The Disclosure Packet: TDS, SPQ, AVID and Everything Riding With Them

The TDS: the one that cannot be waived

The core of the packet is the Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement, the TDS, required by Civil Code section 1102 for most sales of residential property of one to four units. Its format is fixed by statute. The seller works through the property's features and their condition, answers whether they are aware of defects across the home's systems and structure, and discloses a statutory list of conditions from easements to additions without permits. The form's defining legal feature is bluntness by design: it asks what the seller actually knows, and any waiver of the TDS requirement is void as against public policy. No as is clause, no negotiated term, no mutual agreement can remove it from a covered sale; our walkthrough of the purchase agreement explains how the as is framework and mandatory disclosure coexist.

The statute exempts specific transfer types rather than specific sellers: court supervised transfers such as probate sales, foreclosures and trustee's sales and lender resales after foreclosure, transfers between co owners, transfers to a spouse or direct blood relative, transfers in divorce, tax sales, transfers to or from government entities, and most transfers by fiduciaries administering trusts and estates, with a notable exception pulling recent occupants back in: a trustee of a revocable trust who was an owner or occupant of the property within the preceding year generally owes the TDS. Estate and trust sales are a meaningful slice of the Los Angeles market, and the disclosure differences are one reason they trade differently; our trust and probate guide covers that terrain.

Here is the nuance that matters more than the exemption list: exemption from the TDS is not exemption from honesty. California common law has required sellers to disclose known material facts affecting value or desirability since long before the statutory form existed, and that duty survives every exemption. Exempt sellers document their compliance on a different form, the Exempt Seller Disclosure, a shorter questionnaire covering deaths, hazards, and a catch all for known material facts. A probate estate does not owe you the TDS; it still may not sell you a house with a known cracked slab in silence.

The SPQ and the AVID: the seller's memory and the agent's eyes

Riding alongside the TDS in standard practice is the Seller Property Questionnaire, a California Association of Realtors form that goes deeper than the statutory minimum: repairs and insurance claims, past leaks and their fixes, neighborhood disputes and noise, unpermitted work, anything a careful buyer would want known. Where the TDS asks about present awareness of defects, the SPQ asks about history, and experienced buyers read it first, because history is where the stories live. A fixed leak is a disclosure even though it is fixed; the repair's quality is then the buyer's inspection question.

The agents are in the packet too. Civil Code section 2079 requires the listing and buyer's brokers in a sale of one to four units to conduct a reasonably competent and diligent visual inspection of the accessible areas of the property and disclose to the buyer anything material it reveals. The Agent Visual Inspection Disclosure, the AVID, is the form on which that inspection is documented, typically room by room. Its limits are as instructive as its content: the duty covers what is visual and accessible, not areas that are reasonably inaccessible, not public records, and in a condominium it covers the unit being sold rather than the common areas. An AVID that reads "nothing noted" in every room tells you something about the agent; a careful AVID tells you about the house. Neither replaces your own inspector, and nothing in the packet is a warranty: disclosure shifts information, not risk.

The hazard report, and the zones that follow the hills

The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement addresses location rather than condition: whether the property sits in a mapped flood hazard area, a dam failure inundation area, a fire hazard severity zone, state responsibility wildland fire area, an earthquake fault zone, or a mapped seismic hazard zone for liquefaction and landslide. Sellers almost universally satisfy this through a third party NHD report company that runs the maps. Two practical notes for this market. First, the fire related zones expanded recently, with high fire hazard severity zones now disclosed alongside very high, so properties that produced a clean statement years ago may disclose differently today. Second, in the hills and canyons these zones are not paperwork; they drive insurance availability and price, which now shapes deals from Malibu to the Hollywood Hills. A buyer who reads a fire zone disclosure should be pricing coverage the same week, with our fire insurance guide as the starting point.

The packet carries a cluster of smaller statutory riders: the Megan's Law notice pointing to the state's registered offender database; lead based paint disclosure with its federal pamphlet and a ten day inspection opportunity for homes built before 1978; and the seller's written statements of smoke alarm compliance and water heater bracing. Small forms, mostly routine, all mandatory where applicable.

Deaths, and what a seller must say

California answered the haunted house question by statute. A death on the property more than three years before your offer need not be disclosed, nor its manner. A death within three years is treated as a potentially material fact and belongs in the disclosures. Two absolute rules override the clock in opposite directions: a seller or agent may never disclose that an occupant was living with HIV or died of AIDS related causes, and a direct question about deaths on the property must be answered honestly regardless of how long ago the death occurred. Buyers to whom this matters should simply ask, in writing, through their agent.

The clock: your cancellation right, and what late delivery does

Disclosure timing carries its own remedy, independent of every contingency in the contract. If the TDS or a material amendment to it is delivered after you signed your offer, the statute gives you the right to terminate by written notice within three days if it was delivered in person, or five days if delivered by mail or electronically. Each material amendment restarts the window for what changed. This right exists outside the contingency removal system and cannot be removed by it, which makes late breaking disclosures genuinely consequential: a seller who amends the TDS in week three hands the buyer a fresh exit.

When disclosure fails entirely, the law reaches past closing. A seller who willfully or negligently violates the disclosure statutes is liable for the buyer's actual damages, the transfer itself remains valid, and common law fraud and concealment claims add remedies where the nondisclosure was knowing. In practice the serious cases share a shape: a problem the seller demonstrably knew about, visible in repair records or neighbor testimony, absent from the forms. Sellers protect themselves by the dullest possible strategy, which is total candor; over disclosure has never lost anyone a lawsuit. The seller's side of this packet, including how to prepare it before the listing goes live, is covered in our seller disclosure guide.

Common Questions

Can a seller refuse to provide the TDS, or can we agree to skip it?

Not in a covered sale. The statute voids any waiver as against public policy. If a transaction genuinely falls within a statutory exemption, the seller uses the exempt seller form instead, and still owes disclosure of known material facts.

Are probate, trust and REO sales exempt from disclosures?

Often exempt from the TDS specifically, with the recent occupant trustee exception, but never exempt from the common law duty to disclose known material facts. Expect the Exempt Seller Disclosure in place of the TDS, and lean harder on your own inspections.

How many days do I have to cancel after receiving disclosures?

If the TDS or a material amendment arrives after your offer was signed: three days when delivered in person, five days when delivered by mail or electronically, by written notice. Amendments restart the clock for the new material.

Does a seller have to disclose a death in the house?

Within three years of the offer, yes, as a material fact. Beyond three years, no, with two overrides: a direct question must always be answered truthfully, and HIV or AIDS related status is never disclosed.

What can I do if the seller did not disclose a problem I found after closing?

Document what they knew and when, then take the claim through the contract's required mediation step; remedies run from actual damages under the statute to fraud claims where concealment was knowing. These cases rise and fall on proof of the seller's knowledge, so repair records, permits and neighbor accounts matter more than the defect itself.

What is the difference between the TDS and the Seller Property Questionnaire?

The TDS is the statutory minimum, fixed in format and unwaivable. The SPQ is the association's deeper companion questionnaire about the property's history. Buyers should read both; sellers should answer both as if the buyer's inspector will check, because a good one will.

I read every disclosure packet alongside my clients, buyer or seller, because the packet is where transactions become transparent or become litigation.