What Virginia Sellers Must Disclose

Virginia puts the homework on the buyer. Caveat emptor. That is the regime you are buying into: whatever the seller does not volunteer, you have to go and find. You will still receive paperwork — the Residential Property Disclosure Statement — but read it for what it is before you lean on it.

What sellers still have to tell you

Virginia is a buyer-beware state: under Va. Code 55.1-703 the owner must furnish the Real Estate Board's disclosure statement, which states the owner makes no representations on condition, flood hazard area and most other listed matters and advises the buyer to do due diligence. Virginia sellers must hand you a Residential Property Disclosure Statement, but it is a buyer-beware notice, not a condition report — on 19 listed matters including condition and whether the property is in a special flood hazard area, the owner 'makes no representations.' Narrow exceptions do require real disclosure, such as a known repetitive-risk-loss (flood claims) structure under 55.1-708.2 and pending building/zoning violations. Your protection is inspections, a survey, a flood determination and direct questions — not the form.

Flooding: the answer that matters most

Virginia law does not impose a flood-specific disclosure duty, so the paperwork may say nothing about water at all — even for a house in a FEMA flood zone. That silence is why the flood check is on you: run the exact parcel through FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer before you offer, not after.

The Virginia traps inside the paperwork

The disclosure statement tells you almost nothing — by design. The statutory statement lists matters the owner makes no representation about, including condition, lot lines, adjacent zoning, flood hazard areas, marine clays, radon and defective drywall (Va. Code 55.1-703) — order a home inspection, survey and flood certification before settlement.

Separate flood form is information, not a seller disclosure. The Real Estate Board must make a Flood Risk Information Form available, but 55.1-703 says the owner makes no representation whether the property is in a special flood hazard area; only a seller with actual knowledge of a repetitive-risk-loss structure must disclose that fact under 55.1-708.2.

What no disclosure will ever tell you

A disclosure is the seller's knowledge, on the seller's timeline. It says nothing about the street's crime trend, the registry, the tax bill you will pay after the sale, permits pulled (or never pulled) for the renovation in the photos, or the rezoning working its way through the planning office. In Virginia, property tax reassessment works like this: Your bill follows the locality's reassessment cycle, not your purchase price — there is no automatic reset to the sale price in Virginia. Between reassessments the seller's value usually carries over; at the next general reassessment the value can move to full market at once — which is why the seller's current bill is a poor guide to yours. Pull those records yourself; they are all public.

Your checks, in order

• Read the disclosure line by line, and get 'unknown' answers in writing anyway — an unknown is a flag, not a pass.
• Run the exact parcel on FEMA's flood map.
• Estimate your post-sale tax bill with the Virginia records guide — never budget from the seller's bill.
• Check the address against the official Virginia registry.
• Ask the county for open and expired permits on the address before you waive anything.

Frequently asked questions

Is a seller disclosure form required in Virginia?

Yes — the Residential Property Disclosure Statement. Virginia is a buyer-beware state: under Va. Code 55.1-703 the owner must furnish the Real Estate Board's disclosure statement, which states the owner makes no representations on condition, flood hazard area and most other listed matters and advises the buyer to do due diligence.

Does a Virginia seller have to disclose flooding?

There is no flood-specific disclosure duty in Virginia law. Assume nothing and check the parcel on FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer yourself.

The seller answered 'unknown' to half the form. Now what?

'Unknown' is legal in most regimes and useful to nobody. Treat every unknown as a job: inspection, permit search, and the county record file. If the seller genuinely doesn't know, the records usually do.

Sources: dpor.am.virginia.gov · law.lis.virginia.gov · vsp.virginia.gov