Required Lease Disclosures: What Federal Law Demands and What Your State Adds

Published 2026-08-21

Most lease templates on the internet carry exactly one required disclosure: lead-based paint. That is the federal one, so it is the one everybody knows about. Every other disclosure obligation is set by your state, and a template written for someone else's state will be silently missing yours.

The consequence is rarely dramatic and often expensive. A missing disclosure can make a related lease clause unenforceable, extend a tenant's right to terminate, or trigger a statutory penalty per occurrence.

The federal one: lead-based paint

Under 42 U.S.C. section 4852d and 24 CFR Part 35, landlords of housing built before 1978 must disclose known lead-based paint and lead hazards. In practice that means three things attached to the lease: the EPA pamphlet Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home, a disclosure of any known lead hazards and any records or reports you hold, and the federal Lead Warning Statement signed by both parties.

Two points people get wrong. It applies to pre-1978 housing only — attaching it to a 2015 build is harmless but pointless. And it applies whether or not you know of any lead: the disclosure of "no knowledge" is itself the required act.

The state layer

Beyond lead, the disclosures that appear across US jurisdictions cluster into a predictable set. Not every state requires every one, and the exact trigger and wording differ:

• Landlord or agent identity — the name and address of the owner or the person authorized to act for them, and where notices should be served. Common, easy to forget, and the one most likely to be missing from a downloaded template.
• Mold — known mold, prior remediation, or a general informational notice.
• Bed bugs — infestation history for the unit or building, sometimes with a required addendum.
• Flood zone — whether the property has flooded or sits in a designated flood area. This one has expanded fast in recent years.
• Radon — a hazard notice, typically in states with known geology.
• Asbestos — known asbestos-containing materials in older buildings.
• Shared utilities — where a tenant's meter also serves common areas or another unit, so they are being billed for consumption that is not theirs.
• Sex offender registry — a notice pointing the tenant to the state database.
• Move-in condition checklist — required by statute in a meaningful minority of states, and tied directly to your ability to deduct from the deposit later.
• Intent to demolish — where you have applied to demolish or convert the building.

Disclosure is not the same as a clause

Worth separating: a disclosure is information you must hand over. A required clause is language that must appear in the lease itself. States impose both, and satisfying one does not satisfy the other. Handing a tenant a mold pamphlet does not put a required mold-notification clause into your agreement.

Document the acknowledgement

Making the disclosure and being able to prove you made it are different problems, and only the second one helps you two years later. Keep the acknowledgement in the signed lease package rather than as a loose PDF in a folder — a separate sheet nobody can date is close to worthless. Where the tenant signs the lease electronically, the signature record should cover the disclosure attachments too.

Why generic templates fail here

A landlord who owns in two states usually has one lease. It was written for the first state. Every disclosure obligation the second state adds is invisible, because a template cannot warn you about a requirement it was never built to include. This is also why a lease that has worked fine for five years is not evidence that it is compliant — disclosure requirements are added by legislatures fairly regularly, and nothing in your filing cabinet updates itself.

How this works in PropertyFolio

PropertyFolio's lease wizard applies the rules for the property's own jurisdiction — all 50 states plus the District of Columbia — and presents the required disclosures as a step in the flow, each with a plain-English title, an explanation of what the obligation is, and what you actually need to do about it, rather than a raw statutory reference. Your acknowledgements are recorded with the lease and carried into the generated PDF, and the same rule set drives the deposit caps and notice periods elsewhere in the wizard.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Disclosure requirements vary by state and city and change; confirm the current obligations for your jurisdiction, and have a local attorney review your lease if you are unsure.

Build a state-specific lease with PropertyFolio — free to start.