When a home in Houston’s Meyerland neighborhood flooded for the fourth time in five years, the family that owned it made repairs, listed it, and sold it without ever mentioning the water damage. The buyers found out eight months later, during the next heavy rain. Stories like that one, repeated across the Gulf Coast, the Carolinas, and the Midwest, are the reason Congress took up the issue. Starting July 1, a new federal rule will require home sellers in 28 states to disclose in writing whether a property has ever flooded before the sale closes.
The rule traces its framework to the Flood Level Observation, Operations, and Decision Support (FLOOD) Act (S. 1324, 118th Congress), which proposed the first nationwide minimum standard for flood-history disclosure in residential real-estate transactions. As of June 2026, the bill’s disclosure provisions are moving toward implementation, though federal agencies have not yet published a final public-law number or a standardized compliance form. Under the rule as structured, sellers would be required to tell buyers about prior flooding events, flood-insurance claims, and any federal disaster assistance the property has received. The 28 states expected to be covered are those that previously lacked equivalent disclosure requirements of their own. While the full list has not been published in final agency guidance, states frequently cited as lacking standalone flood-disclosure mandates include Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, and Nebraska, among others. Florida, by contrast, already has its own statute and is not among the 28.
Why this rule exists
Flooding is the most common and most expensive natural disaster in the United States, and the financial wreckage tends to concentrate on the same addresses. According to FEMA, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) had paid out more than $37 billion in claims as of its most recent reporting in 2023, a total stretching back to the program’s creation in 1968. Roughly 25 to 30 percent of those payouts, depending on the reporting period, have gone to so-called repetitive-loss properties: homes that have flooded, been repaired, and flooded again. Buyers who unknowingly purchase one of these properties inherit both the physical risk and the escalating insurance costs that come with it.
Consumer and environmental organizations have pushed for mandatory disclosure for years. The Natural Resources Defense Council argued in public comments that sellers and listing agents routinely withheld flood histories that would have changed a buyer’s decision. First Street Foundation, a nonprofit that models climate risk for properties, has estimated that nearly 14.6 million properties across the country face substantial flood risk not captured on current FEMA maps, a gap that makes seller disclosure an essential backstop when government data falls short.
“Buyers deserve to know if a home has flooded before they sign on the dotted line,” said Matthew Eby, founder and CEO of First Street Foundation, in a 2024 statement accompanying the organization’s annual risk report. “Right now, millions of families are making the biggest purchase of their lives without basic information about water risk.”
What sellers must disclose
The federal rule as outlined in the FLOOD Act framework requires sellers to provide a written statement before closing that covers three categories:
- Prior flooding events: Whether the property experienced flooding during the seller’s period of ownership.
- Insurance claims: Whether flood-related insurance claims have been filed on the property.
- Federal disaster assistance: Whether the owner received FEMA Individual Assistance or other federal aid tied to flood damage at the address.
The disclosure must be delivered in writing, not verbally, and must reach the buyer before the transaction closes. States that already have their own disclosure statutes may use different forms or timelines, but the federal rule sets a floor that no covered state can fall below. Sellers who fail to disclose known flood history could face legal liability after closing, though the specific enforcement mechanisms are still being clarified by federal agencies.
“The biggest shift is that silence is no longer an option,” said Katie Redmond, a real-estate attorney in Houston who advises both buyers and sellers on flood-related transactions. “In Texas, sellers could technically check ‘unknown’ on a disclosure form and move on. Under the new federal standard, that answer is going to invite a lot more scrutiny.”
How Florida’s existing law previews what compliance looks like
Florida is one of the states that already requires flood disclosure, and its statute offers the closest preview of how the federal standard is likely to work in practice. Under Florida Statutes Section 689.302, sellers must complete a written form with specific checkboxes confirming whether the property has been the subject of flood-insurance claims or federal flood assistance. That form must be delivered before both parties execute the purchase contract, not at closing, giving buyers time to renegotiate, request repairs, or walk away entirely.
The checkbox format matters. Unlike states that rely on open-ended narrative questions (“Describe any known material defects”), Florida’s binary yes-or-no structure creates a paper trail that is difficult to dispute in court. Real-estate agents and title companies in the state have already folded the form into standard listing packets and closing checklists. That existing infrastructure suggests the industry can adopt a federal equivalent relatively quickly once model forms are published.
“Florida’s form took about two legislative sessions to get right, but once it was in place, compliance became routine,” said Tara Tedrow, a land-use and environmental attorney at Lowndes in Orlando who tracks state disclosure requirements. “The federal version will go through similar growing pains, but the template already exists.”
Legislative records maintained by the Florida House of Representatives and the Florida Senate show how lawmakers refined the disclosure language over multiple sessions, balancing seller concerns about open-ended liability with buyer demands for straightforward transparency. That iterative process offers a useful template for federal regulators drafting implementation guidance now.
What is still being worked out
As of June 2026, several operational details remain unresolved. Federal agencies have not yet published a standardized disclosure form, which means early compliance will likely look different from state to state. In counties where property appraisers or floodplain managers already track flood-claim data, sellers will have an easier time pulling accurate records. In areas without centralized databases, sellers may need to rely on personal insurance paperwork or submit FEMA records requests, a process that can take weeks.
Penalties for noncompliance have not been fully detailed in public guidance, and it remains unclear which agency will take the lead on enforcement. Possibilities include the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees other federal real-estate disclosure requirements, or state attorneys general acting under cooperative agreements.
The scope of the rule also has open questions. It is not yet clear whether the mandate covers only traditional owner-occupied sales or extends to foreclosures, estate sales, and investor flips, categories that have historically been carved out of state-level disclosure requirements. Real-estate attorneys in multiple states have flagged this ambiguity as a likely source of early disputes.
Another wrinkle: how the federal floor interacts with states that already exceed it. Florida’s law, for example, requires disclosure at contract execution, which is earlier than the federal rule’s “before closing” standard. Whether stronger state timelines remain in effect or get complicated by the new federal layer is something bar associations and real-estate boards are watching closely.
What buyers and sellers should do now
Buyers in the 28 affected states should ask for flood-disclosure documentation early in the process, ideally before making an offer. They can also independently verify a property’s flood history by requesting a claims report through FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program or checking risk scores on Risk Factor, a free tool maintained by First Street Foundation that provides property-level flood projections.
Sellers should start gathering records now. That means pulling any past flood-insurance claims, documenting repairs tied to water damage, and checking whether the property received federal disaster assistance. Having this paperwork organized before listing reduces the chance of delays, price renegotiations, or post-closing disputes.
Real-estate agents and title companies should monitor federal agency announcements for model disclosure forms and update their transaction checklists accordingly. In states like Florida where a state form already exists, practitioners will likely need to provide both the state and federal disclosures unless regulators confirm that the state version satisfies the federal requirement.
Buyers should also factor insurance costs into their math. FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0 pricing model, which began applying to all NFIP policy renewals in April 2023, has raised premiums significantly for many properties based on individualized flood risk rather than broad zone designations. On a home with multiple prior flood claims, annual premiums can run several thousand dollars. Discovering that cost after closing is exactly the kind of surprise the new rule is designed to prevent.
How mandatory flood disclosure reshapes the transaction for at-risk homes
For decades, the burden of uncovering a home’s flood history fell almost entirely on the buyer. Sellers in most states could stay silent, and federal flood maps, which are often years out of date, provided an incomplete picture at best. The July 1 rule shifts that burden. Sellers who know about past flooding must say so in writing, and buyers gain a legal basis to challenge a sale if they later discover that information was withheld.
“This is the single biggest change to residential flood-risk transparency since the NFIP was created,” said Rob Moore, director of the water and climate team at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It does not solve the underlying risk, but it makes sure people know what they are buying.”
The practical effect is that flood history is becoming a priced-in feature of real-estate transactions, much like a home inspection or a title search. Properties with documented flood damage may sell for less, but buyers will at least understand what they are taking on. In a housing market where climate-driven flooding is expanding in both frequency and geography, that shift from silence to disclosure was a long time coming.
