Does Oregon have its own lead paint disclosure law?

No. Oregon has no state lead paint disclosure statute, and this is verifiable rather than assumed. The Oregon Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, ORS chapter 90, runs to more than 91,000 words and contains exactly two references to lead-based paint. Both are exclusions: ORS 90.365 excludes lead-based paint from the 48-hour essential-services termination remedy, and ORS 90.368 excludes it from the 300 dollar repair-and-deduct remedy. Neither creates a duty. The disclosure duty in Oregon is entirely federal under 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F.

Which Oregon rentals require a lead paint disclosure?

Any residential rental built before 1 January 1978, which the rule calls target housing. Units built in 1978 or later are outside the rule. Narrow exemptions cover zero-bedroom units, leases of 100 days or less with no renewal, certified lead-free housing, and housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities. Under 40 CFR 745.103 as amended effective January 13, 2025 (89 FR 89416), two limbs carry a child condition: both the elderly-or-disabled exclusion and the zero-bedroom exclusion are withdrawn where a child under six resides or is expected to reside there, so a pre-1978 studio with a young child is target housing. Only the 100-day and certified lead-free exemptions do not depend on whether a child lives in the unit. The zero-bedroom exclusion was unconditional before the 2025 amendment, and older charts still show it that way.

Do I have to give Oregon tenants 10 days to inspect for lead?

No. The 10-day inspection opportunity is a sales rule, not a rental rule. 40 CFR 745.110(a) says that before a purchaser is obligated under any contract to purchase target housing, the seller shall permit the purchaser a 10-day period to conduct a risk assessment or inspection. The lessor requirements at 40 CFR 745.113(b) contain no inspection-opportunity item at all. This error is especially common on Oregon results because the deepest lead-specific pages ranking for Oregon lead queries are written for home sellers and realtors. You may offer an inspection window voluntarily, but no federal rule compels it for a lease.

Does an Oregon landlord have to test for lead-based paint?

No. The rule requires disclosure of what you actually know, 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 the honest answer. 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.

How long must an Oregon landlord keep the signed disclosure?

At least three years from the start of the leasing period, under 40 CFR 745.113(c). Keep the signed disclosure, a note of which pamphlet edition was delivered, and copies of every record you handed over. The rule itself adds at 40 CFR 745.113(c)(2) that the recordkeeping requirement is not intended to place any limitations on civil suits under the Act. Three years is how long you must keep the file, not how long you can be sued, so retaining it for the life of ownership is the safer practice.

Do Oregon landlords need a lead certification to renovate their own rentals?

This is the one place Oregon genuinely adds something, and it is a renovation rule rather than a disclosure rule. Oregon runs its own certification regime on two tracks. Under ORS 701.510 the Construction Contractors Board licenses contractors: a contractor may not perform lead-based paint renovation in this state unless the contractor is a certified lead-based paint renovation contractor. Under ORS 431A.358(2) a firm may not perform or offer to perform a renovation for compensation unless the firm is certified by the Oregon Health Authority. A landlord's in-house maintenance operation is not a construction contractor, so it falls on the OHA firm-certification track rather than the CCB licence track. OHA guidance describes the same split for rental owners and property management companies.

Can the Oregon lead paint disclosure be signed electronically?

Yes. Electronic disclosure and signature are permitted under the E-SIGN Act, 15 U.S.C. 7001. EPA attaches conditions: give a clear statement of the right to receive paper documents, explain the procedure to withdraw consent and its consequences, explain how to access and retain the electronic records, and obtain the tenant's consent demonstrating they can actually access the materials. A link alone is not delivery. Retain the electronic record for the same three years.

What is the Lead Warning Statement?

It is the fixed federal paragraph required by 40 CFR 745.113(b)(1) that must be attached to or inserted into the lease. It states that housing built before 1978 may contain lead-based paint, that lead exposure is especially harmful to young children and pregnant women, that before renting pre-1978 housing lessors must disclose the presence of known lead-based paint and/or lead-based paint hazards in the dwelling, and that lessees must also receive a federally approved pamphlet on lead poisoning prevention. Note that the lessor version does not carry the word known, unlike the seller version at 745.113(a)(1) - the prescribed wording is not interchangeable between the two. It is prescribed wording, so rewriting or improving it can defeat the disclosure. The generator on this page reproduces the lessor statement word for word.

What are the penalties for skipping the disclosure in Oregon?

Federal exposure has two limbs. 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3) makes a knowing violator jointly and severally liable to the lessee for three times the damages that person incurred, and 4852d(b)(4) lets the court add court costs, reasonable attorney fees, and expert witness fees. Separately, government civil money penalties are adjusted for inflation each year under 40 CFR 19.4, so any specific per-violation dollar figure you read online is likely stale. Oregon adds a distinct statutory penalty on the certification side only: under ORS 431A.363(1) the Oregon Health Authority may impose a civil penalty of not more than 5,000 dollars per violation per day for violations of the certification rules. That Oregon penalty does not attach to the disclosure itself.

Does the disclosure apply to lease renewals?

A fresh disclosure is required for a new lease with a new lessee. Renewals are addressed by 40 CFR 745.101(d), which exempts renewals of an existing lease where the lessor has previously disclosed all information required under 40 CFR 745.107 and where no new information described in 745.107 has come into the possession of the lessor. Watch the cross-reference: 745.101(d) points at 745.107, not at 745.113(b). Both conditions must hold, so if you obtained a new lead report or learned of a hazard since the original disclosure, the exemption does not apply.

Can an Oregon tenant use repair-and-deduct or a 48-hour notice for lead paint?

No, and this is an Oregon-specific point almost no page covers. ORS 90.368 defines a minor habitability defect as one repairable for not more than 300 dollars and expressly says it does not mean the presence of mold, radon, asbestos or lead-based paint, so the repair-and-deduct route is unavailable for lead. ORS 90.365 says that for the 48-hour essential-services termination, an imminent and serious threat to the tenant's health, safety or property shall not include the presence of radon, asbestos or lead-based paint. Oregon has removed both self-help routes for lead. That does not make lead harmless to a landlord: the federal treble-damages action under 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3), the general habitability duty in ORS 90.320, and ordinary tort claims are all untouched.

Does Oregon's habitability statute cover lead paint?

ORS 90.320 requires a landlord to maintain the dwelling unit in a habitable condition at all times, and lists what a unit must not substantially lack. That list names neither lead nor paint. The honest position is that deteriorated paint reaches ORS 90.320 only through general limbs such as subsection (1)(h), which requires floors, walls, ceilings, stairways and railings to be maintained in good repair, or subsection (1)(f), which requires the premises to be safe for normal and reasonably foreseeable uses. That is an argument a tenant can make, not an express Oregon lead duty, and any page telling you Oregon's habitability statute has a lead provision is inventing one.

Which agent has to sign the lead paint disclosure?

The lessor's agent. 40 CFR 745.113(b)(5) applies only when one or more agents are involved in the transaction to lease target housing on behalf of the lessor, and that agent must confirm they informed the lessor of the obligations under 42 U.S.C. 4852d and are aware of their duty to ensure compliance. A tenant's own broker or representative is not brought into that item, and 40 CFR 745.103 defines agent as a party who contracts with the seller or lessor, excluding purchasers or any purchaser's representative who receives all compensation from the purchaser. Where no lessor's agent is involved, mark the item not applicable rather than leaving it blank. Separately, 40 CFR 745.113(d) says the lessor and agent are not responsible if a lessee's own legal representative, paid entirely by the lessee, fails to pass the materials along, provided every required party completed and signed the certification and acknowledgment language.

Do I have to disclose records for other units in the building?

Yes, where they exist. EPA states that for multi-unit buildings the records you must provide include those for common areas and other units that come from building-wide evaluations. The disclosure duty is not limited to the four walls of the leased unit: if a building-wide risk assessment identified hazards in a stairwell, a laundry room, or a neighbouring unit, that report is within scope for a pre-1978 building. Owners of older Portland and Salem multiplexes commonly disclose the unit file and overlook the building file.

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Free Oregon Lead Paint Disclosure

The federal disclosure every Oregon landlord must deliver before leasing housing built before 1978. Authority is 42 U.S.C. 4852d and 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F. Oregon adds no lead disclosure statute of its own — and the 10-day inspection window you see on other Oregon pages is a sales rule, not a rental rule.

Federally Required 42 U.S.C. 4852d 40 CFR Part 745 Oregon Free PDF

Updated Q3 2026 By Tenant Screening Background Check Editorial Team Reviewed for Oregon ~18 min read

An Oregon 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 the tenant’s 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, the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992), implemented at 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F (EPA) and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A (HUD). Oregon imposes no separate lead paint disclosure statute — and we can show you that rather than just assert it. What Oregon does run is a state certification regime for people who disturb lead paint, under ORS 431A.355 and ORS 701.510, plus two statutory provisions that quietly remove lead from two tenant remedies. Generate the form below, then read on for what Oregon adds on top of the federal rule.

Key Takeaways

Pre-1978 is the only trigger. Original construction before 1 January 1978 makes the unit “target housing” and the disclosure mandatory. The build date controls even if the unit was gutted and rebuilt in 1995.
Oregon has no lead paint disclosure statute. The duty is 100% federal. ORS chapter 90 — the Oregon Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, over 91,000 words — mentions lead-based paint exactly twice, and both mentions are exclusions.
Oregon’s two lead provisions take rights away, not add them. ORS 90.365 bars the 48-hour essential-services termination for lead; ORS 90.368 bars the $300 repair-and-deduct for lead. No Oregon lead page tells you this.
The 10-day inspection window does not apply to leases. 40 CFR 745.110 gives it to purchasers only. The lessor rules at 40 CFR 745.113(b) contain no such item.
You never have to test. The rule compels disclosure of actual knowledge, not investigation. “No knowledge” is honest and lawful when nothing has been tested and you hold no reports.
Oregon does add a real duty on the renovation side. ORS 431A.358 and ORS 701.510 make certification mandatory before you disturb paint — with an Oregon penalty of up to $5,000 per violation per day under ORS 431A.363.
Retain the signed disclosure three years from the start of the leasing period (40 CFR 745.113(c)). It is your only real defence in an enforcement inquiry.

▶ Watch overview

Oregon lead paint disclosure overview

Oregon Lead Paint Disclosure at a Glance

Trigger

Built before 1978

Authority

42 U.S.C. 4852d

Oregon Statute

None — federal only

Retention

3 years

Timing

Before lease obligation

Pamphlet

EPA, mandatory

Duty to test

10-day inspection

Sales only

The one-line answer: if your Oregon rental was built before 1978 and the lease runs longer than 100 days, you must hand the tenant this signed disclosure plus the EPA pamphlet before they are obligated under the lease, and keep the signed copy for three years. Nothing in Oregon law changes that and nothing in Oregon law adds to it — Oregon’s own lead statutes govern who may disturb the paint, not what you must disclose before a lease.

What the Oregon lead paint disclosure does

The lead paint disclosure — often called the Section 1018 disclosure, after the 1992 statute that created it — is the formal federal notice an Oregon 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, and there is no “maybe”.

Third, it transmits any reports the lessor holds from prior inspections, risk assessments, or hazard-reduction work. The lessor either provides copies of all available records and lists them, or affirmatively states that no reports or records exist.

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. A pre-1978 Oregon rental leased without one exposes the landlord to government civil penalties and to a tenant’s private action for triple damages plus fees. Compliance takes fifteen minutes; non-compliance is the most expensive paperwork failure in pre-1978 rental practice. The obligations that follow sit alongside, and do not replace, the rest of Oregon’s rental rules — our Oregon landlord-tenant laws overview covers the wider chapter 90 picture.

Does Oregon have its own lead paint law?

No. Oregon has no state lead paint disclosure statute, and this page will not invent one. That claim is easy to make and rarely proved, so here is the proof rather than the assertion.

The Oregon Residential Landlord and Tenant Act is ORS chapter 90. We read the chapter in full from the Oregon Legislature’s own published text — all 91,431 words of it — and searched it exhaustively for lead. It contains exactly two references to lead-based paint. Neither one imposes a duty. Both are exclusions that take a remedy away:

ORS 90.365 (failure of landlord to supply essential services) provides that “imminent and serious threat to the tenant’s health, safety or property” shall not include the presence of radon, asbestos or lead-based paint, or the future risk of flooding or seismic hazard. Lead cannot trigger the 48-hour essential-services termination.
ORS 90.368 (repair of minor habitability defect) defines a minor habitability defect as one repairable for not more than $300 and then says it does not mean the presence of mold, radon, asbestos or lead-based paint. Lead cannot be repair-and-deducted.

That is the whole of Oregon’s lead-paint footprint in its landlord-tenant act. If a page tells you the Oregon disclosure duty lives in ORS chapter 90, or that chapter 90 “incorporates” the federal requirements into Oregon law, it is wrong — and that specific claim is currently circulating in AI-generated answers to this exact question. Chapter 90 does not incorporate the federal rule. It does not mention the disclosure at all. If you are hunting for the Oregon lead disclosure statute number, there is not one to find, because every substantive requirement on this page comes from federal law: 42 U.S.C. 4852d, 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F, and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A.

The trap that manufactures fake “Oregon lead laws”

Oregon does have a statute that sounds exactly like a disclosure duty. ORS 431A.350 is the legislature’s findings section on lead poisoning, and subsection (3)(c)(A) describes the federal 1992 Act as one that “requires that sellers and landlords of residential housing constructed before 1978 notify buyers and tenants of known lead-based paint hazards.”

Read that carefully. It is a legislative finding describing federal law — the legislature explaining why it is legislating — not an operative Oregon command. Quoting it as “ORS 431A.350 requires Oregon landlords to disclose” would be a fabrication built out of real statutory words. This is precisely how a non-existent state duty gets born, cited, and copied. The operative Oregon sections that follow it (431A.353 to 431A.365) are about certification of people who disturb paint, and nothing else.

What Oregon actually regulates: the OHA and CCB certification regime

Oregon is not passive on lead — it simply regulates a different thing than most people searching for “Oregon lead law” expect. Oregon regulates who is allowed to disturb lead paint. It does not regulate what you disclose before a lease. Conflating the two is the single most common error on this topic, and it matters because the certification regime carries real Oregon penalties that the disclosure rule does not.

Oregon runs the programme itself. ORS 431A.350(3)(c)(B) records the mechanism: the federal Act allows states “to receive authorization from the Environmental Protection Agency to provide for the accreditation of lead-based paint activities and renovation training programs, the certification of persons completing training programs and the certification of lead-based paint activities and renovation contractors.” Oregon took that authorization. The Oregon Health Authority reports that EPA authorized the Oregon Construction Contractors Board and OHA to administer the renovation rule in Oregon in 2010. Practically, that means your certification paperwork goes to a state agency in Salem, not to EPA Region 10.

The two tracks — and which one a landlord is on

Oregon’s certification duty lives in two separate statutes, and almost nobody lays both out. They bind different people:

Track	Statute	Who it binds	What it requires
CCB licence	ORS 701.510	Construction contractors	“A contractor may not perform lead-based paint renovation in this state unless the contractor is a certified lead-based paint renovation contractor.” A separate limb covers lead-based paint activities contractors. ORS 701.515 sets up the licensing system, which “must include the requirements described in 40 C.F.R. 745.226”, and sets statutory ceilings written into that section — for example a lead abatement contractor licence at up to $50 per year and a lead worker at up to $25 per year. Those statutory ceilings are trivial next to the ORS 431A.363 civil penalty for working uncertified, which is the real number in this regime.
OHA certification	ORS 431A.358	Firms and individuals	“An individual may not perform or offer to perform lead-based paint activities unless the individual is certified as provided under ORS 431A.355.” And: “A firm may not perform or offer to perform a renovation for compensation unless the firm is certified as provided under ORS 431A.355.”

A landlord’s own maintenance operation is not a construction contractor, so it does not sit on the CCB licence track. It sits on the OHA firm-certification track under ORS 431A.358(2). OHA’s guidance to property owners describes the same split — rental owners, property management companies, and in-house maintenance staff certify through OHA rather than hold a CCB lead-based paint renovation licence. We flag that as agency guidance rather than statutory text; what the statutes themselves establish is the two-limb structure above.

ORS 431A.355 is what OHA is required to do. The statute provides that the Oregon Health Authority “shall: (a) Certify firms and individuals to perform lead-based paint activities; (b) Certify firms to perform renovation; (c) Accredit training providers…”, along with adopting the implementing rules and setting fees. Those implementing rules are the OHA lead divisions of the Oregon Administrative Rules; we cite them here only as the rule series OHA adopts under ORS 431A.355(1)(g), and we do not paraphrase any specific rule’s text on this page, because the Secretary of State’s rules database did not return retrievable rule text when we checked it. Confirm current rule detail with OHA directly.

Oregon borrows the federal definitions wholesale

ORS 431A.353 defines the operative terms by pointing straight at the federal regulations: “Firm” and “Renovation” have the meanings given in 40 C.F.R. 745.83, and “Lead-based paint activities” has the meaning given in 40 C.F.R. 745.223. Read the tail of each definition, though, because it matters: every one of them ends “and as further defined pursuant to the