As-is is a repair term, not a disclosure term. It tells a buyer you will not fix anything before closing. It says nothing about what you have to tell them, and California sellers who conflate the two put themselves at real legal risk.
The confusion is understandable. Listing agents use as-is to signal no negotiation over repairs, and buyers sometimes hear it as no disclosure required. Neither the Civil Code nor the standard California purchase agreement supports that reading. The sections below cover exactly what still has to be disclosed, where the real exemptions are, and one situation where the line gets missed most often.
As-is limits repair obligations, not disclosure obligations
An as-is sale means the buyer takes the property in its current condition and the seller makes no repairs. It does not remove the seller's duty to disclose known material facts, and it does not exempt the transaction from the Transfer Disclosure Statement, Seller Property Questionnaire or Natural Hazard Disclosure.
California Civil Code section 1102 and following sections set the disclosure requirements for most residential sales of one to four units. Nothing in that code ties the requirement to whether repairs are being made. The two obligations run on separate tracks: as-is governs what the seller will fix, disclosure governs what the seller will tell the buyer.
A seller who skips disclosure because the sale is as-is is exposed the same way a seller in a traditional sale would be. California courts have held sellers liable for failing to disclose known defects even where the purchase agreement contained an as-is clause, because as-is language does not waive a statutory disclosure duty the parties cannot contract around.
This is one reason a direct cash sale still includes a disclosure package. Buying as-is changes our side of the transaction, not the seller's disclosure obligations, so the paperwork below still applies.
The TDS, SPQ and NHD are still required in an as-is sale
Three forms carry the bulk of a California seller's disclosure duty: the Transfer Disclosure Statement, the Seller Property Questionnaire and the Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement. All three are required in an as-is sale unless a specific statutory exemption applies to the transaction.
The Transfer Disclosure Statement, or TDS, is the core form under Civil Code section 1102.6. It asks the seller to check boxes on known defects across the roof, foundation, plumbing, electrical, appliances and systems, plus a narrative section for anything else material to value or desirability.
The Seller Property Questionnaire, or SPQ, is a California Association of Realtors form that supplements the TDS with more specific questions, including items the TDS checkbox format does not capture well, such as permit history, insurance claims and neighborhood nuisances.
The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement, or NHD, is required under Civil Code section 1103 and following sections. It discloses whether the property sits in a flood zone, a fire hazard severity zone, an earthquake fault zone or a seismic hazard zone, based on maps maintained by state and local agencies.
None of these forms carries an as-is exception. A seller who marks a defect unknown on the TDS while actually knowing about it is not protected by an as-is clause elsewhere in the contract.
- TDS: known material defects, checkbox plus narrative, Civil Code section 1102.6
- SPQ: supplemental detail, permits, insurance claims, neighborhood issues
- NHD: statutory hazard zones, Civil Code section 1103 and following
What California law requires you to disclose about death and material facts
California generally has no duty to disclose a death on the property if it occurred more than three years before the offer, but a seller may never misrepresent the fact if directly asked. Beyond death, sellers owe a broader common-law duty to disclose known material facts affecting value or desirability that a buyer could not reasonably discover on their own.
Civil Code section 1710.2 sets the three-year rule for deaths on the property. Inside that window, most manners of death do not have to be volunteered, but a seller who is asked directly must answer truthfully. The statute has historically carved out a narrower rule for deaths related to a former occupant's HIV status, which never has to be volunteered regardless of timing.
Beyond the statutory forms, California sellers carry a common-law duty to disclose known material facts, meaning defects or conditions that would affect a reasonable buyer's decision to purchase or the price they would pay, when the buyer could not have discovered the fact through ordinary inspection.
This is the category that catches sellers who focus only on the TDS checkboxes. A known slab leak that was patched and never recurred, a boundary dispute with a neighbor, or a prior insurance claim for water damage are all the kind of material facts the common-law duty reaches even when a specific checkbox does not.
Exemptions: probate, trust and other transfers where the TDS is excused
Civil Code section 1102.2 lists specific transfers exempt from the Transfer Disclosure Statement, including sales by a fiduciary in the course of administering a decedent's estate, guardianship, conservatorship or trust, transfers by foreclosure trustee's deed, and transfers between co-owners or spouses.
The most common exemption sellers encounter is the probate and trust exemption. When an executor, administrator or trustee sells real property as part of a probate court sale, the TDS is not required, because the fiduciary is presumed not to have the same first-hand knowledge of the property that an owner-occupant would.
This exemption does not extend to the NHD in every case, and it does not remove liability for facts the fiduciary actually knows and fails to disclose. An executor who is aware of a known defect from personal experience with the property, rather than from the estate's administration alone, is still in the same position as any other seller with actual knowledge.
Sellers should not assume an exemption applies without checking it against their specific situation. A trust sale where the trustee also lived in the home for years is a different fact pattern than a trust sale where the trustee inherited the property from a parent and never occupied it.
Where the disclosure line gets missed most often
The most common as-is disclosure near-miss involves a seller who genuinely believes as-is means the paperwork does not apply, then either skips the TDS entirely or fills it out without disclosing a defect they consider irrelevant because the buyer already knows the house needs work.
In one closing we handled, a seller with an inherited property assumed that because the buyer already knew the roof was original and the house was being sold as a fixer, there was no need to disclose a known active leak that had already caused interior damage. The seller was not trying to hide anything. The house was visibly dated, and the assumption was that visible age covered it.
We walked through the TDS line by line with the seller before closing, the leak was disclosed in the narrative section, and the sale proceeded with the buyer's full knowledge. Nothing about that disclosure changed the offer, because a direct cash buyer is already pricing the property for its actual condition. What it changed was the seller's exposure after closing.
The lesson generalizes. An as-is sale changes what a buyer expects to receive. It does not change what a seller is legally required to say, and the disclosure forms exist specifically to separate those two questions. Sellers weighing multiple as-is offers can check each company's own claims about its process against our verified company profiles in the California Cash Home Buyer Index.
“As-is tells a buyer what you will fix. Disclosure tells a buyer what you know. They are not the same form, and they are not the same obligation.”