Free Maryland Lead Paint Disclosure

A Maryland lead paint disclosure is the federally mandated form a landlord delivers to a prospective tenant before any lease of residential property built before 1978. It carries the fixed federal lead warning statement, states the lessor’s actual knowledge of lead-based paint and hazards, lists the records being handed over, documents receipt of the EPA pamphlet Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home, captures any agent’s acknowledgment, and is signed and dated by every party. Authority is 42 U.S.C. 4852d (Section 1018 of Title X), implemented at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F (EPA) and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A (HUD). Maryland then goes considerably further than most states. The Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing law at Md. Code, Environment §§ 6-801 to 6-852 requires you to register the property with MDE, to meet a dust-test risk reduction standard verified by an accredited inspector at every change in occupancy, and to hand the tenant an MDE Notice of Tenants’ Rights, the current inspection certificate, and an MDE information packet. Generate the federal form below, then read the Maryland regime that the form does not cover. Our Maryland habitability laws guide covers the condition-based duties that run alongside all of this.

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Maryland lead paint disclosure overview

The lead paint disclosure — often called the Section 1018 disclosure, after the 1992 statute that created it — is the formal federal notice a Maryland landlord delivers to a prospective tenant for any residential property built before 1978. It does four things in one document.

First, it puts the tenant on notice of potential lead exposure through the federally mandated lead warning statement, the fixed language at 40 CFR 745.113(b)(1) that must be attached to or included within the lease.

Second, it transmits the lessor’s actual knowledge of lead-based paint or hazards in the dwelling. The lessor picks one of exactly two positions: known lead-based paint or hazards are present, with a description of what is known; or the lessor has no knowledge of lead-based paint or hazards in the housing. There is no third box.

Third, it transmits any reports the lessor holds from prior inspections, risk assessments, or hazard-reduction work. In Maryland this item has extra weight, because a compliant Maryland landlord will hold reports: Env. § 6-818 requires the accredited inspector to submit a verified report to MDE, to the owner, and to the tenant at each change in occupancy. If you have been complying with Maryland law, “no records available” is very unlikely to be the honest answer.

Fourth, it documents the tenant’s receipt of the disclosure and of the EPA pamphlet. The signed acknowledgment is the landlord’s primary defence in any later EPA or HUD inquiry or private civil action.

The disclosure is not optional and the duty is not waivable by agreement. Compliance takes fifteen minutes; non-compliance is the most expensive paperwork failure in pre-1978 rental practice. And in Maryland it is only the first of two things you owe.

Yes — a substantial one. This is where Maryland parts company with the many states whose lead obligations are purely federal. Maryland’s Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing subtitle, Md. Code, Environment §§ 6-801 to 6-852, is administered by the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and imposes duties the federal disclosure rule never contemplates.

In outline, an owner of an affected property must:

• Register the property with MDE and keep the registration current — Env. §§ 6-811, 6-812.
• Satisfy a risk reduction standard, verified by passing a lead-contaminated dust test, at every change in occupancy — Env. §§ 6-815, 6-816.
• Use an MDE-accredited inspector who is not a related party, whose verified report goes to MDE, the owner, and the tenant — Env. § 6-818.
• Deliver an MDE Notice of Tenants’ Rights plus the current verified inspection certificate at the execution of the lease or inception of the tenancy, and again at least every 2 years — Env. § 6-820.
• Deliver an MDE lead poisoning information packet on the same cadence — Env. § 6-823.
• Respond within 30 days to a notice of defect or of an elevated blood lead level in a person at risk — Env. § 6-819.

Get all of that right and Env. § 6-836 gives you a liability shield. Miss the registration and Env. § 6-813(a) takes it away by name. That is the bargain Maryland offers, and it is why the Maryland regime deserves more of your attention than the federal form does.

Most guides list “three things” a landlord must do. The regulation is more precise. 40 CFR 745.113(b) requires six distinct elements in the lease or an attachment to it. A disclosure missing any one of them is defective, however professional the form looks.

Note what is not in that list: no inspection window, no testing requirement, no filing with any agency, and no obligation to remediate. The federal rule is an information-transfer rule. It makes you tell the truth about what you know and hand over what you hold; it does not make you go looking. Maryland law is what makes you go looking — a distinction worth holding onto as you read on.

“Target housing” is the federal term for property subject to the rule. 40 CFR 745.103 defines it as housing constructed before 1978 — that is, before 1 January 1978 — subject to the narrow exclusions below.

Why 1978 — and which 1978 date actually governs. The operative cutoff comes from the definition itself: 745.103 defines target housing as housing constructed prior to 1978. The historical reason that year was chosen is the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ban on lead-containing paint at 16 CFR 1303.1 — but that ban reaches paint manufactured after 27 February 1978, which is not the same date. Competing pages routinely merge the two and report the CPSC ban as effective 1 January 1978. It was not. The distinction has no practical effect on your compliance answer, because the construction cutoff in 745.103 decides coverage, but it tells you which cite to trust: for whether your unit is covered, read 745.103, not the CPSC rule.

The build date controls, not the renovation date. A 1962 Baltimore rowhouse gutted to the studs in 2005 is still target housing. Original construction is the trigger, and no amount of later work resets it. In Maryland this cuts twice, because Env. § 6-801(b) also keys “affected property” to construction date — before 1950 for the original tier, before 1978 for the tier added on 1 January 2015.

The transaction-level exemptions live at 40 CFR 745.101, and the definitional exclusions at 40 CFR 745.103. They are narrow, and — this is the part almost every page gets wrong — two of them now turn on whether a child under six is present.

Two further cautions on the federal list. The certified lead-free exemption at 745.101(b) requires an inspector certified under the federal programme or a federally accredited State or tribal programme — your own belief that the unit is clean is not a certification. And the 100-day exemption at 745.101(c) is conditioned on no renewal or extension being possible; a 90-day lease that can roll over does not qualify.

The form alone is not compliance. 40 CFR 745.113(b)(4) requires the lessee to acknowledge receipt of the lead hazard information pamphlet, and delivering the disclosure without the pamphlet is a distinct violation, not a technicality. The pamphlet is Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home, free from epa.gov/lead in English, Spanish, and other languages.

Three practical points. Substituting your own lead handout does not satisfy the requirement — it is a federally approved pamphlet or nothing. A link emailed to the tenant is not delivery unless the E-SIGN conditions below are met. And the pamphlet is required for every lessee on the lease, not one copy for the household.

Maryland adds a second, separate booklet: the lead poisoning information packet prepared or designated by MDE under Env. § 6-823. The EPA pamphlet does not satisfy § 6-823, and the MDE packet does not satisfy 40 CFR 745.113(b)(4). Two documents, two authorities, both required.

This is the most important inversion on this page, and the thing a Maryland landlord most needs to understand.

The federal position. The disclosure rule compels disclosure of actual knowledge, not investigation. EPA states plainly that the rule does not require sellers or landlords to test or remove lead-based paint or lead-based paint hazards. If the unit has never been tested and you hold no reports, “no knowledge” is honest and lawful. What you may not do is check “no knowledge” while sitting on a report, a prior abatement record, or knowledge of a child’s elevated blood-lead result in the unit. That is not an omission; it is a false statement on a document you certify as accurate.

The Maryland position. Env. § 6-815(a) requires the owner of an affected property to “satisfy the risk reduction standard established under this subtitle by passing the test for lead-contaminated dust under § 6-816 of this subtitle,” provided any chipping, peeling, or flaking paint has been removed or repainted on the exterior painted surfaces of the building and the interior painted surfaces of the unit. Section 6-815(b) applies that at each change in occupancy thereafter, before the next tenant occupies. Section 6-815(c) requires the owner to have the property inspected to verify it.

So the sentence “landlords never have to test for lead” — true as a statement of federal law, and repeated on countless pages — is false for a Maryland affected property. Maryland landlords who absorb the federal framing and stop reading are the ones who fail an MDE inspection they did not know they owed. And note the knock-on to the federal form: once you have complied with Maryland law you hold dust-test reports and inspection certificates, which are exactly the “records or reports available to the lessor” that 40 CFR 745.113(b)(3) requires you to list and provide.

This is the most widespread error on the lead-disclosure internet. Form vendors routinely bolt a “10-day inspection opportunity” checkbox onto rental disclosures — and some pre-tick it on the landlord’s behalf, which manufactures a tenant acknowledgment of a right that does not exist.

Read the regulation. 40 CFR 745.110(a) provides that before a purchaser is obligated under any contract to purchase target housing, the seller shall permit the purchaser a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time) to conduct a risk assessment or inspection for the presence of lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards. Purchaser. Seller. Purchase. Every operative noun is a sales noun, and the statutory source at 42 U.S.C. 4852d(a)(1)(C) is scoped identically. Section 745.110(b) lets the purchaser waive it in writing.

Now read the lessor rules. 40 CFR 745.113(b) — the six elements above — contains no inspection-opportunity item. The sales disclosure at 745.113(a)(5) carries a “received or waived” statement about the 10-day opportunity; the lease disclosure at 745.113(b) has no counterpart. Neither does the EPA lessor form.

What this means for you. A Maryland landlord owes a prospective tenant no statutory inspection window. You may offer one voluntarily, and doing so is a reasonable gesture for a tenant who asks — but do not describe it as a federal right, and do not put a checkbox on your disclosure asserting the tenant received or waived a right the rule never gave them. A form documenting a fictitious waiver is worse than one that stays silent: it is an inaccurate statement on a document every party signs certifying accuracy. The generator below prints no such line.

Complete the fields below to generate a federally compliant Maryland lead paint disclosure. The generated PDF reproduces the lead warning statement, the lessor’s disclosure items, the lessee’s acknowledgment items, the agent’s acknowledgment, and the certification of accuracy with signature and date lines for each party. If you are also placing a new renter, our Maryland tenant screening laws guide covers what you may check at application.

Everything in the Maryland regime keys off one defined term. Env. § 6-801(b)(1) provides that “affected property” means:

• (i) a property constructed before 1950 that contains at least one rental dwelling unit;
• (ii) on and after 1 January 2015, a property constructed before 1978 that contains at least one rental unit; or
• (iii) any residential rental property for which the owner makes an election under § 6-803(a)(2).

It includes an individual rental dwelling unit within a multifamily rental dwelling (§ 6-801(b)(2)), and it excludes property exempted under § 6-803(b) (§ 6-801(b)(3)).

The 2015 expansion is the headline. The Maryland Lead Law began life as a pre-1950 regime; the entire pre-1978 rental stock was pulled in on 1 January 2015. If your understanding of Maryland lead law dates from before then — or came from a page that does — it is a quarter-century out of date.

“Rental dwelling unit” is also defined, at § 6-801(u)(1), as a room or group of rooms forming a single independent habitable rental unit for permanent occupation with permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation. Section 6-801(u)(2) carves out an area not used for those purposes (such as an unfinished basement), a unit within a hotel, motel, or similar seasonal or transient facility, an area secured and inaccessible to occupants, and a unit not offered for rent.

Note how differently the two regimes treat a studio. The federal rule excludes a 0-bedroom dwelling precisely because the living area is not separated from the sleeping area. Maryland’s definition asks instead whether the unit has permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation — which a self-contained studio generally does. The same Baltimore efficiency can be outside the federal disclosure rule and inside the Maryland Lead Law at the same time.

Both tiers are affected property. Both owe registration, the § 6-815 change-in-occupancy standard, and the §§ 6-820 and 6-823 documents. But the percentage-of-inventory duties expressly exclude the newer tier, and virtually no page says so.

Env. § 6-817(a)(1) opens: “Except for properties constructed between January 1, 1950, and December 31, 1977, both inclusive, on and after February 24, 2001, an owner of affected properties shall ensure that at least 50% of the owner’s affected properties have satisfied the risk reduction standard specified in § 6-815(a)…” Env. § 6-817(b)(1) carries the identical carve-out for the 100%-where-a-person-at-risk-resides duty. So does Env. § 6-819(f), which is the mirror image of it: “Except as provided in § 6-817(b) of this subtitle and except for properties constructed between January 1, 1950, and December 31, 1977, both inclusive, on and after February 24, 2006, an owner of affected properties shall ensure that 100% of the owner’s affected properties in which a person at risk does not reside have satisfied the modified risk reduction standard.” Read the pair together and the design is clear: § 6-817(b)(1) takes the units where a person at risk does live and holds them to the § 6-815(a) risk reduction standard; § 6-819(f) takes the units where a person at risk does not live and holds them to the lesser modified standard. Between them they reach the whole of a pre-1950 portfolio — but neither reaches 1950-1977 property.

In plain terms: the inventory-percentage schedules in §§ 6-817 and 6-819(f) reach the pre-1950 stock. They do not reach 1950-1977 properties. This matters because § 6-817(a)(2) and § 6-817(b)(2) tie failure to meet those schedules directly to losing the § 6-836 liability protection for the non-compliant units — with reinstatement once the owner comes into compliance. An owner of a 1920s Baltimore portfolio and an owner of a 1968 Silver Spring garden apartment do not have the same obligations, and treating them as identical is a real, cost-bearing error in both directions.

Env. § 6-811(a)(1) requires the owner of an affected property to register it with the Department. Env. § 6-812(b) is the deadline that matters to anyone buying today: “An owner who first acquires affected property after December 1, 1995 shall register the affected property under § 6-811 of this subtitle within 30 days after the acquisition.”

Renewal. Env. § 6-812(a)(1) requires the owner to “[r]enew the registration of the affected property on or before December 31 of each year or according to a schedule established by the Department by regulation.” That either/or is the honest answer to “is it annual or every two years?” — the statute sets an annual default and expressly delegates the schedule to MDE by regulation. Whether MDE currently has a different schedule in force is a question of MDE’s regulations, not of the statute, and we have not verified it from primary rule text — so this page does not assert a cycle. Any page that flatly asserts one is quoting a snapshot. Confirm your current renewal date and the fee with MDE directly; both are administrative and can move without the statute moving. Env. § 6-812(a)(2) separately requires you to update the registration information within 30 days after any change to the owner, property, manager, insurer, or agent details listed in § 6-811(b)(1) through (5).

What the registration contains. Env. § 6-811(b) lists it: owner name and address; property address; each property manager; each insurer providing property insurance or lead hazard coverage, with policy numbers; a resident agent or contact person in the State; whether the property was built before 1950 or after 1949; the date of the latest change in occupancy; the dates and nature of treatments performed to attain or maintain a risk reduction standard; and the latest date the property was certified compliant with § 6-815. Under § 6-811(c)(1) that information is open to the public, though § 6-811(c)(2) bars MDE from disclosing an inventory or list of an owner’s properties.

This is the operational heart of the Maryland Lead Law, and the duty with no federal analogue at all.

What “change in occupancy” means. Env. § 6-801(c) defines it as a change of tenant in an affected property “in which the property is vacated and possession is either surrendered to the owner or abandoned.” A renewal with the sitting tenant is not a change in occupancy.

What you must do. Env. § 6-815(a) sets the initial standard: satisfy the risk reduction standard by passing the § 6-816 test for lead-contaminated dust, provided any chipping, peeling, or flaking paint has been removed or repainted on (1) the exterior painted surfaces of the residential building containing the unit, and (2) the interior painted surfaces of the rental dwelling unit. Env. § 6-815(b) applies the same standard “[a]t each change in occupancy thereafter, before the next tenant occupies the property.” Env. § 6-815(c) requires the owner to have the property inspected to verify the standard has been satisfied. Env. § 6-816 leaves the dust-test procedures and standards to MDE regulation.

Who may inspect. Env. § 6-818(a)(1) requires any person performing the dust testing or inspections to be accredited by MDE, to not be a related party to the owner, and to submit a verified report of the result to MDE, the owner, and the tenant. Section 6-818(a)(2) bars the owner from employing or engaging a related party to do the work. “Related party” is defined at § 6-801(r) as a person related to the owner by blood or marriage, an employee of the owner, or an entity in which the owner or such a person has an interest. You cannot inspect your own property, and you cannot hire family.

What the report buys you. Env. § 6-818(b) makes a report certifying compliance with the risk reduction standard conclusive proof of compliance for the period it covers — unless there is proof of actual fraud, proof the work was not performed by or under the supervision of personnel accredited under § 6-1002, or proof the owner failed to respond to a complaint as required by § 6-819.

The winter exception. Env. § 6-815(d) allows exterior work to be delayed under a waiver approved by the local housing-code official (or, absent one, the Department of Housing and Community Development) during any period when the local code does not require exterior work, or, if none is specified, from 1 November through 1 April. Delayed work must be completed within 30 days after the period ends, the delay does not excuse any other component of the standard, and § 6-815(d)(5) lets the owner rent during the delay only if the other components are complete and verified.

On top of the federal disclosure and the EPA pamphlet, Maryland requires three more things at the start of every tenancy in an affected property. Landlords who deliver the federal form and stop are non-compliant on the day the tenant moves in.

1. Notice of Tenants’ Rights — Env. § 6-820(b)

“On or after February 24, 1996, an owner of an affected property shall give to the tenant of the affected property a notice, prepared by the Department, of the tenant’s rights under §§ 6-817 and 6-819 of this subtitle upon the execution of a lease or the inception of a tenancy.” It is an MDE-prepared document; you do not draft your own. Env. § 6-820(c) requires you to give it again at least every 2 years after last giving it — so a long-sitting tenant is not a one-and-done.

2. The current verified inspection certificate — Env. § 6-820(d)

“The owner shall include, with the notice of the tenant’s rights that is provided to a tenant under this section upon the execution of a lease or the inception of a tenancy, a copy of the current verified inspection certificate for the affected property prepared under § 6-818 of this subtitle.” This is the direct link between the § 6-815 inspection and the tenant’s file: the certificate your accredited inspector produced is handed to the tenant with the notice.

3. Lead poisoning information packet — Env. § 6-823(b)

“[U]pon the execution of a lease or the inception of a tenancy for an affected property, the owner of the affected property shall give to the tenant a lead poisoning information packet prepared or designated by the Department.” Env. § 6-823(c) requires another copy at least every 2 years. This is a Maryland document and is not the EPA pamphlet.

How they must be delivered

Env. §§ 6-820(e)(1) and 6-823(d) both require delivery by certified mail, return receipt requested, or a verifiable method approved by the Department. Env. § 6-820(e)(2) adds that when giving the notice, “the owner shall provide documentation of the notice to the Department in a manner acceptable to the Department.” Env. §§ 6-820(e)(3) and 6-823(e) require the notice and packet to go to the parties identified as lessee in the written lease, or, absent a written lease, to whoever the property was rented to.

If you are buying an occupied affected property

Env. §§ 6-820(f) and 6-823(f) both provide that a person who has acquired, or will acquire, an affected property shall give the notice and the packet to the sitting tenant before transfer of legal title or within 15 days following transfer of legal title. Combined with the 30-day registration deadline in § 6-812(b), a Maryland acquisition carries a compliance clock that starts at closing.

Maryland’s exemptions are not the federal ones. Env. § 6-803(b) provides that the subtitle does not apply to: property not expressly covered by § 6-803(a); affected property owned or operated by a unit of federal, State, or local government or a public, quasi-public, or municipal corporation if it is subject to lead standards equal to or more stringent than the § 6-815 risk reduction standard; and affected property certified lead-free under § 6-804.

The lead-free route — Env. § 6-804. An affected property is exempt from Part IV of the subtitle if the owner submits to MDE an inspection report that (1) indicates the property was tested for lead-based paint per MDE’s standards and procedures, (2) states either that all interior and exterior surfaces are lead-free, or that all interior surfaces are lead-free and all chipping, peeling, or flaking exterior painted surfaces have been restored with nonlead-based paint and no exterior painted surfaces are chipping, peeling, or flaking, and (3) is verified by the MDE-accredited inspector who performed the test.

The catch on the “limited” version. Env. § 6-804(b): to maintain the exemption obtained through the interior-lead-free route, the owner must submit to MDE every 2 years a certification by an MDE-accredited inspector stating that no exterior painted surface is chipping, peeling, or flaking. A limited lead-free certificate is a standing obligation, not a one-off.

Exterior-only relief. Env. § 6-804(c) exempts the outside surfaces — windows, doors, trim, fences, porches, and other structures that are part of the property — from the §§ 6-815 and 6-819 risk reduction standards where all exterior surfaces are lead-free and the owner submits a verified inspection report saying so.

Note the useful overlap: a Maryland lead-free certification under § 6-804 evidences exactly the kind of finding that also supports the federal exemption at 40 CFR 745.101(b) for leases of housing found lead-based paint free by a certified inspector. The two regimes rarely line up this neatly; here they do.

Env. § 6-819 sets a modified risk reduction standard — a list of specific treatments in § 6-819(a)(2) including a visual review of all painted surfaces; removal and repainting of chipping, peeling, or flaking paint; repair of structural defects causing it; repainting, replacing, or encapsulating interior lead-based or untested windowsills; caps in window wells; fixing the top sash of windows to eliminate friction; rehanging doors to prevent rubbing; a smooth water-resistant covering on kitchen and bathroom floors; and HEPA-vacuuming and washing the work area — plus passing the § 6-816 dust test.

The trigger and the deadline. Env. § 6-819(c)(1) requires the owner to satisfy the modified standard within 30 days after receipt of written notice that a person at risk residing in the property has an elevated blood lead level at or above the § 6-801(q) reference level and an environmental investigation under § 6-305 has concluded there is a defect at the property; or within 30 days after written notice, from the tenant or any other source, of a defect plus the existence of a person at risk. Env. § 6-819(d) requires the same within 30 days of notice of a defect. Env. § 6-819(e) lets the owner comply instead by temporarily relocating the tenant to lead-safe housing within the same 30 days.

The defined terms that make it work. A “person at risk” (§ 6-801(p)) is a child or a pregnant woman who resides or regularly spends at least 24 hours per week in an affected property; a “child” (§ 6-801(d)) is under 6. The “reference level” (§ 6-801(q)) is 3.5 µg/dl on and after 1 January 2024, having been 5 µg/dl from 1 July 2020 through 2023 — and it moves automatically one year after any CDC revision of the blood lead reference value. Notice under § 6-819 must be by certified mail, return receipt requested, or a verifiable method approved by MDE (§ 6-819(h)), and the owner verifies compliance by submitting an accredited inspector’s report to MDE (§ 6-819(g)).

Env. § 6-819(k) makes that report a rebuttable presumption of compliance, overcome only by clear and convincing evidence of actual fraud or of work not performed by or under accredited supervision. And under Env. §§ 6-851 and 6-852, MDE may spot-check or audit, and may order the owner to satisfy the standard within 30 days of the order.

Env. § 6-821(a)(1) requires that whenever an owner intends repairs or maintenance that will disturb interior paint in an affected property, the owner must make reasonable efforts to ensure persons who are not persons at risk are out of the work area and that all persons at risk are removed from the property while the work is performed. Section 6-821(a)(2) obliges the tenant to allow access at reasonable times.

Who pays. Env. § 6-821(a)(3): if a tenant must vacate for 24 hours or more to let the owner perform work disturbing interior paint, “the owner shall pay the reasonable expenses that the tenant incurs directly related to the required relocation.” Env. § 6-817(d) separately makes the owner responsible for the cost of any temporary relocation needed to meet the § 6-817 schedule.

Where the tenant will not cooperate. Env. § 6-821(b) protects the owner: where the owner has made all reasonable efforts to have the tenant temporarily vacate, or to gain access after reasonable advance notice, and the tenant refuses, the owner is not liable for damages arising from that refusal. Env. § 6-821(c) requires all hazard reduction treatments under the subtitle to be performed by or under the supervision of personnel accredited under § 6-1002. Our Maryland landlord entry laws guide covers the notice mechanics for getting in the door.

40 CFR 745.113(c)(1) requires the completed disclosure to be retained for at least three years from the commencement of the leasing period. Keep the signed disclosure, a note of which pamphlet edition you delivered, and copies of every record you handed over.

One nuance, stated precisely. 40 CFR 745.113(c)(2) provides that the recordkeeping requirement “is not intended to place any limitations on civil suits under the Act, or to otherwise affect a lessee’s or purchaser’s rights under the civil penalty provisions of 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3).” That is a savings clause: the rule does not cut off anyone’s rights. It is often stretched into “expiry of the three-year period is not a defence” — wording that appears nowhere in the text, and this page will not manufacture it. The practical reading is simpler: three years is a floor, the underlying limitation periods run longer, and keeping the file for as long as you own the property costs nothing.

Maryland’s retention picture is different in kind. Under Env. § 6-820(e)(2) you provide MDE documentation of the tenant notices, and under §§ 6-818(a) and 6-819(g) your inspector’s verified reports go to MDE directly — so a slice of your Maryland compliance record sits with the agency whether or not you keep your own copy. Keep your own copy anyway.

Electronic disclosure and signature are permitted under the E-SIGN Act, 15 U.S.C. 7001. EPA attaches conditions: a clear statement of the right to receive paper documents; an explanation of how to withdraw consent and the consequences of doing so; an explanation of how to access and retain the electronic records; and consent from the tenant demonstrating they can actually access the materials in the form provided. A link alone is not delivery — the tenant must receive complete documents they can open and keep. Retain the electronic record for the same three years.

Do not extend this to the Maryland documents. Env. §§ 6-820(e)(1) and 6-823(d) require the Notice of Tenants’ Rights and the information packet to go by certified mail, return receipt requested, or a verifiable method approved by the Department. The approval is MDE’s to give, not yours to assume. E-SIGN governs the federal disclosure; Maryland’s statute governs Maryland’s documents, and they set different bars.

Compliance with the leasing disclosure says nothing about compliance when your maintenance crew sands pre-1978 window trim. Under the EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting rule at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E, a renovation disturbing painted surfaces in a pre-1978 unit requires lead-safe work practices by a certified firm, and occupants must receive lead hazard information no more than 60 days before work begins. Where common areas are affected, notice describing the nature, location, and expected dates of the work must reach every unit in the building.

This duty runs to sitting tenants who received their leasing disclosure years earlier. Separate rule, separate certification, separate penalty — and in Maryland, layered on top of Env. § 6-821’s removal-of-persons-at-risk and relocation-cost duties and the § 6-1002 accreditation requirement. A Maryland landlord repainting an occupied 1955 unit is simultaneously inside the RRP rule and inside the Maryland Lead Law.

Three separate exposures, and they stack.

1. The tenant’s private action. 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3) makes a knowing violator jointly and severally liable to the lessee for three times the amount of damages incurred, and 4852d(b)(4) lets the court award court costs, reasonable attorney fees, and expert witness fees. The “knowing” standard is broad enough to reach reckless disregard.

2. Federal civil money penalties. EPA adjusts these annually for inflation under 40 CFR 19.4. This page prints no per-violation dollar figure — deliberately. Every number you see quoted on form sites is a snapshot that goes stale each January, and they are frequently quoted from the wrong authority besides. Read the current 19.4 table, which is the operative source. Knowing violations can also carry criminal exposure.

3. Maryland. Env. § 6-813(b) makes willfully and knowingly falsifying registration or renewal information a misdemeanor with a fine not exceeding $2,000 on conviction. That figure appears here because it is fixed in the statute itself, not in an inflation-adjusted table. Far more consequential, though, is Env. § 6-813(a): failing to register or renew puts you out of compliance for purposes of § 6-836, which is where the real money is.

And one thing the rule does not do. EPA is explicit that the disclosure rule does not cancel or void leasing or sales contracts. Non-disclosure does not void the lease, and a tenant cannot use a missing disclosure to walk from an otherwise valid tenancy. The remedy is damages and penalties, not rescission.

The asymmetry is what should drive behaviour. Completing the federal form correctly costs fifteen minutes. Registering with MDE and booking an accredited dust test costs modestly more. The downside is a treble-damages judgment with the tenant’s legal fees attached, an agency penalty that rises every January, the loss of the Maryland liability shield, and — if a child was actually poisoned — a tort claim in which the compliance failure supplies a ready-made negligence theory.

Maryland’s paperwork is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the price of a statutory defence, and no ranking page explains the conditions.

Env. § 6-836 provides that an owner of an affected property is not liable for alleged injury or loss caused by ingestion of lead by a person at risk — as to a person at risk (or their parent or guardian) who rejects a qualified offer made by the owner or the owner’s insurer or agent — if, during the period of the alleged ingestion and with respect to the property where exposure allegedly occurred, the owner:

• (1) gave the tenant the notices required by §§ 6-820 and 6-823; and
• (2) was in compliance with the registration provisions of Part III and with the applicable risk reduction standard and response standard under § 6-815 or § 6-819 and the risk reduction schedule under § 6-817.

Read as a checklist, that is every duty on this page. Miss the registration or a renewal and § 6-813(a) removes limb (2) by name. Skip the packet and limb (1) fails. Fail the change-in-occupancy inspection and limb (2) fails again. Miss the § 6-817 inventory schedule (pre-1950 stock only) and § 6-817(a)(2) strips the protection for the non-compliant units — restoring it, per § 6-817(a)(2)(ii), once you come into compliance.

The qualified offer. Env. § 6-828(a) applies to an owner who has complied with §§ 6-811, 6-812, 6-815, 6-817, and 6-819 and sent the §§ 6-820 and 6-823 notices. For such an owner, § 6-828(b) bars an action for damages from lead ingestion first documented at the EBL thresholds it specifies unless the owner was given written notice of the elevated blood lead level and an opportunity to make a qualified offer under § 6-831. Env. § 6-830 adds a presumption, on the thresholds it sets, that ingestion occurred before the person at risk began residing in a property certified compliant with § 6-815.

The qualified-offer machinery (Part V, §§ 6-826 to 6-836) is genuinely intricate — it involves relocation expenses, rent subsidies, and defined co-offers — and its operation in a live case is fact-specific and adversarial. The takeaway for a landlord is narrow and reliable: the shield is conditional on the compliance described on this page, and § 6-813(a) is explicit that a lapsed registration alone forfeits it.

Federally, EPA and HUD share enforcement of the disclosure rule — EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics and HUD’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. Enforcement has historically concentrated on larger landlords and property managers, where one practice failure replicates across hundreds of tenancies and multiplies.

In Maryland, MDE is the active regulator, and it does not wait for complaints. Env. § 6-852(a) lets MDE spot check affected properties reported as satisfying the risk reduction standard, and § 6-852(b)-(c) lets it order an owner whose property fails a spot check to satisfy the standard, verified by inspection within 30 days of the order. Env. § 6-851 goes further: if MDE audits a § 6-819(g) verification within 30 days and finds the property does not match what the contractor verified, every property that contractor verified in the previous year must be re-inspected and treated as necessary. One bad contractor can therefore reopen your whole portfolio.

How a case starts. Rarely with an inspector at the door. Usually: a tenant reports a missing disclosure; a child’s elevated blood-lead result triggers a health-department investigation that works backwards to the paperwork — and in Maryland straight into the MDE registry, which under Env. § 6-811(c)(1) is open to the public; a private lawsuit’s discovery exposes a systemic gap; or an agency initiative targets a market.

What an inquiry asks for. Signed disclosures for the tenancies in scope, proof of pamphlet delivery, the records you disclosed or certified you did not have — and, in Maryland, your registration status, your inspection certificates, and your § 6-820(e)(2) notice documentation. An owner who can produce the file usually ends the matter at the document-request stage; an owner who cannot is negotiating over the size of the penalty, not whether there is one.

Disclosure is the compliance floor, not the whole picture, and Maryland condition-based law applies independently to the state of the paint.

Deteriorated lead-based paint — peeling, chipping, chalking, cracking — can be a habitability defect on its own, whether or not you disclosed it. The distinction landlords miss is that disclosure and habitability are independent: disclosing a hazard does not licence you to leave it in place. A perfectly executed disclosure reading “known lead-based paint present, peeling in the second bedroom” is a complete defence to a disclosure claim and simultaneously a written admission in a habitability claim — and, in Maryland, evidence of a § 6-819 defect starting a 30-day clock. Our Maryland habitability laws guide covers the rent-escrow machinery that attaches to serious defects.

The federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq., adds one more edge. It prohibits familial-status discrimination, and a landlord who steers families with young children away from pre-1978 units to dodge lead obligations has swapped a disclosure problem for a fair-housing complaint — a considerably worse trade. The temptation is sharper in Maryland precisely because a “person at risk” in the unit triggers the § 6-819 duties; screening families out is not a lawful answer to that. See our Maryland tenant screening laws guide for where screening practice and familial status intersect.

Assuming the federal form is the whole job

The signature Maryland error. The federal disclosure is one of five things you owe at a new tenancy in an affected property — alongside the EPA pamphlet, the MDE Notice of Tenants’ Rights, the current inspection certificate, and the MDE information packet, on top of a live registration and a passed dust test.

Believing you never have to test

True federally, false in Maryland. Env. §§ 6-815 and 6-816 require a passed lead-contaminated dust test and a verifying inspection at every change in occupancy.

Missing the 30-day registration window after buying

Env. § 6-812(b) gives you 30 days after acquisition. Miss it and § 6-813(a) puts you outside § 6-836 for that property — on a property you may have owned for a month.

Letting the registration lapse

Renewal is a live obligation under § 6-812(a)(1), on MDE’s schedule. A lapsed registration is not a fine; it is the loss of your liability shield.

Thinking the 2015 expansion did not reach you

If your property is pre-1978 and rented, it has been an affected property since 1 January 2015 under § 6-801(b)(1)(ii). “My building is from the sixties, the lead law is for rowhouses” is a quarter-century out of date.

Treating pre-1950 and 1950-1977 property identically

In both directions. The §§ 6-817 and 6-819(f) inventory schedules expressly exclude 1950-1977 properties; the registration, § 6-815, § 6-820, and § 6-823 duties do not.

Using an in-house or related-party inspector

Env. § 6-818(a) requires MDE accreditation and bars a related party — family, employees, and entities you hold an interest in (§ 6-801(r)). A report from your own maintenance manager is not a report.

Delivering the Maryland notices by email

Env. §§ 6-820(e)(1) and 6-823(d) require certified mail return receipt requested or a verifiable method approved by MDE. E-SIGN covers the federal disclosure; it does not authorise you to email the state documents.

Forgetting the every-2-years repeat

Env. §§ 6-820(c) and 6-823(c) require the notice and packet again at least every 2 years. A tenant of six years should have received three sets.

Printing a 10-day inspection offer on a lease disclosure

40 CFR 745.110 gives that window to purchasers. Putting a waiver line on a rental form invites the tenant to certify something untrue on a document everyone signs for accuracy.

Delivering the disclosure at signing instead of before

It must reach the lessee before they are obligated under the lease. Produced with the lease packet and signed in the same motion, it does not give the tenant the pre-obligation information the rule exists to provide.

Rewriting the lead warning statement

The language at 40 CFR 745.113(b)(1) is prescribed. Tightening or modernising it can defeat the disclosure. Reproduce it as written.

Pre-ticking the tenant’s acknowledgments

A landlord cannot acknowledge on the tenant’s behalf that the tenant received the pamphlet. Forms inviting this create a false statement on a document certified for accuracy by every signatory.

Treating “no knowledge” as a place to hide

Honest when nothing is known; fraud when something is. And in Maryland it is rarely honest: a compliant owner holds § 6-818 reports, which are precisely the records 40 CFR 745.113(b)(3) requires you to list.

Forgetting the records for the rest of the building

A building-wide evaluation covering common areas or other units is disclosable to this tenant. Owners routinely disclose the unit file and sit on the building report.

Tenants of Maryland pre-1978 rentals hold meaningful rights under both federal and Maryland law. Landlords benefit from understanding them, because they define the consequences of a defective file.

The right to the disclosure before being obligated

Delivery must precede the lessee’s obligation under the lease. A disclosure produced afterwards does not satisfy 40 CFR 745.113, and the timing violation stands on its own even where the substance was accurate.

The right to the EPA pamphlet — and the MDE packet

Two separate entitlements from two separate authorities. Non-delivery of either is its own violation; neither substitutes for the other.

The right to the Notice of Tenants’ Rights and the inspection certificate

Env. § 6-820(b) and (d) entitle a Maryland tenant to MDE’s notice of their rights under §§ 6-817 and 6-819 and a copy of the current verified inspection certificate at the start of the tenancy — and again every 2 years under § 6-820(c).

The right to a property that passed a dust test

Under Env. § 6-815(b)-(c), a Maryland tenant moving into an affected property is entitled to a unit that satisfied the risk reduction standard, verified by an accredited inspection, before they occupied it.

The right to notify a defect and get a 30-day response

Env. § 6-819(b) lets a tenant notify the owner of a defect; § 6-819(c)-(d) give the owner 30 days to satisfy the modified risk reduction standard or, under § 6-819(e), relocate the tenant to lead-safe housing.

The right to the inspector’s report

Env. § 6-818(a)(1)(iii) requires the accredited inspector to submit the verified report to the tenant, not only to MDE and the owner. The tenant is a named recipient by statute.

The right to triple damages plus fees

Under 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3) a tenant injured by a knowing violation recovers three times actual damages, and under (b)(4) the court may add costs, reasonable attorney fees, and expert witness fees.

The right to report to EPA, HUD, or MDE

Tenants may report without filing suit. Agency action can bring civil penalties, consent decrees, injunctive relief, and compliance monitoring; MDE can spot-check and order remediation within 30 days under Env. § 6-852.

The right to relocation expenses

Env. § 6-821(a)(3) requires the owner to pay a tenant’s reasonable directly-related expenses where the tenant must vacate for 24 hours or more for interior paint-disturbing work; § 6-817(d) puts the cost of temporary relocation needed for the § 6-817 schedule on the owner.

The right to tort damages for actual exposure

Where a child or pregnant tenant suffers lead exposure, ordinary tort remedies apply — medical costs, pain and suffering, future treatment, lost earning capacity. A compliance failure supplies a ready foundation for a negligence theory, which is why the paperwork failure and the injury claim tend to arrive together.

The right to fair-housing protection

The Fair Housing Act prohibits familial-status discrimination. Avoiding families with young children to sidestep lead obligations is itself actionable.

The bottom line for landlords. Compliance is cheap and mechanical relative to the downside: a treble-damages judgment with the tenant’s fees attached, an agency penalty that rises every January, a forfeited Maryland liability shield, and — in the worst case — a poisoned child and a tort claim your own file helps prove. The form above handles the federal mechanics; the rest of this page is what the form cannot do for you.

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