Lead paint disclosure in South Dakota

Most homes built before 1978 fall under the federal lead disclosure rule, whether they're being sold or rented, the EPA explains. The rule works the same in South Dakota as anywhere else.

If you're a buyer or renter, the seller or landlord has to:

• disclose any lead-based paint or lead hazards they know about,
• share whatever reports or records they hold,
• give you the EPA pamphlet on lead, and
• put a Lead Warning Statement into the contract or lease.

That statement is standard contract language cautioning that an older home might have lead paint. The federal rule gives buyers a 10-day window to check the home for lead.

SDCL 43-4-38 applies to buildings with no more than 4 units. Before you write an offer, the seller has to give you a filled-out property condition disclosure statement.

Should a material fact change before closing or your move-in date, you're owed a written amendment. A material fact is anything important enough to sway your choice to buy or the price you'd pay.

SDCL 43-4-44 holds the official form, which includes a Hazardous Conditions section. It asks whether the seller knows of lead paint in the home and whether it has ever been tested for lead. Read those answers closely, since they tell you what to ask about or test before you commit.

Section 8 of the standard purchase agreement put out by the state's Real Estate Commission deals with lead. If the home went up before 1978, you initial that section to confirm you got the pamphlet and the seller's lead disclosure form. That's a separate document from the state's condition form, so an older home usually involves filling out both.

Sometimes, yes. SDCL 43-4-39 says that if the disclosure statement or a major amendment reaches you only after your written offer, you can back out. Send written notice within 3 days for papers delivered in person, or 6 days when the papers come by mail.

These transfers are exempt under SDCL 43-4-43:

• transfers a court orders,
• transfers after foreclosure,
• transfers by an estate or trust manager,
• transfers among people who jointly own the property,
• transfers within a family, such as to a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, a grandchild, or a grandparent, and
• sales of brand-new homes that no one has lived in yet.

SDCL 43-4-42, amended in 2024, makes a seller who violates the law on purpose or by being careless pay the buyer's actual damages and repair costs. The court can also make the losing side cover the other side's costs and attorney fees.

Plenty of homes there are old. Census figures count how many went up before 1980.

Per the South Dakota Department of Health, every toddler should have a blood lead test once at age 1 and once at age 2. A child without 2 tests by the third birthday needs catch-up testing.

The state calls 3.5 ug/dL or higher an elevated level. A capillary test takes a few blood drops from a finger or heel, and anything above 3.5 ug/dL on that test needs confirmation within 1 to 3 months. If a result is 45 ug/dL or higher, the state says to confirm it with another test, because levels that high need quick action.

Every blood lead result, high or not, must go to the state health agency's reporting system.

No. Funding is too limited for home lead hazard investigations, so the state program doesn't do them, according to the Department of Health's 2024 annual report. What it does instead is connect families with community resources that can test homes.