialist inspection, and say plainly when something looks like a bigger problem than it is being presented as.

What we cannot do is characterize a neighborhood or the people in it. That is not evasiveness or lawyer-talk - it is the Fair Housing Act, and an agent steering buyers by who lives somewhere is committing a real violation. If you want to know about an area, we will point you at public data and encourage you to spend time there at different hours and form your own view. Any agent who answers those questions directly is telling you something about how they practice.

Disclosure is not the same as inspection

The seller tells you what they know. An inspector tells you what is there. A long-term owner may genuinely not know their sewer lateral is failing.

Read the package and get your own inspection, and read them against each other - the interesting gaps are where the inspector finds something the disclosure did not mention. Where this sits in the timeline →