The seller's disclosure form on the house we want is almost entirely blank. Should we take that as good news?
Not on its own. The disclosure form asks what the seller knows. It does not ask what is true about the house, and those are very different questions.
Sellers answer from personal knowledge, and most state forms let them check unknown. Nothing in the process requires a seller to go looking for problems before filling it out. So a short form can mean a well-kept house with an attentive owner, or it can mean an owner who never went into the crawl space. The page in front of you does not say which.
The federal lead paint rule is the clearest illustration of this. For a home built before 1978, the seller has to disclose any known lead paint, hand you an Environmental Protection Agency pamphlet, and give you a ten-day window to have the paint checked before you are committed. What the seller does not have to do is test for it. The duty is to report knowledge, not to go get some.
A blank form can also mean the seller never lived there. Many states excuse estates, trustees and lenders selling after a foreclosure from filling one out at all. If the seller is an estate or a bank, the empty boxes are expected and tell you almost nothing.
None of which makes the form worthless. It creates a record. If the seller did know about the leak and said nothing, that signed page is what turns a bad surprise into a claim. That is worth having even when the answers are thin.
So treat it as a list of questions rather than a verdict. Ask about anything marked unknown. Ask how long the seller has owned the house. A recent buyer knows less than someone who has been there thirty years. Get your own inspection regardless.
One caution: disclosure rules are set state by state and they vary a great deal, including on who is exempt and what has to be reported. Your agent can tell you how your state works.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.