What must a home seller disclose in New Jersey?

Three kinds of obligation, and why the distinction matters

Most answers to this question run three different things together. Must disclose is a statute naming a fact the seller has to put in front of the buyer before the buyer is bound. Must not conceal is the common law, made by the New Jersey Supreme Court: it does not require a seller to volunteer everything, but it lets a buyer undo a sale where a known, material, hidden defect was deliberately kept quiet. And the form, the Seller's Property Condition Disclosure Statement, has been required in residential sales since August 1, 2024; before that date no statute required a seller to complete it.

Sources are cited under each section below. Every obligation on this page is statutory, regulatory or a Supreme Court holding; none rests on custom.

Must not conceal: the rule the Supreme Court made in 1974

A New Jersey seller's general duty does not come from a statute listing defects. It comes from the common law and from the State form's own preamble, which records that the seller is under an obligation to disclose any known material defects even if not addressed in the printed form. The common-law rule is Weintraub v. Krobatsch, decided March 19, 1974. The buyers had signed a contract stating they had inspected the house, were satisfied with its condition, and that no representations had been made. Before closing they entered the empty house at night, turned on the lights, and found it infested with cockroaches.

The Supreme Court sent the case back for trial. The buyers, it held, should have been permitted to establish that the house was extensively infested, that the seller was well aware of it, and that the seller deliberately concealed or failed to disclose the condition because of the likelihood that it would defeat the transaction. Quoting an 1885 decision, the Court repeated that silence may be fraudulent. It rejected the older Massachusetts rule that a silent seller owes nothing, placing it in a line of cases surely out of tune with our times and adding that it does not represent our sense of justice or fair dealing.

The condition has to be latent, known to the seller, and material. Minor conditions that ordinary sellers and purchasers would reasonably disregard do not qualify.

Three limits are built in. The defect must be latent, not observable by the buyer on inspection. The seller must actually have known of it. And it must be material: the Court said in terms that minor conditions ordinary sellers and purchasers would reasonably disregard as of little or no materiality would not call for judicial intervention. In 1995, in Strawn v. Canuso, the Court read Weintraub as establishing liability, for a seller of real estate or for the seller’s broker, for nondisclosure of on-site defective conditions known to them and unknown and not readily observable by the buyer, and gave radon contamination and a polluted water supply as examples.

Weintraub v. Krobatsch, 64 N.J. 445 (1974), at 449–51 and 455–56; Strawn v. Canuso, 140 N.J. 43 (1995). The Weintraub contract's clause that no representations had been made and no responsibility was assumed for the condition of the premises did not prevent the buyers from proceeding.

The Seller's Property Condition Disclosure Statement

The statement is a State form, published by the Division of Consumer Affairs, on which the seller answers a numbered set of questions about the property to the best of the seller's knowledge. Its preamble says the seller is under an obligation to disclose any known material defects even if not addressed in the printed form, that the seller alone is the source of the information, and that it is not a substitute for the buyer hiring qualified experts to inspect.

Before August 1, 2024 no statute required a seller to complete the full statement: the 1999 statute that governs its content, N.J.S.A. 56:8-19.1, is a safe harbor for licensees who relay a seller's answers, not a mandate on sellers. That changed on August 1, 2024. P.L. 2024, c. 32 requires, in every residential sale, that the seller provide the statement with the information filled in and signed, and where the seller has no brokerage or is working with a brokerage engaged as a transaction broker, the seller must provide it to the buyer before the buyer becomes obligated under any contract. The Division's August 2024 instruction sheet puts it directly: completion of questions 1 through 108 is mandatory for all sellers of residential real property in the State.

B&Co. Realty is engaged as a transaction broker. Under the 2024 statute that is the configuration in which the seller hands the completed statement to the buyer directly, before the buyer is obligated; the firm's own duties in that role include treating all parties honestly and advising them to seek expert advice on matters relating to the transaction.

Section headings as printed on the Division of Consumer Affairs form. Question 41, on lead piping, is required by N.J.S.A. 56:8-19.1(b)(3); question 97 asks about any material defect not disclosed elsewhere and defines a defect as material if a reasonable person would attach importance to it in deciding whether or how to proceed. The seller's acknowledgment states that the answers are not a warranty, and an executor, administrator or trustee who never occupied the property may state instead that they lack the knowledge to complete it.

N.J.S.A. 45:15-16.87(e) and 45:15-16.94(b), enacted by P.L. 2024, c. 32, approved July 10, 2024, effective August 1, 2024; Division of Consumer Affairs, Instructions – Seller's Property Condition Disclosure Statement, August 2024. Under N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.4(b) every licensee, whether engaged under an agency or retained to market the property as a transaction broker, makes inquiries of the seller and a visual inspection for readily observable conditions, and under N.J.S.A. 45:15-16.97(b) a brokerage that did so is not liable for information the seller was required to disclose and did not provide.

Flood risk: the section every seller must answer

P.L. 2023, c. 93, approved July 3, 2023 and codified at N.J.S.A. 56:8-19.2, added a section headed Flood Risk to the disclosure statement and made it mandatory. Sellers had to use the revised form from the 90th day after the Division published it; the Division published it on December 21, 2023, and the requirement applies to sales on or after March 20, 2024. It applies to every seller of real property in the State, residential or not, and the answers must be given before the purchaser becomes obligated under any contract, whether or not the seller completes the rest of the form.

N.J.S.A. 56:8-19.2(a) and (b)(1)–(8); P.L. 2023, c. 93, sections 2 and 4 (the act took effect on approval, July 3, 2023; section 2 applies to sales on or after the 90th day after the revised form was published); Department of Community Affairs release of December 21, 2023 announcing the forms and the March 20, 2024 date; question numbering and the verified-versus-actual-knowledge split from the Division's August 2024 instruction sheet. The statute's explanatory text is printed on the form, including that a standard homeowner's policy typically does not cover flood damage and that a flood-insurance requirement attached to past federal disaster assistance passes to future owners. The look-up tool is at flooddisclosure.nj.gov.

Lead-based paint: housing built before 1978

This one is federal. It comes from a statute enacted October 28, 1992, 42 U.S.C. § 4852d, and the EPA and HUD rules that implement it. The rules call the housing they cover target housing: housing built before 1978, carving out housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities and 0-bedroom dwellings, and exempting a short list of transactions, sales at foreclosure among them. For a sale of target housing, before the buyer is obligated under a contract, the seller must give the buyer the EPA lead-hazard pamphlet, disclose any known lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards, hand over any available records or reports, and allow a ten-day period for a risk assessment or inspection unless the parties agree in writing on a different period or the buyer waives it in writing.

42 U.S.C. § 4852d (Pub. L. 102–550, title X, § 1018, October 28, 1992); 24 C.F.R. § 35.88 and 40 C.F.R. § 745.107 (the disclosure activities), § 745.101 and § 745.103 (scope and the definition of target housing), § 745.110 (the inspection period) and § 745.113 (the contract attachment). The rules state that nothing in them implies a positive obligation on the seller to conduct any evaluation or reduction activities; the statute requires any agent under contract with the seller to ensure compliance on the seller's behalf.

Radon, private wells, new construction and solar panels

Radon. N.J.S.A. 26:2D-73 does not require a seller to test; it requires a seller whose building has been tested to disclose the result. In the prospective sale of a building that has been tested for radon, the seller shall provide the buyer, at the time the contract of sale is entered into, with a copy of the results and evidence of any subsequent mitigation or treatment. The State form's radon section says so and asks whether the seller wishes to waive the confidentiality the same statute otherwise gives them.

Private wells. Where the drinking water comes from a private well, the Private Well Testing Act requires the contract of sale to include, as a condition of the sale, a test of that supply for a statutory list of parameters: coliform bacteria, nitrates, iron, manganese, pH, regulated volatile organic compounds and lead, with a radium screen and county-specific additions where the Department of Environmental Protection requires them. Title cannot close until both buyer and seller have received and reviewed the results and certified in writing that they have.

New construction. In 1995 the Supreme Court held in Strawn v. Canuso that a builder-developer of residential real estate is liable for nondisclosure of off-site physical conditions known to it and unknown and not readily observable by the buyer, where they are material enough to affect the habitability, use or enjoyment of the property. The Legislature answered the same year with the New Residential Construction Off-Site Conditions Disclosure Act. For a dwelling not previously occupied, the seller, which the Act defines as the builder or a licensee engaged in the sale of newly constructed residential real estate, gives the buyer at contract a prescribed notice that the municipal clerk keeps lists of nine categories of off-site condition, from National Priorities List sites and known hazardous-discharge sites to high-voltage lines, gas transmission lines, landfills, wastewater plants and airport safety zones, within the municipality and any municipality within half a mile. The buyer then has five business days to cancel by certified mail, and giving the notice is deemed to satisfy the seller's off-site disclosure duty in full.

Solar panels. P.L. 2023, c. 312, approved January 16, 2024, requires the disclosure statement, the contract or a rider, in the sale of a single-family home with solar panels, to name the business that installed them and, if different, the business that owns them or holds any lease or power purchase agreement, and to state whether that agreement passes to the buyer, with copies of the documents that will bind the new owner. Misrepresenting it makes the owner liable for the resulting damages or $1,000, whichever is greater. The chapter applies to panels installed on or after its enactment and, by its own terms, remains inoperative until the Real Estate Commission posts the required consumer information on its website; whether that has occurred is a question for counsel.

N.J.S.A. 26:2D-73 (L. 1986, c. 83); N.J.S.A. 58:12A-27 to 58:12A-29 (Private Well Testing Act, L. 2001, c. 40); N.J.S.A. 46:3C-3, 46:3C-8, 46:3C-9 and 46:3C-10 (L. 1995, c. 253), with the same off-site notice required in every contract a licensee prepares for newly constructed residential real estate by N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.4(c)1; Strawn v. Canuso, 140 N.J. 43 (1995); N.J.S.A. 46:3C-13 to 46:3C-15 and P.L. 2023, c. 312, section 4.

What the contract must say, and what is not a disclosure

Every residential contract or lease a New Jersey licensee prepares carries a Megan's Law statement, in print as large as the predominant print of the document: under New Jersey law the county prosecutor determines whether and how to provide notice of the presence of convicted sex offenders in an area; licensees in their professional capacity are not entitled to that notification and cannot obtain it for the buyer; and upon closing the county prosecutor may be contacted for such further information as may be disclosable. The registration and notification law is N.J.S.A. 2C:7-1 et seq.; the statement itself is required by the Real Estate Commission's rules, not by that statute.

The same rules draw a line that surprises many sellers. Information about social conditions, such as neighborhood noise, and psychological impairments, which the rule defines to include a murder or suicide on the property or a property purportedly being haunted, is not information about the physical condition of a property, and a licensee is not required to volunteer it. If a prospective buyer asks, the licensee provides whatever information they know, with two exceptions the rule carves out: subjects the Law Against Discrimination places off limits, on which a licensee makes no inquiry and gives no information and instead tells the person asking that they may conduct their own investigation, and Megan's Law notifications, about which the licensee says only that the information is maintained by the county prosecutor.

N.J.A.C. 11:5-6.4(d) and (e). The State form's buyer acknowledgment says the same in its own words: the form does not address local conditions such as noise, odors or traffic volume, which the buyer may investigate independently.

The Consumer Fraud Act

The Act makes it an unlawful practice to use, in connection with the sale or advertisement of any merchandise or real estate, any deception, fraud, false pretense, false promise or misrepresentation, or the knowing concealment, suppression or omission of any material fact with intent that others rely on it. Real estate was added by a 1975 amendment. A person who suffers an ascertainable loss may sue, and the court must award three times the damages plus attorneys' fees and costs.

Its reach in a home sale is narrower than the text suggests. The Supreme Court has applied the Act to builders and to the brokers who sold for them, and said in 2014 that New Jersey courts have declined to impose the CFA remedies upon the non-professional, casual seller of real estate. On those decisions a private owner selling a home falls outside the Act's remedies; what reaches such a seller is Weintraub and the disclosure statute. A licensee who relays a seller's answers from the disclosure statement has a statutory defense to a consumer-fraud claim for information that turns out to be wrong, provided the licensee had no actual knowledge it was false, told the buyer that the seller is the source, visually inspected the property with reasonable diligence before passing it on, and, where the statement discloses water intrusion, dampness or mold, referred the buyer to the State's mold guidelines.

N.J.S.A. 56:8-2 and 56:8-19; Gennari v. Weichert Co. Realtors, 148 N.J. 582 (1997), tracing the 1975 amendment, L. 1975, c. 294; Zaman v. Felton, 219 N.J. 199 (2014), quoting Strawn and Byrne v. Weichert Realtors, 290 N.J. Super. 126 (App. Div. 1996); the licensee defense is N.J.S.A. 56:8-19.1(a), (b)(3) and (c).

Related: what a sale actually costs a New Jersey seller at closing is set out in the closing-cost reference, and how a defensible number is arrived at in how a home is valued.

What this page is not

This is a description of the framework as the statutes, rules and opinions state it on the date above. It is not legal advice, it does not account for the facts of any particular property, and it does not replace the attorney who reviews a specific contract. Whether a given condition is latent, known and material is exactly the kind of question that turns on facts B&Co. Realty does not have. The completed form, the reports behind it, and anything a seller is unsure about belong in front of that seller's own attorney before the contract is signed.