Navigating Flood Disclosure Laws: An Increasing Necessity Amongst the Threat of Climate Change
- WULR Team
- Mar 12
- 4 min read
How does climate change show the need to understand flood disclosure laws?
Published March 12th, 2026
Written by Allan Shneyderman
When Danielle Jensen purchased her St. Petersburg home in June 2024 she believed her new flood insurance policy through the National Flood Insurance Program, valued at $8,600, would protect her. After Tropical Storm Debby flooded her property and her claim was denied, she discovered the previous owner had collected on a flood claim but never repaired the damage, according to WFLA. Danielle would not have bought the home had she known about the unrepaired damage. Her experience highlights a central problem: homebuyers across the United States often lack critical information about flood risk, exposing them to severe financial losses.
In the age of increasingly erratic weather, the average American household has found itself at a crossroads. A particular threat is flooding, the most common natural disaster in the United States, according to a 2025 study on concentrations of the US population in flood hazard areas. published by the National Library of Medicine. In 2023 alone, there was $179.8 billion worth of damage to homes and infrastructure. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a classification for these areas: Special Flood Hazard Areas. The National Library of Medicine study concluded that 24.4 million people live in FEMA-registered areas, and 11.8 million homes are in these areas. Drawing from Milliman, an independent consulting firm, in states like New Jersey, New York and North Carolina, 6.6% of homes had previously flooded. Until recently, these areas had no statutory precedent for sellers to disclose any information about previous flooding or flooding risk.
A home is considered to be the most significant investment a family can make. In the United States, there is no federal requirement mandating sellers disclose information about a property’s flood risk or previous damage, according to Natural Resources Defense Council. This creates a situation where people continue to buy homes without proper consideration of the financial and personal risks. Homes that had never flooded saw average annual flood costs of $61, compared with $1,210 for flood-damaged homes, Urban Land Magazine reported. Real estate agents have no incentive to disclose past history for homes damaged by flooding, nor the flood-prone areas in which they are located.
Currently, 29 states have flood disclosure requirements, while 21 states do not. There has been a steady increase in the number of states willing to disclose information to buyers. In 2023, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina passed significantly stronger flood disclosure laws, outlined by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In 2023, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Flood Risk Notification Law (P.L. 2023, c93), which significantly enhanced requirements for sellers and landlords to provide notifications to both buyers and current tenants of potential flooding risk, as reported by Holland and Knight. The main consideration is to protect prospective purchasers from unforeseen financial risks and damages. This law supplements the Consumer Fraud Act, where disclosure statements have to adequately contain flood risk information, making it mandatory for all sellers to answer the flood risk questions outlined by Holland and Knight. Joel Scata, senior attorney at NRDC, emphasized the cost in the hundreds of thousands borne by New Yorkers. Consistent with his work, and the NRDC, it can be noted that a home that has flooded once is likely to be hit again, thus information is critical for informed decision-making.
Though coastal states such as Texas, Louisiana and South Carolina have fairly strong disclosure requirements, there are still cases such as Virginia that remain concerning. In 2024, the bill HB 863 looked to close gaps in flood disclosure where sellers would need to disclose flood risk factors similar to New Jersey’s requirements, as explained by the Virginia Conservation Network. The bill failed despite strong activism. Locally, Wisconsin has fairly underdeveloped flood disclosure laws. Wisconsin statute § 709.03 mandates that sellers are required to complete a Real Estate Condition Report, as described by Justia Law. This forces acknowledgment from realtors and sellers of their awareness of prospective properties in floodplains or wetlands. The statute makes no mention of voluntary disclosure to consumers of flood risk. Instead, it emphasizes the personal knowledge of the seller, which is often outdated and not in accordance with FEMA-designated SFHAs. In both of these cases, there is a significant possibility of consumers being left in the dark in times of both monetary investment and impending natural disaster.
Climate change and the erratic weather accompanying it have the potential to impact all parts of the country. To think that only the coasts are most at risk from storm damage is a nearsighted perspective. In Vermont, a landlocked state, the severity of flooding has become so extreme the state chose to sue carbon emitters for the impact of their emissions with the Climate Superfund Act S. 259, as documented by Vermont Public. With climate change accelerating flood risk across the country, the central question remains: why do so many states allow buyers to remain uninformed about a property's flood risks? Protecting homebuyers through transparent legal requirements is essential to prevent devastating financial and personal consequences from hidden flood exposure.
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