The Division has just completed the necessary process to adopt into law a new Residential Property Disclosure Form. This marks the first time the form has been updated since the form’s inception in June of 1993. The new form – reflecting more stringent disclosure – is the result of collaboration between the Division and the Ohio Association of REALTORS (OAR), which presented the findings of an OAR Task Force that studied the form and made recommendations for improvements.

The form goes from a two-page legal-size document to a four-page letter size document. The new form contains an effective date of 1/1/04 in the upper right hand corner of the first page.

Questions have been added to require disclosure of whether a property has been inspected for mold, whether there is any smoke damage to the property, whether the property is located in a flood plain or the Lake Erie Coastal Erosion Area and whether the property is located in a historical area or an area subject to fees and assessments. Additionally, sellers will be required to provide more meaningful disclosure of problems and defects with mechanical systems, water quality and intrusion and nonconforming uses of the property.  Finally the form includes a notification to the purchaser of how to obtain information with respect to Ohio’s Sex Offender Registration and Notification Law. The new form with heightened levels of disclosure will assist both sellers and buyers in averting legal action by ensuring that many of the issues that result in litigation are known up front. Licensees will likewise benefit, because the new form is consistent with industry standards in other jurisdictions.

The new form will become law January 1, 2004.

This means:

In other words, the NEW form may not be utilized prior to the effective date of January 1, 2004 and the OLD form may not be utilized after January 1, 2004. OLD forms executed prior to January 1, 2004 do not need to be re-executed after January 1, 2004 on the NEW form.