When is a seller exempt from a Transfer Disclosure Statement?
This question comes up very often. It’s required more often than you migh think.
By the way, if a Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS) is needed then the Seller Property Questionnaire (SPQ) is needed too. State law makes it a package deal to use both forms on a transaction.
The following transfers are exempt from these disclosure requirements:
- The sale of new homes as part of a subdivision project where a public report must be delivered to the purchaser or a public report is not required. However, when such new homes are sold through a real estate broker, the broker owes the buyer a duty to disclose any material facts which affect the value, desirability and intended use of the property;
- Foreclosure sales;
- Court ordered transfers;
- Transfers by a fiduciary in the administration of a decedent’s estate, a guardianship, conservatorship, or trust except where the trustee is a former owner of the property;
- Transfers to a spouse or to a person or persons in the lineal line of consanguinity;
- Transfers resulting from a judgment of dissolution of marriage, or of legal separation, or from a property settlement agreement incidental to such a judgment;
- Transfers from one co-owner to another;
- Transfers by the State Controller for unclaimed property;
- Transfers resulting from failure to pay taxes; and
- Transfers to or from any governmental entity.(CAL. CIV. §§ 1102, 1102.2, 1102.3)
