What to Disclose When Selling a House in Tennessee, Honestly

Quick answer: What to disclose when selling a house in Tennessee comes down to known material defects — roof leaks, foundation issues, water in the basement, bad systems, termites, sinkholes. Most sellers fill out a state property condition disclosure form and deliver it before the contract is signed. You disclose what you know. You don't have to guess or fix a thing.

A seller out in Hixson asked me this one flat out: “Mike, do I really have to tell them about the crawl space?”

Yes. And here's the part folks don't expect — telling them is almost always the cheap option. It's the not-telling that turns into attorneys, and attorneys bill by the hour. A sump pump does not.

What Do You Have to Disclose When Selling a House in Tennessee?

Tennessee asks most home sellers to fill out a residential property condition disclosure. It's a form. It asks about the guts of the house, and you answer based on what you actually know.

Not what you suspect. Not what your neighbor's brother-in-law who “does a little contracting” thinks. What you know.

The form walks you through the big stuff:

• The roof — leaks, repairs, age if you know it
• Foundation, slab, basement walls, settling, cracks
• Water: drainage, flooding, standing water, a crawl space that never quite dries out
• Plumbing, electrical, heat and air, water heater
• Well, septic, or sewer connection
• Termites and other wood-eating freeloaders — past damage and treatment
• Known sinkholes on the property (we live on limestone around here; it happens)
• Boundary problems, easements, shared driveways
• HOA dues and restrictions
• Environmental odds and ends — buried fuel tanks, asbestos, radon results if you've tested

Houses built before 1978 also come with a separate federal lead-based paint disclosure. That one's not optional, and it's got nothing to do with Tennessee.

What Counts as a “Material” Defect?

Material means it affects what the house is worth, or whether it's safe, or whether a normal buyer would think twice.

A scuff on the hallway wall isn't material. A wet hallway wall is a whole different animal. The disclosure form is not a personality test — nobody's grading your housekeeping, and you do not have to confess that the guest room is beige.

Simple rule: if you'd want somebody to tell you before you handed over $300,000 of your own money, write it down.

What If You Honestly Don't Know?

“Unknown” is a real answer, and you're allowed to use it. You bought the place with the deck already built. You have no earthly idea what's under the vinyl in the kitchen. Say so.

What you can't do is play dumb on purpose. If your answer is “well, it only leaks when it rains real hard” — congratulations, that's a leak.

Repairs count too. If you had a plumber out three times for the same line, that's worth mentioning even though it's fixed. Buyers don't get spooked by a repair. They get spooked by a surprise.

What You Don't Have to Put on the Form

Tennessee doesn't make you disclose that somebody passed away in the house. Same goes for the rumor that the hall closet door opens by itself. Ghosts are not material defects. A roof that rains indoors is.

You also don't have to hire an inspector, crawl under the house with a flashlight, or go hunting for problems you never knew existed. Disclosure is about what's in your head — not what's under your slab.

Does Selling “As Is” Get You Off the Hook?

Not the way most people hope. Tennessee gives sellers some options for handling the form differently in certain situations, and a few transfers — estates, foreclosures, court-ordered sales — work under their own rules.

But none of that lets you lie, and none of it lets you hide a known problem. “As is” means you're not fixing it. It doesn't mean you're not saying it.

If the roof and the foundation both need real money and you'd rather skip the whole dance, a cash offer is worth a look. Those buyers price the problems in on purpose.

When Do You Hand It Over?

The buyer needs it before they're locked into a binding contract — not after inspections, not the week of closing, not while everybody's already picked out paint.

My advice: fill it out before the sign goes in the yard. It takes an evening at the kitchen table, it makes you walk your own house with clear eyes, and it means nothing ugly shows up at hour eleven when everybody's nerves are already shot.

What Happens If You Skip It or Fudge It?

Best case, the inspector finds it anyway and the buyer either renegotiates hard or walks. Annoying, but survivable.

Worst case, you close, they move in, the first big storm rolls over the ridge, and now you've got a former buyer with your signature on a form that says everything was fine. That's the expensive version.

And this is a small town wearing a city's clothes. Word about a bad closing spreads faster than kudzu on a fence post. You'll run into these people at Publix.

What to Disclose When Selling a House in Tennessee Without Scaring Buyers Off

Sellers get this backwards. Disclosure isn't a confession. It's context — and you're the one who gets to write it.

Buyers here have seen houses. The folks commuting to the VW plant, the family moving down from Cleveland, the couple who finally wants a garage and a yard — they all know a house has a history. Nobody's expecting factory-sealed.

So give them the whole thought: what happened, what you did, who did it. “Basement took water in a hard rain. We regraded the yard, added a French drain, been dry since.” Staple the receipt to it.

That reads like an owner who takes care of things. A blank form and a shrug reads like an owner with something to hide. I have never once seen a buyer walk because a seller admitted the water heater is getting up there. I've seen plenty walk because the seller swore the crawl space was dry and the inspector found a koi pond down there.

A Few Things That Come Up Around Here

Our red clay and our ridges mean drainage is the local villain. Water runs downhill, finds your basement, and moves in without paying rent. Older homes downtown and in St. Elmo bring their own charm and their own wiring. Out on acreage in Bradley or Catoosa County, septic and well questions get real specific.

And if your house sits in Ringgold, Fort Oglethorpe, or Dalton, you're selling in Georgia — different state, different forms, different rules. The principle doesn't change one bit. Ask somebody licensed on that side of the line, which we are.

One more thing: I'm a broker, not an attorney. If your sale has hair on it — an estate, a divorce, a title mess — pay a lawyer for an hour. Cheapest hour you'll ever spend. If you like this kind of plain-English breakdown, there's more of it on the blog.

Fill out that form like your buyer's going to be your neighbor. Around here, there's a decent chance they will be.