"Buying a Minnesota Home: What Does the Seller's Radon Disclosure Tell You Before You Sign?"

Your agent emails over the seller's disclosures on a split-level in Maple Grove, and one page in the stack is about radon. The seller has checked the box that says the home was tested, written in a date from six years ago, and left the line for the result blank. The basement is finished, and the listing calls the room down there a fourth bedroom.

Before you sign a purchase agreement on a Minnesota home, the seller has to tell you in writing what they know about radon in the home. That means whether it has been tested, the most current results, any mitigation that was done, the details of any mitigation system, and a radon warning statement, plus a state health department booklet. The law does not make the seller test.

I'm Jeff Moran, a mortgage broker in Bluffton, South Carolina, originating since 1996, licensed in fifteen states, including Minnesota, NMLS #483943, through C2 Financial Corporation.

This article walks through the disclosure, your own test and the inspection contingency, and how a high reading can change the price, a seller credit or the cash you need at closing.

What is the Minnesota radon disclosure, and when do you get it?

It is a written statement the seller owes you before the purchase agreement is signed. Minnesota's Radon Awareness Act, Minn. Stat. 144.496, says that before signing an agreement to sell or transfer residential real property, the seller shall disclose in writing to the buyer any knowledge the seller has of radon concentrations in the dwelling. The timing is part of the rule, because you get to read it while you are still deciding what to offer and what to ask for in the contract.

The same statute has the seller hand you a Minnesota Department of Health publication. That booklet, Radon in Real Estate Transactions, is the page in the packet that explains how a test during a sale is supposed to be run.

The act covers the transfer of any interest in residential real estate, including a sale, a contract for deed (where the seller finances the purchase and keeps the title until you finish paying) and a lease with an option to purchase. It leaves out a gift, a court-ordered transfer, a transfer to a government body and a transfer by foreclosure. Minn. Stat. 513.61 says a seller of residential real property shall follow 144.496, so the radon page travels with the rest of the seller's disclosures. The pages for buying a home in Minneapolis and St. Paul and buying a home in Duluth cover it beside the well and septic disclosures.

The five things the seller has to put in writing

The statute lists what the disclosure has to include, and the list is your reading guide. Minn. Stat. 144.496 requires the seller to tell you:

1. Whether any radon test has been done on the property. If the seller checked yes and gave no result, you can ask for the report.
2. The most current records and reports on radon concentrations in the home. Finishing a basement can change the radon level, so an older result may not reflect the home as it is today.
3. A description of any radon concentrations, mitigation or remediation. The result after a system went in is the number you care about.
4. Information about the mitigation system, if one has been installed. A mitigation system is a vent pipe and fan that draws radon out from under the home. The Department of Health requires licensed mitigation companies to tag the systems they install, and that tag is the quickest way to confirm who put it in.
5. A radon warning statement, in the words the statute sets out, which is the same paragraph on every Minnesota disclosure.

If the seller says tested but gives no number, please ask for the report, all pages. If every box says no knowledge, that is a complete disclosure from a seller who never tested, and it tells you nothing about the air in the basement.

Does a Minnesota seller have to test for radon?

No. The act requires the seller to disclose what they know, and nothing in it makes them find anything out or fix anything. The Department of Health says so on its Radon in Real Estate page: radon testing and mitigation are not required during real estate transactions, though testing is highly recommended.

So a seller who checks no knowledge is not telling you the home is free of radon. The Department of Health's release on radon testing during home sales says radon is found at elevated levels in about 40% of Minnesota homes. The seller's page can be completely accurate while the question stays open, and your own test during the inspection window is how you find out.

Planning your own test inside the inspection window

Your inspection contingency is the room you have to find out, so the test gets scheduled the same day as the inspection. A home inspection and a radon measurement are two different services, and it is worth confirming that your inspector is actually running one.

The Department of Health's real estate guidance says a licensed radon measurement professional conducts the test and produces a report. It runs for a minimum of 48 hours, in the lowest level of the home that could be lived in, usually the basement, and the home is kept closed up starting at least 12 hours before the test begins. Because time is short during a sale, the department allows a continuous radon monitor, or two short-term test kits placed side by side and averaged. It does not currently recommend consumer digital monitors during a real estate transaction.

Minn. Stat. 144.4961 defines a radon measurement professional as a person who performs a test for radon in a building the person does not own or lease, and the Department of Health licenses them. You are not the owner yet, so a hardware-store kit you set out yourself is outside what the department recommends for a sale. The department keeps a list of licensed measurement professionals, and your inspector or your agent will usually know who in the area runs them.

The department's testing page says to reduce the radon level if the average is at or above 4.0 picocuries per liter, and to consider mitigating if it is between 2.0 and 3.9. At 4.0 or above, you have a reason to ask the seller for a system or a credit. Between 2.0 and 3.9, it is a judgment call you can talk through with your agent.

The result, your purchase agreement and your mortgage

A high reading usually means asking the seller to install a mitigation system or to give you a credit. A licensed mitigation company installs the system and quotes it for this home, so I cannot give you a figure from a distance. Once you have the quote, you and your agent have three choices. The seller installs the system before closing and gives you the post-mitigation test. Or the seller gives you a credit at closing and you install it afterward. Or you accept the number and budget for the system yourself. If you take the second route, how a seller credit works at closing covers what a credit can and cannot pay for.

On the mortgage side, the radon test is yours to order, and the appraisal the lender orders is a separate thing, because the appraiser is forming an opinion of value. Your loan is built on the purchase price, your income and debts, and the costs in the monthly payment, so a mitigation system changes your mortgage only through the price, the credit, or the cash you keep after closing. Pre-approval in Minnesota covers how those pieces, and the state's mortgage registry tax, reach the cash you need at the table. If you want the system installed before closing, you'll want to build the time in, because the company has to install it and run a follow-up test before your closing date.

If the seller knew and did not tell you

Under Minn. Stat. 144.496, a seller who fails to make the required radon disclosure, and who is aware of material facts about radon concentrations in the dwelling, is liable to the buyer. A buyer who is injured by a violation may bring a civil action to recover damages and receive other equitable relief. The action has to be started within two years after the date on which the buyer closed the purchase. The section also says a transfer is not invalidated solely because somebody failed to comply with it, and a court decides whether to undo the sale.

It reaches a seller who knew something and left it off the page, and a test during your inspection window tells you the answer while you can still act on it.

The steps, in order, for a Minnesota purchase

1. You'll want the radon disclosure and the health department booklet in hand before you sign, because that is when the statute puts them in your hands.
2. Please read the five items against the list above, and ask for the report behind any yes, all pages, please.
3. You'll want to book the radon test with a licensed measurement professional on the same day you book the home inspection, so the 48 hours fits inside the contingency.
4. If the home already has a mitigation system, please ask the seller for the installer's paperwork and the most recent reading, and have the system tested anyway.
5. If the average comes back at or above 4.0, please get a quote from a licensed mitigation company and take it to the seller inside the contingency. Between 2.0 and 3.9, the department says to consider it.
6. You and your agent can then decide whether it becomes a repair before closing, a credit at the table, or a cost you carry after closing. Please let me know which one you picked, because that choice changes the cash you need at closing.

Three ways this goes wrong

The disclosure gets read as a test result. A seller who checks no knowledge has answered the question the statute asks, but that answer does not measure anything.

The radon test gets assumed into the inspection. If no licensed measurement professional is running a 48-hour test, then nobody has tested the home.

The old result gets treated as current. A result from before the basement was finished may not match the home today, and your own test is the only one dated this year.

An illustration, so the order is clear

Details below are made up to show the mechanism, not a real file and not a quote.

A couple goes under contract on a 1990s two-story in Lakeville with a finished basement and a ten-day inspection contingency. The radon disclosure says tested, gives a date from several years earlier, and leaves the result blank. They ask for the report, and the reading was above 4.0 at the time, with no system ever installed.

They book the inspection and a licensed radon measurement on the same day, the test runs 48 hours in the basement, and the average comes back above 4.0 again. They get a quote from a licensed mitigation company inside the window and take it to the seller. The seller agrees to install the system before closing and provide the post-mitigation test, and it fits because the result came back on day five rather than day ten.

Nothing about their loan changes, and the cash they need at closing is what we estimated before they wrote the offer. If the seller had declined, the same quote would have become a credit request or a line in their own budget.

Your next steps

If you are shopping in Minnesota, the rate tool is here when you want to see it with your own numbers. You'll see rates priced for your own scenario, with closing costs built against Minnesota's deed tax and mortgage registry tax rather than a national average. No credit pull, no account, nobody calls you. The Minnesota page covers the rest of what is different about closing here.

The well disclosure is another page in the same stack, and it is the one that can carry a sealing cost. After closing, Minnesota homestead classification is a separate application with its own deadline.

Nothing here is a loan approval, a denial, a commitment to lend, or legal or health advice. The disclosure rules belong to the statutes cited above, and the testing guidance and the action level belong to the Minnesota Department of Health.

Common questions

Does a seller in Minnesota have to disclose radon before I sign?

Yes. Minn. Stat. 144.496, the Minnesota Radon Awareness Act, requires the seller to disclose in writing, before signing an agreement to sell or transfer residential real property, any knowledge they have of radon concentrations in the dwelling. That covers whether tests have been done, the most current records and results, any mitigation or remediation, information on any mitigation system, and a radon warning statement. The seller also has to give you the Minnesota Department of Health publication on radon in real estate transactions.

Does a Minnesota seller have to test for radon?

No. The act requires disclosure of what the seller knows and does not require the seller to test or to mitigate. The Minnesota Department of Health says testing and mitigation are not required during a real estate transaction, though it highly recommends testing. A seller who has never tested can accurately report no knowledge, so the answer comes from a test you arrange during the inspection window.

Who can run a radon test during a Minnesota home sale?

A licensed radon measurement professional. Minn. Stat. 144.4961 defines a measurement professional as a person who tests for radon in a building they do not own or lease, and the Minnesota Department of Health licenses them. The department's real estate guidance says the test should run for a minimum of 48 hours in the lowest level of the home that could be lived in. The home is kept closed up starting at least 12 hours before it begins.

What radon level means I should mitigate?

The Minnesota Department of Health says to reduce the radon level if the average in the home is at or above 4.0 picocuries per liter, and to consider mitigating if the average is between 2.0 and 3.9. The report from a licensed measurement professional gives you that average, and a licensed mitigation company quotes the system for the specific home.

Can I hold the seller responsible if they knew about radon and did not disclose it?

Minn. Stat. 144.496 says a seller who fails to make the required disclosure, and who is aware of material facts about radon concentrations in the dwelling, is liable to the buyer. A buyer injured by a violation may bring a civil action to recover damages and receive other equitable relief, and the action has to be started within two years after the date the buyer closed. The sale is not invalidated just because the disclosure was missed, and a court decides whether to undo it.