Residential Seller's Property Disclosure Statement (SPDS) — Arizona Association of REALTORS (AAR) standard industry form, current edition dated February 2023; this is NOT a state-mandated statutory form — No single comprehensive statute mandates general residential seller disclosure in Arizona. The core duty is COMMON LAW, from Hill v. Jones, 151 Ariz. 81, 725 P.2d 1115 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1986). Adjacent statutes: A.R.S. 32-2156 (Title 32, Professions/Real Estate — defines specific exemptions, i.e., what need NOT be disclosed); A.R.S. 33-422 (Title 33, Property — a separate, narrower statute requiring a recorded "Affidavit of Disclosure," but only for sales of five or fewer unsubdivided land parcels in unincorporated county areas, not ordinary home resale; amended in recent legislative sessions to add well/septic/solar-battery disclosure detail and escrow-agent protections). Federal law (42 U.S.C. 4852d / 24 CFR Part 35) separately requires lead-based-paint disclosure for pre-1978 housing nationwide, including Arizona.
Arizona is best described as a modified caveat-emptor state. There is no Arizona statute requiring sellers of ordinary residential resale property to complete or provide a specific state-mandated disclosure form — this is a common misconception repeated by many real-estate blogs. Instead, the seller's affirmative duty to disclose arises from case law: Hill v. Jones (Ariz. Ct. App. 1986) held that a seller who has actual knowledge of a fact that materially affects the property's value or desirability, and which is not readily observable and not already known to the buyer, has a duty to disclose it. In practice, nearly all Realtor-assisted sales use the Arizona Association of REALTORS (AAR) Residential Seller's Property Disclosure Statement (SPDS), a lengthy (6-9+ page) form, because the standard AAR Residential Resale Purchase Contract contractually obligates the seller to deliver it (customarily within 3 days of contract acceptance). This is a contractual/industry-custom practice, not a statutory mandate — a buyer and seller can contractually agree to waive the SPDS itself, but the underlying common-law duty to disclose known material facts cannot be waived away. A genuinely statutory (not just contractual) disclosure regime exists only for a narrow category: sales of five or fewer unsubdivided land parcels in unincorporated county areas under A.R.S. 33-422, which requires a recorded Affidavit of Disclosure at least 7 days before transfer, addressing legal/physical access, roads, floodplain status, water supply, wastewater/septic, zoning, and gives the buyer a 5-day rescission right. For ordinary home resale, no comparable statutory rescission right exists; disclosure completeness is enforced after the fact through fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and consumer-protection claims rather than a specific "disclosure statute" violation.
Two threads of change are current heading into 2026: (1) The Arizona REALTORS association released revised standard forms (including purchase-contract-related forms) effective around November 1, 2025 — reporting indicates continued refinement of contractual disclosure timelines and related addenda, though the SPDS form itself was last substantively revised in February 2023. (2) A.R.S. 33-422 (the unsubdivided-land Affidavit of Disclosure statute) has seen legislative amendments strengthening required content on water wells, septic/wastewater systems, and solar/battery energy devices, plus added protections for escrow agents — this affects rural/unsubdivided land sales specifically, not typical urban/suburban home resale. Separately, effective September 26, 2025, HOA lien-foreclosure thresholds changed (minimum delinquency raised from $1,200 to $10,000, and the qualifying delinquency period extended from one year to 18 months) — relevant to HOA disclosure content though not a seller-disclosure-form change per se. No new law has created a general statutory residential seller-disclosure-form mandate; the common-law Hill v. Jones framework remains the controlling legal standard for what must be disclosed in ordinary home sales.
Facts on this page reflect research current as of 2026-07-05. Programs, rates, and laws change — confirm current figures with the relevant state agency before relying on them.