The lead based paint disclosure that’s legally mandated encourages buyers to do a lead inspection before purchasing. And it’s legally required to disclose knowledge of lead paint. Yet every time I try to focus on lead safety, I feel bullied and discouraged.
Example 1-I wanted to do a lead inspection when buying a house. My realtor totally tried to talk me out of it, suggested no one really does them, said that kids don’t really eat paint chips, etc. I felt totally unsupported.
Example 2-When selling my house, I decided to disclose that our home lead kits revealed lead paint. But my realtor (a different one) encouraged me to mark “unknown” instead of “yes” because it might scare people away. I still marked yes, sold my house, and felt good about being honest and promoting the buyer’s safety.
Example 3-I’m looking to buy a house, once again want to do a lead inspection, and the sellers are very hesitant to even negotiate with us (even though we’re making a very fair offer and they’re not having luck selling) because they are not okay with the possibility of us doing the inspection, backing out, and then having to disclose the lead results to other buyers.
When people say to not inspect and just assume there’s lead paint, I still think an inspection is better. For example, the EPA says a house from 1960-1977 only has a 24% chance of having any lead paint. So I don’t want to take all these precautions when there may not even be lead paint. And even if a house has lead paint, it may be in just one spot. I’d rather have the knowledge about where exactly I need to take precautions when living in it, renovating, etc.
Whenever I’ve seen house disclosures of old houses, I’ve never seen anyone mark yes for lead. Don’t contractors test for lead when doing renovations? How could a house be 50+ years old and no one has ever done a single lead test in it? I mean, we’ve gone to the hardware store where lead tests were all sold out. Someone is using them, presumably. Are people lying and not disclosing? Are the realtors all talking people out of doing testing?
It seems ethically questionable (maybe illegal?) for realtors to give misinformation to downplay the risks of lead (kids don’t really eat paint chips? Actually, lead paint chips taste sweet, so it’s really a risk. And lots of lead poisoning comes from dust, not just kids eating paint chips). And should they really be talking people out of lead inspections when a legally mandated document encourages it?
So many kids get lead poisoning still. I think this would happen a lot less if we could all play our part. Realtors should encourage or at least support people in getting lead inspections. Homeowners should not try to hide this information from buyers (either by lying or by trying to pressure people not to lead test). I feel like some investigative journalism needs to be done to find out what really happens all across the country when people tell their realtors they want to test for lead. It’s honestly ridiculous.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/16ku9cv/rant_the_culture_of_secrecy_around_lead_paint_is/
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