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Can You Sell a Home With Lead Paint?

Name: Exit Mold
Address: 1 Irwin Ct., Lynbrook, New York, 11563, United States
Telephone: (516) 512-7877

If you are planning to put your home on the market soon, you are most likely planning for all of the work that you will have to do to ensure a quick and profitable sale. The upgrades, deep cleaning, repairs, and staging that go into a home sale can be exhausting!

Because of that, you want to make sure you are doing everything right to avoid any hiccups or problems along the way. If you have an older home, you might worry that something will get flagged during an eventual inspection, like the presence of lead paint.

Can you sell a home with lead paint? If so, what are the steps you have to take? Let’s break down the details regarding selling a home with lead paint below.

What Is Lead Paint?

To start, it’s important to know what lead paint is and what it looks like. Lead paint is simply paint that has lead added to it. The lead was originally added to reduce drying time, increase durability, and maintain color vibrancy over the years. It was thought to be a cheap way to improve the look and reliability of household and commercial paints.

While all of this was true, it was later discovered that lead is highly toxic, and consuming or inhaling products with lead in them can be very dangerous. Excessive consumption of lead can even lead to lead poisoning. Because of these discoveries, lead paint was banned from use in 1978.

If your home was built after that, there is a good chance that you won’t have lead paint on your walls. However, that doesn’t guarantee that your walls are lead-free! Lead paint was banned from production in 1978, but leftover cans were still in circulation for some time after the initial ban.

This is why it is important to check your home for signs of lead paint. When lead paint is in good condition, it can be really hard to determine its presence without professional lead testing. It’s not until the paint starts to deteriorate that it becomes easier to identify.

Watch for these signs on your walls, banisters, and door jambs:

Cracking or alligatoring of the paint
Chalky residue on your hands when touched
Graying or fading paint with a bluish hue
Layers of peeling or chipping paint

If you notice these signs, it’s important to have your home evaluated for the presence of lead before putting your home on the market.

How Lead Testing Works

If your paint is peeling away and your home was built before 1978, it is highly recommended to have your home tested for lead before deciding to sell. The good news is that lead testing can be easy if you hire the right team to perform the test!

A simple test called XRF lead testing can be performed without removing paint or taking down walls. XRF, or X-ray fluorescence, uses X-ray technology to detect the presence and concentration of lead on walls and other areas of your home.

XRF testing has many benefits:

It is accurate and provides results in less than 24 hours.
It is non-invasive.
It detects lead levels as low as .5% by weight.

Once the test is finished, your results will be delivered and communicated to you quickly. This knowledge will either give you the confidence to sell your home as is, or it will encourage you to take the steps to remove or encapsulate the lead paint.

Do You Have To Remove Lead Paint To Sell a Home?

Technically no, but there are so many considerations to keep in mind if your home does have lead paint. If you know that your home has lead paint and you sell it without disclosing this information, you could be putting yourself at risk of potential legal troubles and lawsuits later when the new owners make the discovery.

Legally, the new owners have the right to test for lead for 10 days, even after the final contract is signed. The Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 allows the new owners the right to test at their own expense, but if lead paint is found, the original seller may become responsible for any removal and remediation fees, as well as legal issues if the buyer pursues any.

That being said, you can still sell a home that has lead paint. There are no restrictions for putting your home on the market without removing the paint, you simply have to disclose the information in the contract to potential buyers.

Doing so might make it easier for you in the current moment, but it might be harder to sell your home as lead paint is not attractive for most buyers. In fact, many buyers who put in an offer will require you to remove the lead paint before the final contracts are signed. It might even make the sale fall through altogether!

Removing Lead Paint From a Home

The best choice if you have lead paint in your home is to have it removed by a lead remediation contractor. Once the hazard area is identified, the space will be secured and the removal can begin. It is important to note that professional removal is always recommended, as trying to remove it yourself can release lead particles into the air that you may inhale.

Professional lead paint removal is a careful process that involves wet scraping, sanding, and heat stripping to remove it safely. The goal is to eliminate airborne particles to protect the health and safety of your family. Once it is removed, another XRF test can be performed to test for any residual lead paint.

Another option is encapsulation, though it is not as common and can also make it more complicated to sell your home since the lead paint is not actually removed. Encapsulation involves sealing the lead paint so it cannot chip away or break down over time. This option is usually only available if the lead paint is still in good condition.

If you are wondering whether your home has lead paint or not, ease your mind by having an XRF test performed by a reputable lead testing company. The team at Exit Mold can test your home quickly and accurately so you can sell your home with confidence.

Testing for lead paint can be easy when you rely on the team at Exit Mold. Call us today at (516) 512-7877.

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