Lead paint disclosure in Massachusetts

Under federal law, most housing put up before 1978 falls under the lead disclosure rule, for sales and rentals alike, per the EPA. Whoever sells or rents the place must share what they know about lead-based paint or lead hazards on the property. They need to pass along whatever records they hold, and they must give you an EPA pamphlet on lead. The contract itself must carry a Lead Warning Statement.

Buyers have 10 days, under the federal rule, to run a lead test on the place.

On top of the federal rule, Massachusetts requires its own notice for buyers. Before the purchase and sale agreement is signed, the seller and every real estate agent involved must hand you the state's Property Transfer Lead Paint Notification. Any lead inspection reports on the home must come with it, along with any Letter of Compliance or Interim Control.

A Letter of Compliance is official state paperwork showing the deleading was finished. Interim control means the hazards are only temporarily contained, not fully removed.

Say the home still holds lead hazards and a young child under 6 will be living there. As the new owner, you then have 90 days to delead the home or get it under interim control. That's spelled out in section 197 of chapter 111, part of Massachusetts law.

Before a pre-1978 Massachusetts home gets rented, the owner owes the tenant two copies of a state form, the Tenant Lead Law Notification and Tenant Certification Form. It doesn't matter whether a child under 6 will live there or not. The owner must also include any report from a lead inspection, plus any Letter of Compliance. Both sides, landlord and tenant, should hold onto a signed copy of the certification.

Skip this notice and the owner owes every resulting damage, plus a penalty that can reach $1,000, per section 197A. If the skipping happens in the course of business, chapter 93A, the state's consumer protection law, also treats it as a deceptive and unfair practice.

Giving the notice is just step one. Any time a child under 6 is living in a Massachusetts home where paint, plaster, or other reachable surfaces hold dangerous levels of lead, the owner must have those hazards deleaded or contained. Landlords are included, per section 197.

The Department of Public Health licenses the lead inspectors. The Department of Labor Standards licenses the deleaders, per section 197B.

No. Section 199A makes it against the law to turn someone away from renting or buying a place for either of these grounds:

• the paint might contain lead
• a sale or rental would come with deleading duties

Evicting a tenant or declining to renew a lease for those same reasons is illegal too. And a landlord who steers families with children elsewhere is not satisfying the Lead Law by doing that.

Every child under 6 in the state must be screened for lead poisoning through the state lead program. Once a case comes in, the other children under 6 in the same household have to be screened as well, per section 193.

An owner who never deleaded owes full damages to any lead-poisoned child under 6, per section 199. And where the owner knowingly brushed off a lead order, the court can triple the actual damages as a punishment. Those damages go beyond covering the harm, they're there to penalize the owner.

Some of the deleading cost can come back to owners through state taxes. For tax years that begin January 1, 2023, chapter 62, section 6(e) allows these credits:

Own property in Boston and qualify? Lead Safe Boston can help with an inspection and help you find a contractor. It gives a grant of $10,000 per unit as well. Meet the grant's terms for 3 years and you won't have to pay it back.

Plenty of homes in the state fit this description. Per the US Census, this is the count of homes that went up before 1980: