Lead paint disclosure in Alaska

Under this rule, most homes built before 1978 must come with a lead disclosure when they're sold or rented. It works in Alaska just as it does anywhere else in the country.

Sellers and landlords have to tell you about any lead paint or lead hazards they know about. They also have to share any records in their possession, give you the EPA lead pamphlet, and attach a Lead Warning Statement, a standard warning paragraph, printed right in the sale or lease documents, about the dangers lead can pose in older homes.

Buyers get 10 days to have the home checked for lead.

Alaska adds a law of its own for people selling a 1 or 2 family home. Under AS 34.70.010, the seller has to hand you a filled-out disclosure statement on the form the Real Estate Commission provides, and you should have it in hand before you put your offer in writing.

This state law deals only with sales. For rentals, it's the federal rule that applies.

Alaska's form goes by the name Residential Real Property Transfer Disclosure Statement, and it carries the number 08-4229. The May 2024 version includes an Environmental Concerns section, where the seller is asked whether they know of environmental hazards on the property. Lead-based paint is one of the hazards named there, alongside things like asbestos, radon, and residue from meth production.

The form also asks what year the home was built. If the home predates 1978, or the seller is aware of lead paint, the form directs the seller to complete the federal disclosure on top of that and hand you the EPA pamphlet as well.

There are times when the disclosure statement, or an update to it, arrives after you've already put in a written offer. When that happens, AS 34.70.020 gives you the right to cancel your offer in writing.

Alaska's disclosure law does not apply in 2 situations, found in AS 34.70.110 and AS 34.70.120:

• Both sides put it in writing that they'd rather skip the disclosure.
• The home is brand new, and nobody has ever lived in it.

Those exceptions apply to state law only. For pre-1978 homes, the federal rule still applies.

A seller who doesn't follow the Alaska law out of carelessness owes the person buying the home compensation for their real losses, under AS 34.70.090, in plain terms, the actual money the buyer lost because of the failure.

If the seller ignored the law on purpose, they can owe up to three times those losses, plus court costs and attorney fees.

US Census numbers put 121,049 of Alaska's 329,757 homes, 37%, in the built-before-1980 group. For rentals, 35,125 of 91,753, 38%, date from before 1980.

Those figures draw the line at 1980, while the disclosure rules use 1978, so they're only a rough guide.

According to the Alaska Department of Health, parents and the child's health care provider are the ones best placed to decide whether to test a child for lead, weighing how much lead the child may have come in contact with. Finger-stick testing kits are available to State Public Health Centers through the state program that handles environmental public health.

When a child's result comes in higher than the CDC blood lead reference value, the provider has to let the state know within 7 days, per 7 AAC 27.014. The reference value is a nationwide benchmark: a reading above it means the child's lead level is higher than most kids'. Every blood lead test a lab runs must be reported to the state within four weeks. Results are expressed in micrograms per deciliter, shown as ug/dL. When levels cross these lines, the state opens a follow-up investigation in these cases: