What Bay Area sellers actually disclose
We read the seller disclosure forms for Bay Area homes: what sellers write down most often, what turns up rarely, and which items we read as serious.
The ring splits the 463 items on 22 Bay Area disclosure forms, the total in its centre, by group: the largest group, systems and appliances, holds 91 items (20%); the palest slice, 106 items, is everything outside a named group.
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Before a Bay Area house is sold, the seller writes down what they know about it.
In California those disclosures come mainly on two documents: the Transfer Disclosure Statement and the Seller Property Questionnaire. Both ask about the house, its systems, past repairs, work done and the setting, and the seller fills them in from their own knowledge. Here a form means everything one home’s seller disclosed, across both documents. This article reads 22 forms from Bay Area homes and describes what they say; it is not legal advice.
Insite reads each form for factual items only: not the legal boilerplate around them, and not the natural hazard zones, which come on a separate report. Every item is one of two kinds. A disclosed condition is something that happened or is wrong, such as a past leak or a crack; a property attribute is a fact about the house, such as the age of the roof or a remodel done with permits.
Across the 22 forms Insite counted 463 items. The largest share, 91 items (20%), falls under systems and appliances, and 10 of 22 forms carry an item Insite reads as High.
How long the forms run
A form’s length here is the number of items Insite found on it. The middle half of forms list between about 13 and 28 items, and the median is 19.5. Each bar below counts the forms whose length falls in one band of ten items.
Each form’s length is its count of disclosed items, conditions and property attributes together. The last bar holds every form with 40 or more items.
The shortest form lists a single item; the longest lists 55. The longest is about 3 times the median, which is why we quote the median and the middle half. A form at the short end records one fact or condition; one at the long end can run through repairs, upgrades, systems and the setting of the house item after item.
Length also reflects how much a seller chose to write. Two sellers can answer the same questions at very different lengths, so a short form is not by itself a sign of a sound house.
What comes up most
Insite matches each item to a topic, and each topic about the house to one of nine groups. The chart counts the forms with at least one item in each group: each arc runs around its ring by the share of the 22 forms, and a full three-quarter turn would be every form. A form can count toward several groups, so the shares add up to more than 100%. Personal and legal items, which cover a death in the property, tenancy, pets, insurance claims and HOA matters, are counted only as a group and are not broken down.
Arcs run outermost first in the legend’s order; each one’s length is its share of the 22 forms.
Two groups lead together, each on 20 of 22 forms (91%): systems and appliances, level with noise, trees and neighbours. Pests, rodents and mold follows with 17. The least common group, wear and cosmetic marks, is on 12.
The next chart goes one level down: the twelve most common topics, out of the 24 that turn up on at least two forms, each marked at its share of the 22 forms.
The track runs from none of the 22 forms to all of them; the count is at the end of each row.
The most common topic is shared or leaning fences, on 19 of 22 forms (86%). Next come two topics on 14 each: cracks in walls, ceilings, driveways or patios, level with rodents, insects or pest control. Work done without permits or not finaled is on 7 of 22 forms (32%), and past leaks, water intrusion or stains on 7.
What comes up least
Among the 24 topics on at least two forms, two are each on 3 forms, the fewest: asbestos, lead paint or an abandoned well, level with mold, mildew or fungal testing. Every topic about the house that Insite names outside the personal group is on at least two forms.
Each row has 22 squares, one per form; a filled square is a form with at least one item on that topic. Water heater age or replacement is also on 6 forms.
90 of the 463 items (19%) match no topic Insite names, and another 16 are notes on what the seller knows or which documents exist, such as reports on file. They count toward a form’s length but not toward any group or topic in the charts above.
Absence from a form is not evidence of absence. The form records what the seller knew and wrote down; something missing from it can still be present in the house, which is what an inspection is for.
What is serious
Insite also gives each item a severity of High, Medium or Low, using one guide: High is an active or recent leak, a foundation issue, mold present, or a history of major system failure; Medium is a repaired past issue, a disclosed defect since addressed, or minor flooding history; Low is cosmetic past repairs or a claim with no structural impact. The severity is Insite’s reading of what the seller wrote, not a legal weight.
Left to right: Low 342 items (74%) · Medium 98 items (21%) · High 23 items (5%). Each item has one severity, so the blocks make up all 463.
23 of the 463 items (5%) are High, the narrow block at the right end of the strip, against 342 Low (74%). 18 of 22 forms carry at least one Medium or High item.
| Group | Forms with a High item |
|---|---|
| Pests, rodents and mold | 5 of 22 forms |
| Permits and additions | 3 of 22 forms |
| Water, leaks and sewer | 2 of 22 forms |
A form can have High items in more than one group, and a High item that matches no topic counts in no group. A group with fewer than two such forms is not shown.
10 of 22 forms carry at least one High item (45%). They fall most often under pests, rodents and mold, on 5 forms, then permits and additions, with 3.
Conditions versus facts
The median share of items that are disclosed conditions is 50%, taken form by form; the rest of each form is property attributes. Across all 22 forms the count is 234 conditions to 229 attributes; the chart sets the two totals side by side on one scale.
Left, disclosed conditions; right, property attributes. Both bars grow from the centre line on the same scale.
The two kinds do different jobs. A condition says something happened or is wrong, so it is a question for the inspection: what does it look like now. An attribute sets the context, such as the age of a system or the permit history of a remodel. Conditions are the part of the form to read against the inspection report; attributes are the part to check against the records.
Does the age of the house change it?
We split the forms by when the house was built and by its price, one at a time. The price is the asking price, or the sale price where only that was published. A band is shown only when it holds at least three homes, and a home missing a fact is left out of that split.
There is no straight line from age to the number of items: the highest median is 22.5 (Built before 1960), the lowest 15.5 (Built 1960–1979).
The share with unpermitted work disclosed differs by age band, with no steady direction: 2 of the 5 homes built before 1960, 1 of the 8 built 1960–1979 and 2 of the 5 built 1980 or later.
There is no straight line from price to the number of items: the highest median is 26.5 ($3M–$4M), the lowest 11.5 (Under $2M).
Treat gaps between bands as rough. Each band holds a handful of homes, between 4 and 8; prices follow region, and the forms are filled in by sellers, so part of any gap is how much each seller chose to write.
Three things to do with a disclosure form
If you have a seller’s disclosure form in hand, start here.
- Read the disclosed conditions first. They are the part of the form to set against the inspection; the median conditions share here is 50%.
- Check each condition against the inspection report, and find the page where the inspector describes it as it is now. Past leaks or water intrusion are on 32% of the forms here.
- Ask for permits and receipts wherever work is disclosed, including work the form says was done without permits. That is on 32% of the forms here.
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