Nondisclosure & Fraud  ·  August 15, 2026

California’s New Home Sale Disclosure Requirements for 2026

California added four new residential disclosure obligations between July 2024 and January 2026. They are not yet in most transaction checklists, and they are not in most of the disclosure articles circulating online. For sellers, they are compliance obligations. For buyers, they are new evidence.

What changed

The flipper disclosure — Civil Code § 1102.6h

Effective July 1, 2024, a seller of single-family residential property who is reselling within 18 months of acquiring it must disclose room additions, structural modifications, alterations, and repairs made since acquisition — together with the names and license information of the contractors used and the permits obtained, or information about how to obtain permit records from the local agency.

This is the most consequential of the four, and it is the one most likely to produce litigation. Undisclosed unpermitted work has always been a common source of buyer claims, but the buyer previously had to build the case from public records and prove the seller’s knowledge circumstantially. Section 1102.6h converts a large category of those disputes into a written disclosure question with a checkable answer.

For sellers who renovate and resell, the compliance posture is straightforward: document the work, keep contractor license numbers, pull the permits, and disclose. For buyers of recently flipped property, the disclosure is now the first document to compare against the building department file.

The electrical system notice — Civil Code § 1102.6i

Effective January 1, 2026, sellers must deliver a statutory notice advising the buyer to obtain an inspection of the property’s electrical system by a qualified professional. The notice addresses substandard, recalled, or faulty wiring and panels; the associated fire risk; the effect on insurability; and inadequate capacity for electrification and EV charging. Buildings sold within three years of a certificate of occupancy are exempt.

The notice does not impose a repair obligation. What it does is create a documented moment in every covered transaction — which matters in two directions. A buyer who received the notice and did nothing faces a comparative fault argument later. A seller who knew about a recalled panel or prior electrical failures and answered the surrounding disclosure questions inaccurately has a harder problem.

Expect this category to grow. Insurers in California have become materially more attentive to electrical systems, and a property that cannot be insured on ordinary terms has a measurable value problem — which is exactly the kind of harm a nondisclosure claim needs.

Gas appliance replacement — Civil Code § 1102.6j

Also effective January 1, 2026, and from the same bill, a seller must disclose in writing any known state or local requirement or restriction affecting the future replacement of gas-powered appliances that transfer with the property.

This is a response to the patchwork of local electrification ordinances across California. The practical significance for a buyer is cost: a buyer who assumes they can replace a failing gas furnace or water heater in kind, and later learns that local rules require conversion to electric equipment along with a panel upgrade, has absorbed an expense that was foreseeable to a seller who knew the ordinance existed.

Smoking and nicotine residue — Civil Code § 1102.6k

Effective January 1, 2026, sellers must disclose a known history of smoking or vaping on the property and the presence of tobacco or nicotine residue.

Residue remediation — sealing, replacing porous materials, HVAC cleaning — can be expensive in a heavily affected property, and unlike most disclosure categories it is not readily visible during a standard inspection. That combination, a material condition the buyer cannot reasonably discover and the seller knows about, is the classic setup for a concealment claim.

How these fit into the existing framework

All four sit inside the same enforcement structure as the rest of California’s residential disclosure regime:

• Waiver is void. Civil Code section 1102(c) makes any waiver of the article’s requirements void as against public policy. An “as is” clause does not reach them.
• Negligence suffices. Section 1102.13 makes a willful or negligent violation actionable for the buyer’s actual damages. It does not invalidate the transfer, and it contains no attorney fee provision.
• Late delivery creates a termination right. Section 1102.3 gives the buyer three days after personal delivery, or five days after mail or electronic delivery, to terminate if a required disclosure or a material amendment arrives after the offer was executed.
• The safe harbor still applies. Section 1102.4 protects a seller or agent where the error was not within their personal knowledge and was based on information timely provided by a public agency or a qualified expert, with ordinary care exercised in obtaining and transmitting it.

What sellers should do

1. Confirm whether the 18-month flipper window applies before listing, and if it does, assemble the contractor and permit record rather than reconstructing it under time pressure.
2. Use current disclosure forms. Forms revised before 2026 will not contain the new notices.
3. Deliver disclosures early. Late delivery hands the buyer a termination right on a timetable the seller does not control.
4. Disclose known conditions rather than deciding they are immaterial. Section 1102.4’s safe harbor protects a seller who did not know — not one who decided not to say.

What buyers should do

1. Check whether the seller acquired the property within the last 18 months. If so, the section 1102.6h disclosure should exist, and it should reconcile with the building department file.
2. Read the electrical notice as a prompt, not a formality. An inspection before removing contingencies is cheaper than the argument afterward.
3. Note the delivery date of every disclosure. A disclosure or material amendment delivered after your offer was executed starts a short termination window.
4. Keep your pre-closing inspection reports. They are the most important documents in any later dispute — and, as Vera v. REL-BC, LLC (2021) 66 Cal.App.5th 57 illustrates, they can start the limitations clock running before escrow even closes.

Current as of August 2026. California disclosure law changes each legislative session; confirm current requirements before relying on any summary, including this one.

More on how these obligations are enforced and what buyers can recover is on our seller nondisclosure practice page.

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