Seller Disclosure Laws in West Virginia

Key Disclosures

• Federal lead-based paint disclosure (mandatory, no exception): for any residential property built before 1978, the seller must give the buyer the EPA pamphlet 'Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home,' disclose any known lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards and provide any available records/reports, include specific disclosure/acknowledgment language in the purchase contract, and give the buyer a 10-day period (unless waived in writing) to conduct a lead-based paint inspection or risk assessment before becoming obligated under the contract.
• Hazardous waste disclosure in deeds/leases (WV Code 22-18-21): a seller (grantor) or landlord (lessor) who has actual knowledge, or an ownership interest during the period, that the property or its subsurface was used to store, treat, or dispose of hazardous waste must disclose that fact in the deed or lease itself.
• No affirmative lies or active concealment of known material defects: even though WV imposes no duty to volunteer defect information, a seller who is directly asked about a defect and lies, or who takes steps to actively hide a known problem (e.g., painting over water damage, disconnecting a sump pump before a walkthrough), can be sued for common-law fraud or misrepresentation and held liable for resulting damages.
• Licensee (agent/broker) disclosure duties are separate from seller duties: under WV Real Estate Commission rule Title 174, Series 1, section 174-1-16, a real estate licensee must sign and provide a written agency disclosure/consent form identifying which party (buyer, seller, or both under written dual-agency consent) the licensee represents; licensees can also face discipline under WV Code 30-40-19 for misrepresentation or dishonest dealing regarding a property, independent of whether the seller had any statutory disclosure duty.
• Voluntary industry disclosure form: the WV Association of REALTORS publishes a standardized 'Seller's Disclosure of Material Defects' form covering items like roof, foundation, structural systems, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, water/sewer/septic systems, and known wood-destroying insect infestation; using it is a matter of local practice/contract (many listing agents recommend it to reduce fraud exposure), not a statutory mandate, and a seller may decline to complete it and sell 'as-is' instead.
• No state-specific mandatory disclosures for stigmatized properties, HOA-specific material facts, or natural hazard zones: unlike disclosure-heavy states (e.g., California, Virginia to a lesser degree), WV imposes no statutory checklist of items (flood zone history, prior deaths on the property, methamphetamine contamination, etc.) that a seller must disclose — coverage of such topics on the voluntary REALTOR form is a matter of industry practice, not law.

Exemptions

• There is no general disclosure statute to be 'exempt' from in the first place, since WV imposes no statutory duty on residential sellers generally — but the federal lead-paint disclosure rule (which does apply) exempts: housing built in 1978 or later; 0-bedroom units (efficiencies/studios); housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities (unless a child under 6 resides or is expected to reside there); short-term vacation rentals (100 days or less); and foreclosure sales, where the disclosure duty shifts to the foreclosing entity upon eventual resale rather than applying during the foreclosure transfer itself.
• Foreclosure, bankruptcy trustee, and court-ordered/judicial transfers: sales by a trustee under a deed of trust (the typical WV foreclosure mechanism), transfers by a bankruptcy trustee, transfers by eminent domain/condemnation, and transfers pursuant to a court decree (e.g., partition or specific performance) are not treated as ordinary voluntary residential sales, so the voluntary industry disclosure form and the common-law duty not to actively misrepresent apply with much reduced practical force, since the seller in these postures (a trustee, lender, or court) typically has no personal knowledge of the property's physical condition to disclose or conceal.
• Estate/inherited property sold by an executor, administrator, or heir who never occupied the home: because West Virginia's disclosure obligations (whether contractual via the voluntary form, or common-law fraud liability) turn on the seller's actual knowledge, a personal representative or heir who never lived in or personally inspected the property typically has no known material defects to disclose and cannot be liable for failing to disclose what they did not know — sellers in this position commonly mark the voluntary disclosure form 'unknown' or sell strictly as-is.
• New construction never previously occupied, and sales between co-owners, family members, or as part of a divorce settlement/property division: these categories are commonly exempted on the voluntary WV REALTOR disclosure form itself (consistent with how other states' mandatory disclosure statutes are structured) because a builder-seller's condition representations are typically handled instead through new-home warranties, and family/divorce transfers are treated as non-arm's-length conveyances rather than typical retail sales.

Recent Changes

No recent (2023-2026) West Virginia legislative session was found to have enacted a new statutory residential seller disclosure requirement or materially amended existing disclosure-adjacent law. Searches of the WV Legislature's bill-tracking system and LegiScan for the 2024, 2025, and 2026 regular sessions did not surface any enacted bill creating, amending, or repealing a residential property condition disclosure statute. West Virginia's caveat emptor posture on residential sales, its federal lead-paint disclosure obligations for pre-1978 housing, its hazardous-waste disclosure-in-deeds rule (WV Code 22-18-21), and its Real Estate Commission agency-disclosure rule (Title 174, Series 1, section 174-1-16) all remain the operative framework with no indication of a pending or newly effective overhaul. Given how much inaccurate/outdated information about a supposed "WV Code 36-12 Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act" circulates online (likely originating from confusion with, or AI-generated conflation with, other states' disclosure acts such as Virginia's genuinely-named Residential Property Disclosure Act), anyone relying on this research for an actual transaction should confirm current requirements with a West Virginia-licensed real estate attorney or the WV Real Estate Commission before finalizing a listing or purchase agreement.