Can a New York seller still avoid the disclosure form with a $500 credit?

No. The $500 credit-in-lieu option was removed effective March 20, 2024 (Chapter 484 of the Laws of 2023). The Property Condition Disclosure Statement is now the expected path, and the former Real Property Law § 465 remedy was rewritten around liability rather than an opt-out.

What did the 2024 amendment actually change?

It eliminated the $500 credit, added seven flood-related questions to the disclosure statement (growing it from 49 to 56 questions), retitled Real Property Law § 465 around a seller’s liability for a willful failure to comply, and repealed former § 467. It was enacted in 2023 and took effect March 20, 2024.

Does a completed disclosure statement override caveat emptor?

Not exactly. New York still follows caveat emptor in arm’s-length sales, so the buyer generally must inspect and ask. But a false answer on the statutory disclosure statement can be evidence of active concealment, and courts have treated it that way (Simone v. Homecheck). The form does not replace the doctrine; it interacts with it.

Is a seller who fills out the form now more exposed?

The current statute frames a disclosing seller’s exposure around a "willful failure" to comply (Real Property Law § 465). That is a general statement of the statutory standard, not advice on any transaction; how it applies to a specific seller is a question for counsel on that matter.

Where does the disclosure statement belong in the file?

With everything else that proves what was represented. Because the completed statement is a signed, dated set of the seller’s answers, it is one of the most useful records in a later dispute — worth keeping intact, alongside the correspondence around it, in the transaction file.

For New York closing attorneys

New York's property condition disclosure, after 2024

For two decades, the practical answer to New York's disclosure statute was a $500 credit. That answer is gone. Here is what the Property Condition Disclosure Act now requires, what the 2024 amendment changed, and how disclosure interacts with caveat emptor.

Updated July 2026 · Jeskel Group

Few New York real-estate statutes have been as quietly sidestepped as the Property Condition Disclosure Act. For years, the standard move was to skip the disclosure form and give the buyer a $500 credit at closing. The 2024 amendment closed that door. This is a general overview for practitioners of what the Act now requires and how it fits the surrounding doctrine — not legal advice for any particular matter.

The Act, in one paragraph

The Property Condition Disclosure Act lives in Real Property Law article 14 (§§ 460–466). It requires a seller of residential real property to complete and sign a Property Condition Disclosure Statement and deliver it to the buyer before the buyer signs a binding contract of sale (Real Property Law § 462), subject to the exemptions the statute enumerates. The statement is a standardized set of questions about the property's condition — environmental, structural, mechanical — that the seller answers and signs.

Not every sale is covered

The Act reaches residential sales, but not all of them: the statute exempts certain categories of transfer where the ordinary arm's-length buyer-seller dynamic does not apply. For present purposes the point is only that the disclosure duty is not universal, and whether a particular transfer is covered is a threshold question worth confirming rather than assuming. Where the Act does apply, the 2024 changes below are now the baseline.

What the 2024 amendment changed

The changes arrived through Chapter 484 of the Laws of 2023 — enacted in 2023 (signed September 22, 2023) and effective March 20, 2024. In practice it did four things:

Removed the $500 credit-in-lieu option. The former Real Property Law § 465 mechanism that let a seller skip the form for a $500 closing credit is gone, so the disclosure statement is now the expected path.
Added seven flood-related questions. The statement now asks about FEMA floodplain status, flood-insurance requirements and history, elevation certificates, and prior flood-damage claims — growing the form from 49 to 56 questions.
Recast the liability provision. Section 465 was reframed around a seller's liability for a willful failure to perform the Act's requirements, for the buyer's actual damages.
Repealed former § 467. The article was consolidated in the process.

The flood questions, specifically

The seven new questions are not incidental. They ask a seller to disclose whether the property sits in a FEMA-designated 100-year or 500-year floodplain, whether federal flood insurance has ever been required on it, whether it carries flood insurance now, whether it has an elevation certificate, whether it has received FEMA disaster assistance, and whether it has a history of flood-damage claims. The through-line is that flood exposure in New York had been under-disclosed relative to how much it affects value and insurability, and the amendment moves that information onto the record before contract rather than after the first heavy rain. For counsel on either side, they are new factual representations to read carefully.

Why “just take the credit” is no longer the answer

The old workflow treated the PCDA as optional friction: many sellers' counsel simply advised the credit and moved on. With the opt-out removed, the completed statement becomes a routine part of the file — and a signed, dated representation about the property that did not reliably exist before. For both sides of the closing, that changes what is worth capturing and keeping.

Disclosure meets caveat emptor

The disclosure statement does not displace New York's underlying doctrine. Arm's-length residential sales still run on caveat emptor: a seller generally has no duty to volunteer defects, and mere silence is not fraud (London v. Courduff, 141 A.D.2d 803 (2d Dep't 1988)). The exception is active concealment — conduct that thwarts the buyer's own inspection (Jablonski v. Rapalje, 14 A.D.3d 484 (2d Dep't 2005)). The disclosure statement plugs into that framework: New York courts have recognized that a false answer on the statutory statement can be evidence of active concealment (Simone v. Homecheck Real Estate Servs., 42 A.D.3d 518 (2d Dep't 2007)).

The doctrine has a second edge worth keeping in view: even apart from active concealment, New York recognizes a narrow “special facts” duty to disclose where one party's superior knowledge of essential facts — facts peculiarly within that party's knowledge and not discoverable by the other through ordinary diligence — makes the transaction inherently unfair without disclosure (Swersky v. Dreyer & Traub, 219 A.D.2d 321 (1st Dep't 1996)). Courts apply it sparingly, and often decline it where the buyer could have found the facts through due diligence, but it is part of the backdrop against which a signed disclosure statement is read.

A general “as is” clause does not neatly cure that. New York treats a broad merger or “as is” clause as ineffective to bar a fraud claim where the facts are peculiarly within the seller's knowledge, though a specific, targeted disclaimer of reliance can (Danann Realty Corp. v. Harris, 5 N.Y.2d 317 (1959); and, on equitable relief despite an “as is” clause, the well-known Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254 (1st Dep't 1991)). The interaction is fact-specific, and it is where careful drafting and a clean record earn their keep.

What it means in practice

Advising a seller, the completed statement is now a signed representation that will be read closely if anything goes wrong; the care taken answering it is care taken against later exposure. Advising a buyer, the statement is a genuine record to obtain, read against the inspection, and preserve — not a formality to be credited away. On both sides, the exchange around the form — questions asked, answers given, revisions made — is part of the story a file may later have to tell.

There is also a documentary discipline the amendment rewards. Because a completed statement now reliably exists, the useful next step — on either side — is to read it against the inspection and the title work and to capture, in writing, anywhere they diverge. A disclosure that says one thing while the inspection says another is not a gap to paper over; it is precisely the exchange a well-kept file should preserve.

Keep the statement where it can be proven

Because the disclosure statement is a dated, signed representation, it is one of the most useful documents in the file if a dispute arises — provided it is intact and sits with the correspondence around it rather than in a folder no one can find. That is the everyday job ClosingRecord does: it keeps the transaction, the disclosure statement included, in one shared, sealed record that is complete and verifiable later. It does not give legal advice or decide what a disclosure means; it keeps the proof of what was exchanged where you can reach it.

For the buyer-side view of the same doctrine, see what a New York buyer can do when a seller didn't disclose, or open a complete sample transaction to see how the record holds together.

Common questions

Can a New York seller still avoid the disclosure form with a $500 credit?: No. The $500 credit-in-lieu option was removed effective March 20, 2024 (Chapter 484 of the Laws of 2023). The Property Condition Disclosure Statement is now the expected path, and the former Real Property Law § 465 remedy was rewritten around liability rather than an opt-out.
What did the 2024 amendment actually change?: It eliminated the $500 credit, added seven flood-related questions to the disclosure statement (growing it from 49 to 56 questions), retitled Real Property Law § 465 around a seller’s liability for a willful failure to comply, and repealed former § 467. It was enacted in 2023 and took effect March 20, 2024.
Does a completed disclosure statement override caveat emptor?: Not exactly. New York still follows caveat emptor in arm’s-length sales, so the buyer generally must inspect and ask. But a false answer on the statutory disclosure statement can be evidence of active concealment, and courts have treated it that way (Simone v. Homecheck). The form does not replace the doctrine; it interacts with it.
Is a seller who fills out the form now more exposed?: The current statute frames a disclosing seller’s exposure around a "willful failure" to comply (Real Property Law § 465). That is a general statement of the statutory standard, not advice on any transaction; how it applies to a specific seller is a question for counsel on that matter.
Where does the disclosure statement belong in the file?: With everything else that proves what was represented. Because the completed statement is a signed, dated set of the seller’s answers, it is one of the most useful records in a later dispute — worth keeping intact, alongside the correspondence around it, in the transaction file.