Filling out the seller disclosure statement

The Residential Seller’s Property Disclosure Statement — the SPDS, said as “spuds” by everyone in the business — is how an Arizona seller tells a buyer what they know about the house. It is due within three days of contract acceptance, and the answers are warranties that survive closing.

That last part is why this document deserves an afternoon rather than twenty minutes at the kitchen counter.

Ask for the online version

There are two ways to complete it: a printed form you fill in by hand, or a guided online version your agent can send you.

Ask for the online one. Sellers working with a pen tend to go thin — a blank here, a one-word answer there, a whole section skipped because it looked like it did not apply. The guided version will not let you move past a required field. That single mechanical difference produces a better document than any amount of good intention.

Your agent cannot do this for you

The form says the seller completes it. That is not a formality. These are your representations, not your agent’s, and the broker does not verify them — the form says so on its face. An agent who fills in answers based on what they think they know about your house has created a liability with your name on it.

So they cannot answer the disclosure questions for you, and they cannot advise you on what to disclose.

What they can do is help with matters of fact. Is there a homeowners association, and who manages it. Is the property in a flood plain. Is it in an unincorporated area. Is it inside a Community Facilities District. Those are verifiable, they are not judgment calls, and asking is exactly what your agent is there for.

The facts you can ask about. The disclosure is yours alone.

What “are you aware of” actually means

Nearly every question on the form opens the same way, and the phrasing is doing precise work. Awareness means knowing something definitively. It is not a duty to investigate.

If you have not had the roof looked at in five years, that is not awareness of a roof leak. You are not required to go find out before you answer, and answering yes because you feel you probably should have known is its own kind of wrong answer.

But awareness includes things you were told. If a previous owner disclosed a past leak to you when you bought the house, you are aware of it now — a decade later, and even if it never recurred.

And where you truly do not know, the instructions are explicit: do not guess. Use the explanation lines to say what you do and do not know. “Unknown — system predates our ownership” is a real answer and a good one. A guess dressed as a fact is the thing that causes trouble later.

Over-disclosing costs you nothing

This is the most useful thing to understand before you start, and it resolves most of the questions people agonise over.

There is no penalty for disclosing too much. None. If you disclose something that turns out not to have been required, nothing happens — no buyer, no broker, and no court has ever penalised a seller for volunteering a fact. Say the air conditioning unit runs loud, that the street floods in a heavy monsoon, that the neighbour keeps unusual hours. Whatever it is, if you have wondered whether to mention it, mention it.

Weigh that against the other side. The form’s own advisory warns that under some circumstances nondisclosure of a fact carries the same legal effect as saying the fact does not exist — and can be treated the same way as fraud. The two risks are not remotely symmetrical.

The advisory prints its own instruction in capitals across the top of the page: when in doubt, disclose. That is the whole method.

What you never have to disclose

There is a narrow list, set by Arizona law, and it exists for good reason. Sellers, landlords and brokers are not obligated to disclose that a property is or has been:

• the site of a natural death, suicide, homicide, or any crime classified as a felony;
• owned or occupied by a person exposed to HIV, or diagnosed with AIDS or any other disease not known to be transmitted through common occupancy of real estate;
• located in the vicinity of a sex offender.

Buyers should understand this too, because it means the disclosure statement is not the place to learn those things. If any of them matters to you as a buyer, the inspection period is when you investigate it, and public records and local law enforcement are where you look.

One limit on that protection, and it is important. The law does not shelter a seller who makes an intentional misrepresentation. If a buyer asks you directly whether someone died in the house and you know that they did, you cannot answer no, and you cannot claim not to know. You either answer truthfully or say you are not legally required to answer the question.

Repairs, maintenance, and work you did yourself

The form asks whether you are aware of work performed on the property — building, plumbing, electrical, other improvements, alterations, room conversions. It then asks whether permits were obtained and whether the person who did the work was licensed to do it.

There is a real line between maintenance and work. Trimming trees, replacing a pool light, swapping a fixture — that is upkeep, not an alteration, and it sits outside what those questions are asking. Rewiring a room is on the other side of the line, and so is anything that needed a permit.

If you did that kind of work yourself, disclose it. The form carries a notice that a contractor’s licence is required once the aggregate price of a job including labour and materials reaches $1,000, or where the work is more than casual or minor, or where a permit was needed. It also notes that a homeowner who does their own work and then lists the property within a year is presumed to have done it for the sale.

That is not a reason to hide it. It is a reason to get it on the form, in your own words, with whatever paperwork you have.

Use the blank lines

Every section has explanation lines under it, and most sellers leave them empty. A tick in a box answers the question. A sentence explains it, and the explanation is what stops a buyer imagining something worse.

“Yes” next to past roof leaks invites a buyer to picture the roof coming off. “Yes — one leak above the guest bedroom in 2019, repaired by a licensed roofer, no recurrence, receipt attached” closes the subject. Same disclosure, entirely different transaction.

The same goes for the catch-all near the end, which asks what other material information you are aware of that might affect a buyer’s decision. Most sellers write that they are not aware of anything. If something has been on your mind while reading this form, that is where it goes.

Attach the paperwork

The instructions ask you to attach invoices, receipts, permits, warranties and leases. In practice almost nobody does — we can count on no hands the number of disclosure statements that have arrived with attachments.

Which makes it an unusually cheap advantage. A receipt turns a claim into a record. It costs you a few minutes and a scanner, and it is the difference between telling a buyer the water heater was replaced and showing them when, by whom, and for how much.

It does not stop when you sign

By signing, you agree to disclose in writing any changes to the information before closing — including anything a later inspection turns up. The obligation runs all the way to the recording of the deed.

In practice this comes up rarely, and when it does it is usually obvious: something breaks, something floods, a storm takes a tree down. Tell your agent when it happens rather than deciding for yourself whether it matters.

The short version

• Ask your agent for the guided online version, not the printed form.
• Your agent cannot answer the disclosure questions or advise you on them.
• They can confirm matters of fact — association, flood plain, taxing districts.
• Aware means you know it definitively. It is not a duty to go and investigate.
• What a previous owner disclosed to you, you are now aware of. Go find that document.
• Do not guess. Write what you know and what you do not on the explanation lines.
• There is no penalty for disclosing too much. There is a real one for disclosing too little.
• Deaths, felonies, and sex offenders in the vicinity never have to be disclosed — but you cannot lie if asked.
• Maintenance is not “work.” Anything needing a permit is.
• Attach the receipts. Almost nobody does.
• Keep disclosing until the deed records.