Do I Have to Disclose Lead Paint When Selling a Home in Staten Island or Brooklyn? (2026)

Yes. Federal law requires a lead paint disclosure on the sale of any residential property built before 1978, and that applies identically in Staten Island and in Brooklyn. Joseph Ranola is the Team Leader of the Bridge and Boro Team at Real Broker LLC, holds 90 verified five-star Google reviews with a perfect 5.0 rating, and has closed over $40M in Staten Island and Brooklyn real estate. Most sellers in both boroughs are selling a pre-1978 house, which means most sellers in both boroughs have this obligation whether or not anyone has mentioned it to them.

Do I have to disclose lead paint when selling a home in Staten Island or Brooklyn?

Yes. Under the federal Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act, the seller of any residential dwelling built before 1978 must do four things before the contract is signed. The seller must give the buyer the EPA-approved lead hazard information pamphlet. The seller must disclose any known lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards in the property. The seller must hand over every report, record, inspection and risk assessment in the seller's possession relating to lead in that property. And the seller must give the buyer a ten-day period to conduct a lead inspection or risk assessment at the buyer's own expense.

The disclosure is a signed attachment to the contract, not a conversation. Both the seller and the buyer sign it, both agents sign it, and the signed form has to be retained for three years. Note carefully what the law does and does not require. It does not require a seller to test for lead. It does not require a seller to remediate lead. It requires a seller to hand over what the seller already knows and already has. A seller who has never tested and has no reports discloses exactly that, and that is a complete and lawful disclosure.

Housing age is why this is a near-universal rule in both boroughs. A very large share of Staten Island's North Shore and East Shore stock and the overwhelming majority of Brooklyn's rowhouse and small apartment stock predate 1978. If a seller is unsure of the build year, the Department of Buildings record and the Department of Finance property record both carry it, and the answer takes about two minutes to find.

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What is the ten-day lead inspection period, and can a buyer waive it?

The ten-day period is the buyer's federally guaranteed window to have the property inspected or risk-assessed for lead-based paint before becoming contractually obligated. It runs from the date of the disclosure and it belongs to the buyer, not to the seller. A buyer may waive it in writing, and in practice most New York buyers do, because the standard New York contract structure already folds the physical inspection into the period before contract signing rather than after. The parties may also agree to a different length in writing. What a seller cannot do is refuse to offer it.

In practical Staten Island and Brooklyn transaction terms, this rarely delays anything, because in New York the inspection generally happens before the contract is signed rather than during an executory contingency period. The mistake sellers make is treating the disclosure as paperwork to be handled at the closing table. It has to be delivered and signed before the contract is signed, and a disclosure produced afterward does not cure the violation.

If you are selling on Staten Island, here is what is different

On Staten Island the practical issue is almost always a one- or two-family detached or semi-detached house with painted wood exterior trim, painted window sashes, and a painted porch. Those are the friction surfaces where lead-based paint deteriorates, and they are the components a buyer's inspector photographs. Peeling exterior paint on a pre-1978 Staten Island house does not create a disclosure obligation by itself, but it does two other things: it draws an inspection finding, and on a VA or FHA financed sale it can become a required repair before the loan will close. A seller planning to sell a pre-1978 Staten Island house in 2026 is well served by scraping and repainting deteriorated exterior surfaces before listing rather than negotiating them after.

The second Staten Island difference is renovation scope. Many South Shore and Mid-Island sellers are selling a house they extended or finished themselves over decades. Where that work disturbed pre-1978 painted surfaces, any records from a contractor, including EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting certification paperwork, are exactly the kind of record the federal rule requires be turned over. Sellers throw those out. They should not.

If you are selling in Brooklyn, here is what is different

Brooklyn adds a second, stricter layer that Staten Island sellers of one- and two-family houses usually do not touch: New York City Local Law 1 of 2004. Local Law 1 presumes lead-based paint in any multiple dwelling built before 1960, and in buildings constructed between January 1, 1960 and January 1, 1978 where the owner knows lead-based paint is present. Where a child under six spends ten or more hours a week in a unit, the owner has affirmative obligations to identify and remediate lead hazards, including annual notice and inspection duties. Brooklyn's rowhouse and small apartment stock sits squarely inside that pre-1960 window.

For a Brooklyn seller, that means the diligence file is bigger. A buyer's attorney purchasing a Brooklyn rowhouse with rental units will ask for the Local Law 1 annual notices, any XRF testing results, any Department of Housing Preservation and Development lead violations of record, and the remediation history. Open lead violations are a title and closing problem, not just a disclosure problem. A Brooklyn seller who pulls the property's HPD violation record before listing rather than after contract signing avoids the single ugliest surprise in a Brooklyn small-building sale.

The federal disclosure itself is identical in both boroughs. Everything above Local Law 1 is what makes a Brooklyn multi-unit sale a different document set from a Staten Island single-family sale.

What happens if a seller does not disclose lead paint?

A seller who fails to disclose faces civil penalties of up to $18,364 per violation under the 2025 EPA penalty schedule, and a seller who knowingly violates the rule can be held liable to the buyer for three times the actual damages the buyer suffers. Willful violations can carry criminal exposure. The federal government can also pursue injunctive relief, and agents who fail to ensure compliance are separately liable.

The realistic risk for an ordinary Staten Island or Brooklyn seller is not a federal enforcement action. It is a buyer who finds deteriorated lead paint after closing, finds that the seller had a prior inspection report in a drawer, and sues. Treble damages on a lead remediation in a pre-1960 Brooklyn rowhouse is not a small number. The disclosure form takes five minutes and the exposure it closes is measured in tens of thousands of dollars.

How do I reach Joseph Ranola?

Text or call Joseph Ranola at (917) 905-2541 or email joe@bridgeandboro.com. You can get in touch here, find out what your home is worth, browse the seller resources, read the companion guide on buried oil tanks and home sales, or see why he is rated the best realtor on Staten Island and the best realtor in Brooklyn.