Pennsylvania Seller's Property Disclosure Statement (Form SPD), issued under the Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law (RESDL) — 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 7301-7315 (Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law), part of the broader Residential Real Estate Transfers Law, 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 7101-7512. Implementing regulations at 49 Pa. Code §§ 35.284a and 35.335a. Enacted 1996, effective 2000; amended by Act 6 of 2015 (P.L. 23) to add sinkholes and stormwater management facilities to required disclosures.
Pennsylvania is not a pure "caveat emptor" state today, though that was its historical common-law rule. Since the Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law (RESDL), 68 Pa.C.S. §§ 7301-7315, took effect in 2000, sellers of most 1-4 unit residential properties must affirmatively disclose known material defects in writing, before an agreement of sale is signed, on a State Real Estate Commission-approved form (in practice, the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors' Form SPD, and Spanish-language Form SPD-S). A "material defect" is statutorily defined (§7102) as a problem that would have a significant adverse impact on the property's value or poses an unreasonable risk to people on the property; a system merely being old or near the end of its useful life is not, by itself, a material defect. Critically, the duty is knowledge-based, not investigation-based: sellers must disclose what they actually know, but the law does not require sellers to hire inspectors or discover unknown conditions (§§7306, 7309-7310 shield sellers from liability for conditions they were genuinely unaware of or reasonably believed had been corrected). So Pennsylvania is best described as a hybrid: a statutory affirmative-disclosure duty for known material defects, layered on top of a residual caveat emptor rule for anything the seller did not actually know and had no duty to investigate. Recent case law narrows what counts as "material": the PA Superior Court's Wentworth v. Steinmetz, 2025 WL 3157571 (Pa. Super. Nov. 12, 2025), held that offensive symbols (a swastika/eagle tiled into a basement floor, hidden under a rug during viewing) were NOT a "material defect" under the RESDL because the standard requires an objectively-quantifiable physical or structural flaw — purely subjective/psychological offense does not qualify. This follows the PA Supreme Court's earlier Milliken v. Jacono (2014) rule that psychological stigmas (e.g., a prior murder in the home) are not material defects requiring disclosure. Also note: failure to comply with the RESDL does NOT automatically void a sale (§7314) — the buyer's remedy is a civil action for damages/fraud, not automatic rescission. Separately and independently of the RESDL, federal law (42 U.S.C. § 4852d, the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 / Title X, and 24 CFR Part 35 / 40 CFR Part 745) requires sellers of housing built before 1978 to disclose known lead-based paint/hazards, provide any available reports, give buyers the EPA "Protect Your Family From Lead In Your Home" pamphlet, include a Lead Warning Statement in the contract, and give buyers a 10-day opportunity to test — this is a federal, not state, obligation, layered on top of PA's own disclosure form.
Most-cited substantive amendment remains Act 6 of 2015 (P.L. 23), which added sinkholes and stormwater management facility obligations to the required disclosure categories — no subsequent amendment has changed the core RESDL disclosure list or exemptions as of mid-2026. The most significant 2024-2025 PA real-estate legislative development is Act 52 of 2024 (signed July 8, 2024, effective Jan. 8, 2025), but that law regulates real estate wholesaling/assignment-contract transactions (requiring wholesalers to register as licensees and give consumers specific cancellation-right disclosures) — it is a consumer-protection measure aimed at wholesale flippers, not an amendment to the RESDL's seller disclosure obligations themselves. On the case-law front, Wentworth v. Steinmetz, 2025 WL 3157571 (Pa. Super. Nov. 12, 2025), is the most recent notable appellate decision, reinforcing (per Milliken v. Jacono, 2014) that RESDL "material defect" claims require an objectively-quantifiable physical/structural problem — offensive imagery, stigmas, or purely psychological objections do not qualify, regardless of how understandably upsetting to a buyer.
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.