The Michigan seller disclosure statement is the form a seller of a one-to-four unit home must sign and deliver to the buyer before the two sign a binding purchase agreement. If it arrives later, the buyer can walk away within 72 hours of in-person delivery or 120 hours if it was sent by registered mail. The form covers the seller's knowledge of the house: appliances and systems, water in the basement, the roof, environmental hazards, permits, assessments and more. It is not a warranty and it is not the listing agent's statement. Two bills in Lansing would change it: House Bill 4110 would add an estimate of the buyer's new property tax bill, and Senate Bill 1082, introduced June 25, 2026, concerns upcoming municipal assessments and fees.
In short
- The statement must be delivered before a binding purchase agreement. Late delivery gives the buyer 72 hours (in person) or 120 hours (registered mail) to terminate (MCL 565.954).
- The act covers homes with 1 to 4 residential units; court-ordered, family, estate and builder first sales are among the exempt transfers (MCL 565.952 and 565.953).
- The seller must disclose changes to structural, mechanical or appliance systems before closing; many purchase agreements require more (Michigan Realtors, 2026).
- House Bill 4110 would put the buyer's uncapped tax estimate on the form. In 2026 a capped taxable value could rise by at most 2.7% (Grand Rapids Assessor, 2026).
Why the seller disclosure goes wrong in practice
Most disclosure problems in Michigan are not about the form. They are about timing and silence.
The timing failure is the offer that gets written on a Saturday before anyone has the signed statement in the buyer's hands. The act is plain: the seller delivers the statement "before the transferor executes a binding purchase agreement." When it shows up after, the deal carries a 72-hour exit the buyer did not have to negotiate for.
The silence failure is the "unknown" box. Michigan Realtors' Letter of the Law for July 2026 put it directly: a seller who knows of a defect "cannot avoid disclosure by skipping the question or answering 'unknown.'" Michigan courts hold sellers responsible for inaccuracies they should have known about "through the exercise of ordinary care," and a seller who learned of a leak from an inspection cannot unlearn it.
The listing agent sits in the middle. The act protects an agent from liability for the seller's false statements unless the agent "knowingly acts in concert" with the seller. That protection disappears the moment an agent advises against disclosing something. As the July piece notes, the seller can then claim they wanted to disclose and their agent talked them out of it.
What the form asks, and what it does not
The form follows a fixed order set in MCL 565.957: appliances and systems with yes, no, unknown and not available columns; then property conditions (basement water, insulation, roof leaks and age, well, septic, heating, plumbing, electrical, infestation, environmental hazards, flood insurance, mineral rights); then "Other Items," eleven questions about shared features, encroachments, homeowners' associations, unpermitted work, drainage, major damage, storage tanks, nearby farms or landfills, utility assessments, municipal assessments and pending litigation.
What it does not ask today is the number most buyers care about: what their tax bill will be. The current form tells the buyer that state equalized value and exemption information is available from the local assessor. That is all.
How to handle the Michigan seller disclosure statement on a listing
- Get the statement signed at listing, not at offer. The seller signs it before the house goes live. Your seller then answers the questions with time to think, and you can hand it to every buyer's agent on request.
- Confirm the transfer is not exempt before you skip it. An estate sale by a nonoccupant fiduciary, a sale between co-tenants, a transfer to a child and a builder's first sale of a new home are exempt under MCL 565.953. An estate sale where the personal representative lived in the house is a different question for counsel.
- Deliver before the purchase agreement, and record how. Note the date, the time and the method of delivery. The buyer's acknowledgment line on the form has a time field for a reason: the termination clock runs in hours.
- Push past "unknown" when the seller does know. If an inspection, a repair invoice or a neighbour's claim has told the seller something, the answer is not unknown. Attach additional pages; the form says to.
- Treat the purchase agreement as part of the disclosure. Some agreements require the seller to report any change in condition before closing. Others have the seller recertify the earlier statement as of the agreement date. Read which one you signed before you tell a seller they do not need to amend.
- Amend early if anything changes. Michigan Realtors' advice for 2026 is "when in doubt," update, and do it before a purchase agreement exists so the buyer's termination right is not triggered.
- Send buyers to the assessor and the numbers. The form already tells buyers that tax information sits with the local assessor. Show them what uncapping does with our Michigan property tax uncapping calculator, and explain the reset in plain terms with what a buyer pays after uncapping.
The mistake most agents make at step 5
They answer from the statute and forget the contract. The act's own amendment duty is narrow: changes in the "structural/mechanical/appliance systems." A purchase agreement that obliges the seller to report any change in condition is broader, and it is the one that governs that deal. The Michigan Realtors piece walks through exactly this: an agent who tells a seller only systems changes matter, when the agreement says otherwise, can end up liable to their own client. Read the agreement first, answer second.
The 2026 bills that would change the form
House Bill 4110, introduced February 25, 2025 by Representative Denise Mentzer and five co-sponsors and referred to the Committee on Regulatory Reform, would add a line to the form telling the buyer "the new estimated annual real property taxes on the property will be $____," calculated on the current state equalized value without the Proposal A cap, at current millage and assuming a principal residence exemption. It would also add: "Buyer should not assume that buyer's future tax bills on the property will be the same as the seller's present tax bills." Older printed forms would remain valid for 90 days after the change takes effect. MichiganVotes shows no action beyond referral.
That line matters because the gap is real. Under MCL 211.27a a capped taxable value can only rise by the lesser of 5% or inflation; for 2026 the multiplier is 1.027, a 2.7% ceiling, per the Grand Rapids Assessor. After a transfer, taxable value for the following year resets to the state equalized value. A seller who has owned for many years can be paying on a figure well below the one the buyer will be billed on.
Senate Bill 1082, introduced June 25, 2026 by Senator Sarah Anthony and referred to the Committee on Local Government, would require the statement to include upcoming municipal assessments or fees, amending section 7 of the act. Today's form asks only about outstanding ones.
Neither bill is law. Until one passes, the statement you hand a buyer is the 2005 form, and the tax question still has to be answered outside it.
Where this fits
Our real estate work includes deadline and document orchestration: the checklist and the dates come from your brokerage, and the system requests what is missing, records when it arrived and flags what has not. On a listing, that means the signed disclosure and the buyer's dated acknowledgment, reported as what is missing from this file, as status. It never interprets a contract or decides whether a transfer is exempt. For the filing that follows the closing, see the Michigan property transfer affidavit deadline.
Sign the disclosure at listing, deliver it before the offer, and read the purchase agreement before anyone says an amendment is not needed.
