Buying a Home

Protect Your Family
Protect Your Family (Spanish)

Federal Residential Lead-based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992

This law requires the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to jointly issue regulations to require disclosure of known lead-based paint hazards by persons selling or leasing housing built before the phase out of residential lead-based paint use in 1978. The regulations were made final and published in March 1996. Following is a summary of the requirements:

1. Sellers and lessors of most residential housing built before 1978 must disclose the presence of known lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the housing:
2. Sellers and lessors must provide purchasers and lessees with any available records or reports pertaining to the presence of lead-based paint hazards in the housing;
3. Sellers and lessors must provide purchasers and lessees with a Federally approved lead hazard information pamphlet;
4. Sellers must provide purchasers with a 10-day opportunity to conduct a risk assessment or inspection for the presence of lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards before the purchaser is obligated under any purchase contract;
5. Sales and leasing contracts must include certain disclosure and acknowledgment language; and
6. Agents must ensure compliance with these requirements.

Types of housing exempted from these requirements are:

• Zero bedroom units, such as efficiencies, lofts, and dormitories.
• Housing leased for less than one hundred (100) days, such as vacation houses or short-term rentals.
• Housing for the elderly (unless children live there).
• Housing for the handicapped (unless children live there).
• Rental housing that has been inspected by a certified inspector and found to be free of lead-based paint
• Housing sold at a foreclosure sale.