AB 968 Renovation and Repair Disclosure

The seller makes and signs the disclosure. The buyer acknowledges receipt. There is no agent certification section comparable to the lead paint form, but the listing agent's independent visual inspection obligation under Section III of the TDS still applies — and obvious recent work that appears unpermitted is exactly the kind of thing that belongs in that section.

Where the seller is an entity that acquired at a trustee sale or through a portfolio purchase, the 18-month trigger still turns on when title was taken. Because section 1102.6h sits inside Article 1.5, the section 1102.2 exemptions apply — court-ordered transfers, foreclosure and trustee sale transfers, and the rest of that list carry through.

With the seller's disclosure package, before transfer of title, on the same "as soon as practicable" logic as the rest of the Civil Code section 1102 scheme. And because the duty lives in Article 1.5, the section 1102.3 late-delivery window applies: a disclosure delivered after the offer gives the buyer three days after delivery in person, or five days after delivery by mail or by electronic record, to terminate in writing.

The operational point: if you list for an investor seller, gather contractor names, invoices, and permit numbers at listing. Reconstructing that after an offer is accepted is painful, and the missing pieces are exactly what a buyer will fixate on.

A buyer who discovers unpermitted structural work after closing on a recently flipped home is the paradigm nondisclosure plaintiff: the injury is concrete (permit retroactive approval, corrective work, insurance and resale complications), and AB 968 now gives them a specific statutory duty to point at.

Unpermitted work also has a long tail. It resurfaces at the buyer's own resale, at refinance appraisal, and after any insurance loss where the carrier examines whether the improvement was permitted.

As with the other section 1102 disclosures, non-compliance does not invalidate the transfer. It leaves the seller exposed to the buyer's damages.

Listing "renovated throughout" and disclosing nothing specific. Marketing language is not disclosure; it is evidence that work occurred.

Omitting the contractor's contact information. The name alone is not the full requirement.

Answering "permits: yes" without the numbers. Provide what you have; a buyer will pull the record anyway.

Assuming cosmetic work is out of scope. The statute reaches room additions, structural modifications, other alterations, and repairs — not only structural work — whenever a contractor the seller hired performed it.

Forgetting the SPQ asks overlapping questions. Inconsistent answers across two forms are worse than either answer alone.