"What Does a Seller Have to Tell You About a Used Home in Alabama, and How Do You Get the Rest?"

You are standing in the back bedroom of a 1994 brick home in Vestavia Hills, and there is a faint tan ring on the ceiling. You ask the listing agent whether the roof has ever leaked, and she says she will check with the seller. In Alabama there is no seller's disclosure form, and the seller has been under no duty to mention that ring. The ring is still your question to ask, and once you ask it, the seller has to answer you truthfully.

In Alabama, a seller of a used home does not have to volunteer its condition, and the state has no required disclosure form, because Alabama follows caveat emptor, the buyer beware rule. A seller still has to disclose a known defect that affects health or safety, has to answer your specific questions truthfully, and cannot hide a known problem. Your written questions, your inspection period and your purchase agreement get you everything else.

I'm Jeff Moran, a mortgage broker in Bluffton, South Carolina, originating since 1996 and licensed in fifteen states, including Alabama, NMLS #483943, through C2 Financial Corporation. The condition of the home reaches your loan through the appraisal, the insurance premium and the closing date, so I would rather you had the answers before your earnest money is on the line.

Does Alabama require a seller disclosure form?

No. Alabama applies caveat emptor to the sale of a used home. Alabama REALTORS' legal staff explain the rule in a note written for the seller's agent: the seller has no general duty to tell you about the condition of the home, and no Alabama statute requires a disclosure form. My Daphne, Fairhope and Foley page covers the rule and the flood question I would put to a seller in writing on the Gulf Coast.

The rule is for used homes. In 1971, in Cochran v. Keeton, the Alabama Supreme Court decided that a builder who sells a brand-new home promises that it is fit to live in, which the law calls an implied warranty of habitability. The University of Alabama Law Review's survey of the doctrine explains that the warranty belongs to the first owner of a home nobody has lived in, and that the courts have declined to extend it to the next owner.

When an Alabama seller has to disclose

Caveat emptor means the seller does not have to bring up the home's condition. It has never let a seller lie to you or hide something from you, and Alabama's courts recognize three exceptions, all three listed in the association's note.

A defect that affects health or safety. A seller, or the seller's agent, who knows of a material defect that affects health or safety has to disclose it, when you do not know about it and could not readily see it. A material defect is a problem serious enough to change a reasonable person's decision to buy. The courts read this exception narrowly, so you do not want to count on it for an ordinary repair.

A relationship of trust. If the seller already owes you a duty of trust, the way your own agent, your attorney or a trustee would, the seller has to disclose what they know.

A specific question from you. This is the exception you can trigger yourself, by asking. When you ask the seller, or the seller's agent, directly about a material defect before closing, the answer has to be truthful. The case Alabama courts cite for it is Fennell Realty Co. v. Martin, from 1988.

The listing agent carries a separate duty that the seller does not. The Alabama Real Estate Commission's own complaint form quotes Section 34-27-36 of the license law. It lets the Commission discipline a licensee for "failing to disclose to a potential purchaser or lessee any latent structural defect or any other defect known to the licensee." The form adds that this means defects "that would be a significant factor to a reasonable and prudent person" deciding whether to buy. The listing agent owes you that duty even though they represent the seller. The Commission's RECAD disclosure form, the agency notice an agent hands you at first contact, tells you who each agent in the transaction works for.

Asking an Alabama seller your questions in writing

The third exception only helps you if you can show, later, exactly what you asked and exactly what the seller answered. So the questions go in writing, through your agent, with a date on them, and the answers come back in writing and get kept with your contract. You can ask before you write the offer, and if the seller waits for a contract, the questions go in again the day it is signed.

A specific question gets you a factual answer, and a general one usually gets you a no. "Is there anything I should know about the home?" is the general one. Questions the seller has to answer with a fact look like these:

• Has water ever come into the home, through the roof, a window, the slab or the crawlspace, and when?
• Has the roof been repaired or replaced, when, and by whom?
• Has any foundation or structural repair been done, and are there invoices or an engineer's report?
• Has a homeowners or flood insurance claim ever been filed on this home?
• Has any work been done without a permit, including the finished attic or the garage apartment?

Please also ask for the paper that goes with the answers: repair invoices, the roof warranty, the termite bond and any permits.

The "as is" clause and the inspection contingency in Alabama

Because the seller does not have to volunteer anything, your inspection period is the main tool you have. Alabama REALTORS' June 2026 refresher on as-is contracts says an "as is" clause mainly signals that the seller will not make repairs. It does not stop you from inspecting, asking questions, or negotiating a price reduction or a seller concession based on what the inspection finds. You can still walk away inside your contingency if the seller refuses.

The clause does change what you can do after closing. In 2020, in Kidd v. Benson, a bluff on the property collapsed after the sale, and the buyers argued that the health and safety exception covered the collapse. Alabama REALTORS reported that the Alabama Supreme Court held the "as is" clause in their agreement kept them from using it. The association's April 2026 judicial update describes a federal appeals court case in which buyers signed an as-is agreement with no inspection contingency and later found termites. The court held they could not show they had reasonably relied on anything, and the association calls a buyer's remedies in that position "extremely limited."

So you keep the inspection contingency in the offer and give it enough days to do the job. Whether the "as is" clause stays in your agreement is a term you can negotiate before you sign, the same way a seller contribution gets written into the AAR purchase agreement.

One disclosure is federal and applies in Alabama as it does everywhere. On a home built before 1978, the EPA and HUD lead-based paint disclosure rule requires the seller to disclose known lead paint and hand you the federal pamphlet. It also gives you a ten-day window to have the home tested at your own expense before you are bound.

The answers that change your loan

A few of the seller's answers reach me, because they change the appraisal, the insurance or the calendar. Water getting in, the roof and the foundation can show up again in the appraisal, and who actually calls for repairs walks through where the appraiser's job and the inspector's differ. Insurance claims and flood history reach your monthly payment through the premium. The lender counts your homeowners premium, and a flood premium when the home is in a high-risk zone, in the payment you qualify on. Buying a home in a flood zone shows how to price that before you offer. A septic inspection or an engineer's letter on a foundation repair takes days, and the contract's dates do not stretch on their own.

The steps, in order, on an Alabama purchase

1. You get pre-approved before you have an address. What a pre-approval involves covers the qualifying half, and pre-approval in Alabama covers the costing half, including the state's two recordation taxes, the taxes Alabama charges to record the deed and the mortgage.

2. You send the seller your written questions through your agent, before the offer if you can.

3. You write the offer with an inspection contingency in it, sized to the home.

4. You inspect inside the period, and please send me the seller's written answers on the roof, water, the foundation, insurance claims and flood. Those are the ones that reach the appraisal and the payment.

5. You decide inside the period: repairs, a price reduction, a seller credit or walking away. A seller credit lands on your Loan Estimate only once it is in the signed agreement.

Two mistakes: asking only out loud, and waiving the inspection

Asking only out loud, or asking the general question. If you only asked out loud, you cannot prove later what you asked or what the seller said. A general question like "anything I should know?" gives the seller nothing specific to answer, so you want to ask about the roof, the crawlspace or the claim history by name.

Waiving the inspection to win the offer. Under caveat emptor, the inspection period is the main protection you have, and the buyers in the April 2026 case had given it up. A shorter period, or an inspection done before the offer, keeps the protection while still making the offer strong.

An example, with invented numbers

Numbers below are made up to show the mechanism. They are not a quote, and they are not a prediction of any repair cost or sale price in any Alabama county.

You are buying a 1996 home in west Mobile listed at $285,000. There is a patched spot on the ceiling of the den.

The version where the question is never put in writing. Your agent mentions the ceiling at the showing and hears that it was "an old thing." The offer goes in at $280,000 with a ten-day inspection period. On day eight the inspector finds soft decking on the roof, and a roofer quotes $11,500 to replace it. The seller says they never knew and declines a credit, the price is already settled, and with two days left on your contingency you keep the home at $280,000. You replace the roof next spring with your own $11,500, so the home and the roof together cost you $291,500.

The version where the question goes in first. Before the offer, your agent sends four written questions, and one asks whether the roof has ever leaked and whether it has been repaired. The seller answers in writing that it leaked in 2021 and was patched by a handyman. You bring in a roofer before you write anything, and the quote is the same $11,500. Your offer goes in at $270,000 with the roofer's estimate attached, and the seller counters at $274,000. You accept and replace the roof with the same $11,500, so the home and the roof together cost you $285,500. That is $6,000 less than the first version, and the only difference is one written question.

Your next step on an Alabama purchase

You can run your numbers with no credit pull and no account. You will see rates priced for your scenario, your debt ratio, and closing costs priced for Alabama, including both recordation taxes: the deed tax and the mortgage tax. You choose a rate option, and the application opens from there. The option you choose can change, so looking does not lock you into anything. You are also welcome to call me while you are writing the question list, and the Alabama mortgage page has the rest of the state's rules.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial, a commitment to lend, or legal advice. How the rule applies to a specific home and contract is a question for your own Alabama attorney. No letter from anyone is a loan commitment; final approval depends on the property, the appraisal and full underwriting.

Common questions

Is Alabama a buyer beware state for home sales?

Yes. Alabama applies caveat emptor, buyer beware, to the sale of a used home, so the seller has no general duty to volunteer the home's condition and the state has no required seller disclosure form. Alabama's courts recognize three exceptions. A seller has to disclose a known defect that affects health or safety, has to disclose what they know when they already owe you a duty of trust, and has to answer your specific question truthfully.

Does "as is" in an Alabama purchase agreement mean I cannot inspect the home?

No. Alabama REALTORS' June 2026 guidance says an as-is clause mainly signals that the seller will not make repairs. It does not prevent you from inspecting, asking questions, or negotiating a price reduction or a seller concession based on what the inspection finds. In Kidd v. Benson in 2020, the Alabama Supreme Court held that an as-is clause prevented the buyers in that case from using the health and safety exception to caveat emptor, so the inspection contingency is the protection to keep.

Does caveat emptor apply to new construction in Alabama?

Not to the first sale by the builder. Since Cochran v. Keeton in 1971, Alabama recognizes an implied warranty of habitability when a builder sells a new home that nobody has lived in, which means the builder promises it is fit to live in. Alabama's courts have declined to extend that warranty to a later owner of the same home, so if you are the second owner of a nearly new home, you are back under caveat emptor. Neither owner receives a state-required disclosure form, because Alabama has none.

Does the listing agent have to tell me about defects in Alabama?

The listing agent has a duty under the real estate license law that the seller does not have. Section 34-27-36 of the Code of Alabama lets the Alabama Real Estate Commission discipline a licensee for failing to disclose to a potential purchaser any hidden structural defect or any other defect known to the licensee. The listing agent owes you that duty even though they represent the seller, and the RECAD agency disclosure, the notice the agent gives you at first contact, says who each agent works for.