What Belongs on Your Seller Disclosure, and Why Telling More Protects You

Sellers tend to treat the property disclosure form like a test, and they think the passing grade comes from writing as little as possible. In Arizona the standard form most sellers fill out is the Seller's Property Disclosure Statement, usually called the SPDS. However it is named where you are, the logic is the same, and the instinct to say less is the wrong one.

Here is the plain version. The disclosure is your written account of what you actually know about the house. The age of the roof as best you know it. The water heater you replaced. The time water came under the back door during a monsoon and what you did about it. The letter from the HOA about the gate. Insurance claims. Unpermitted work from a prior owner, if you know of it. It is not a warranty and it is not an inspection. It is you, telling the truth about the house as you have lived in it.

What trips people up is the difference between a problem and a documented problem. A roof leak repaired by a licensed roofer, with the invoice attached, is a closed chapter. Most buyers read that as a house someone looked after. The same leak found by the buyer's inspector, with no explanation, turns into a repair request, a credit, or a cancelled contract. And a known issue that never made the form at all is the one that can follow a seller after closing. The buyer's inspector is going to walk the house either way. The only variable is whether the buyer hears the story from you first.

So here is the short list I walk sellers through. Fill the form out early, before the sign goes in the yard, so you are not doing it from memory the night an offer comes in. Go room by room and system by system: roof, plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling, pool equipment, irrigation, appliances that convey. Gather every repair receipt and permit you can find and attach them. If a prior owner disclosed something to you when you bought, carry it forward. When you are unsure whether an item belongs on the form, put it on.

Two more points. First, the form is a snapshot, so if something changes between listing and closing, a new leak or a new HOA notice, you update it. Second, the questions about what you are legally required to disclose, and what happens if you get it wrong, belong with a real estate attorney, not with an agent and not with a blog post.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

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Jon Hegreness, REALTOR / Associate Broker, Howe Realty
(623) 826-0888 / JonHegreness@gmail.com / License BR540940000
9059 W Lake Pleasant Pkwy, B-200, Peoria, AZ 85382
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