Almost as inevitable as death and taxes, the Wash­ing­ton Seller Dis­clo­sure State­ment is a sure thing when it comes to sell­ing res­i­den­tial prop­erty in Wash­ing­ton State. Form 17, as it is also called, looms large and larger. See this link for an updated 2012 dis­cus­sion of the WA Seller Dis­clo­sure form.

Get­ting more com­plex over time.

The state leg­is­la­ture keeps adding and chang­ing Form 17. The last major change was in 2003. Sub­se­quent effec­tive dates and changes/additions per­tained to:

• Jan­u­ary, 2005: sex offender in area
• June, 2005: prox­im­ity to farms
• June, 2006: farm prox­im­ity lan­guage changed
• June, 2007: envi­ron­men­tal sec­tion added plus other major changes
• For the lat­est changes see this 2012 update

Major changes include:

• Def­i­n­i­tion and des­tinc­tion between improved and unim­proved res­i­den­tial property
• Amends the exist­ing Form 17 used for “improved” property
• New Seller Dis­clo­sure State­ment to be pro­vided to buyer of “unim­proved” prop­erty zoned for res­i­den­tial use
• Lim­its a Buyer’s abil­ity to waive receipt of either form

Changes to sec­tions of the form include:

• Sec­tion 6 – title of sec­tion changed from “Com­mon Inter­ests” to “Home­own­ers’ Association/Common Interests”.
• Sec­tion 7 – title of sec­tion changed from “Gen­eral” to “Envi­ron­men­tal”. This sec­tion must be pro­vided to the Buyer, and receipt of this sec­tion can­not be waived by the Buyer, if the answer to any ques­tion in the sec­tion is “yes”.
• Sec­tion 7(D) – replaces old ques­tions related to flood­ing with new ques­tion ask­ing about exis­tence of shore­lines, wet­lands, flood­plains, and crit­i­cal areas on the property.

Who must pro­vide Form 17?

The require­ment is get­ting tougher. Not hav­ing occu­pied the premises is likely no longer a valid excuse. One excep­tion remains: when the owner has passed away.

What if the Seller does not pro­vide Form 17?

The buyer can walk away from the pur­chase just before clos­ing and get the earnest money back.

What’s the role of the real estate agent?

The agent can not assist the seller in fill­ing out the form. The buyer acknowl­edges this by sign­ing below a state­ment that reads: “…the dis­clo­sures made herein are those of the seller only, and not of any real estate licensee or other third party.”

Must agents dis­close what they learn from Form 17?

Once the Form 17 has been pro­vided to the buyer the answers become known to the real estate licensees rep­re­sent­ing the seller and the buyer. Hav­ing learned of mate­r­ial facts through Form 17, the real estate licensees must dis­close them.

I am not using an agent to sell my home. Do I need to pro­vide Form 17?

Absolutely.

If you are inter­ested in the details of the new con­tent and ratio­nale behind the changes to the Wash­ing­ton State Seller Dis­clo­sure State­ment, visit the Wash­ing­ton State leg­is­la­ture web­site (pdf file).