Thinking About Selling? Here's the Fire Disclosure Checklist California Now Makes You Hand Buyers
I hear some version of this question a lot from neighbors here in West Hills who are either gearing up to sell or just opened an insurance renewal notice that made their stomach drop: "Can I actually be forced to tell a buyer what my house doesn't have?" The answer, for a growing number of California homes, is yes — and most sellers don't find out how specific that requirement is until they're already in escrow.
After the 2018 Woolsey Fire burned through the hills near my home and I went through CERT training afterward, I spent years thinking about wildfire risk mostly in terms of equipment and defensible space. What I didn't expect was how much the paperwork side of this — disclosure law, insurance underwriting, the FAIR Plan — would end up shaping whether a home in a fire zone is even easy to sell. If you own property in a High or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, this is worth understanding now, not when a buyer's agent hands you a form you've never seen.
The Checklist You Now Have to Hand Buyers
California has required a Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement on home sales since 1998, flagging whether a property sits in a designated fire-prone area. Assembly Bill 38, passed in 2019, went further for one-to-four-unit homes in High or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones: sellers must disclose whether they actually know of specific risk factors on the property — things like untreated wood shingle or shake roofing, gutters without covers or that collect flammable debris, windows that aren't tempered glass, missing or loose roof flashing, and combustible material or landscaping within five feet of the home or under a deck.
Starting July 1, 2025, that requirement expanded again for homes built before January 1, 2010 in those same zones. Sellers now have to hand buyers a fire-hardening checklist developed by CAL FIRE and the Office of Emergency Services, and mark which low-cost hardening measures are actually present — a Class A fire-rated roof, ember-resistant attic and crawl space vents, a noncombustible bird stop, noncombustible mesh over skylights — even if the honest answer on every line is "none of this has been done." You're only required to disclose what you actually know, and nothing in the law forces an inspection or an upgrade. But you can't leave the form blank, and a buyer's agent knows exactly what a page full of "no" answers means.
Why Insurance Is Now Part of the Same Conversation
The disclosure checklist doesn't exist in isolation — it lines up with what's happening in the insurance market. Stanford researchers found that in the first quarter of 2026, California's FAIR Plan — the state's insurer of last resort — was the primary insurer behind roughly 1 in 17 new mortgage originations for owner-occupied homes statewide, down from a recent peak near 1 in 12 the year before but still far above what the FAIR Plan was ever designed to carry. About 40% of FAIR Plan policyholders in that research also carry a second policy to cover what the FAIR Plan excludes, and that combination runs about $2,000 more per year than FAIR Plan coverage alone. A 2025 statewide survey found 60% of Californians are very concerned that climate-related risk will keep pushing home insurance costs up.
Put those two things together and the picture for a seller is pretty clear: a buyer's lender increasingly cares whether a home is insurable on normal terms, and the disclosure checklist is one of the first places that question gets answered — before anyone talks price. A home that checks "none of this has been done" on every hardening line isn't just a harder sell emotionally. It's a harder sell financially, because it's telling the buyer's insurance agent the same thing it's telling the buyer.
What the Checklist Doesn't Ask About
Here's the part worth sitting with: everything on that CAL FIRE checklist is about reducing the odds a fire starts on the structure in the first place — the roof, the vents, the five-foot clearance. None of it asks whether you have a way to respond if an ember gets through anyway. That's a different layer of preparedness entirely, and it's not something a disclosure form is built to capture. It's also not required by any law I'm aware of. But a buyer who's done their homework on wildfire risk — and a lot of them have, especially in West Hills and similar WUI communities — tends to notice the difference between a house that's merely compliant on paper and one where the owner has actually thought this through.
What You Need to Know
- The Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement has applied since 1998. AB 38 (2019) added specific fire-risk disclosure items for 1–4 unit homes in High or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones.
- As of July 1, 2025, homes built before 2010 in those zones must receive a CAL FIRE/OES fire-hardening checklist — and sellers must mark which measures are present, even if the answer is none.
- You only have to disclose what you actually know. Neither law requires a professional inspection or any upgrade before selling.
- The FAIR Plan backed roughly 1 in 17 new California mortgages in Q1 2026 — evidence of how closely insurability and financeability are now tied together in fire-prone areas.
- Doing the hardening work before you list costs less than discovering a problem during escrow. A Class A roof, screened vents, and a clear five-foot zone are the same items a buyer's lender will care about.
- None of this is a substitute for having a way to respond if a fire starts anyway. Hardening and disclosure address risk on paper; equipment addresses the moment the paper doesn't cover.
- This isn't legal or financial advice. Disclosure requirements and lending rules are detailed and change — check the current statutes or talk to a real estate attorney and your insurance agent before you list.
Whatever shape the paperwork takes by the time you sell, the equipment side of this doesn't wait on a disclosure form. If an ember gets past everything on that checklist, having a hydrant kit you've actually practiced with is the difference between a story about a close call and a claim.
Sherwin Ross is the founder of Ace Fire Defense, based in West Hills, CA. After the 2018 Woolsey Fire, he became CERT-trained and started building wildfire defense equipment for homeowners.