Free Texas Lead Paint Disclosure

A Texas 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). Texas imposes no lead paint disclosure statute of its own — and unusually, Texas says so in its own rulebook, at 25 TAC 295.212(h). What Texas does add is a licensing regime for lead contractors and an independent duty to repair under Tex. Prop. Code 92.052, covered in our Texas habitability laws guide. Generate the form below, then read on for exactly what the rule requires.

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Texas 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 Texas 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 Texas 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.

Texas has no lead paint disclosure statute, and this page will not invent one. Every disclosure requirement described here comes from federal law: 42 U.S.C. 4852d, 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F, and 24 CFR Part 35 Subpart A. But the honest answer for Texas is more interesting than a flat “nothing”, because Texas does regulate lead — just not this. Getting the distinction right is the whole point of this section.

Texas’s own rule says the disclosure duty is federal

Most states are silent, leaving you to infer that federal law governs. Texas is unusually explicit. Buried in the state’s lead rules, at 25 TAC 295.212(h), is this sentence: “Building owners are subject to the requirements mandated under §1018 of the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 and 40 Code of Federal Regulations, §745, Subpart F, ‘Disclosure of Known Lead-based Paint and/or Lead-based Paint Hazards Upon Sale or Lease of Residential Property.'”

Read what that does. Texas, in its own administrative code, addresses the building owner’s disclosure obligation and points it at federal law. It does not create a parallel Texas duty, a Texas form, a Texas filing, or a Texas registry. It defers. That single sentence is the most direct answer available to the question “what does Texas require?” — and no page currently ranking for this topic quotes it.

What Texas actually regulates: lead contractors, not landlord paperwork

Texas runs a genuine, substantial lead programme. It lives in Tex. Occ. Code Chapter 1955 (Lead-Based Paint Abatement) and is implemented by the Department of State Health Services at 25 TAC Chapter 295, Subchapter I, the Texas Environmental Lead Reduction rules. Its stated purpose, at 25 TAC 295.201(a), is “to establish the means to control and minimize public exposure to lead by regulating lead-based paint activities in target housing and child-occupied facilities.”

The operative requirement is a certification requirement. 25 TAC 295.201(b)(1) provides that the rules “require that all lead-based paint activities in target housing and child-occupied facilities be performed by certified individuals.” The rules then set certification standards for lead inspectors, risk assessors, abatement supervisors, project designers, abatement workers, and lead firms. Texas tracks the federal trigger date exactly — 25 TAC 295.202(75) defines target housing as “[a]ny housing constructed prior to 1978” — but its carve-outs are worded differently from the federal ones in a way worth a moment. Texas withdraws the elderly/disabled exclusion where “any child who is six years of age or younger resides or is expected to reside in such housing”, while the federal definition at 40 CFR 745.103 says “less than 6 years of age”: a six-year-old engages the Texas rules but not the federal definition. And Texas states the zero-bedroom limb flatly at 25 TAC 295.201(b)(2) — the sections “do not apply to housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities, unless a child who is six years of age or younger resides or is expected to reside in that housing, nor do these sections apply to target housing with zero bedrooms.” Under the Texas Chapter 295 rules no child condition attaches to the zero-bedroom limb. Federally the answer has changed: since 40 CFR 745.103 was amended effective 13 January 2025 (89 FR 89416), the child-under-six condition now reaches the federal 0-bedroom limb too, so a pre-1978 studio with a young child is federal target housing. The Texas lead-activities rule and the federal disclosure duty now diverge on this point — watch which one you are applying.

So the regime is real, and it binds a party. That party is the person doing the lead work — not the landlord signing a lease. Nothing in Chapter 1955 or 25 TAC Chapter 295 Subchapter I requires a Texas landlord to test, to abate, to register a property, to file anything, or to disclose anything beyond what federal law already requires. There is no Texas lead registry for rentals and no Texas de-leading mandate. Anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a different state’s law.

The TREC addendum is a sales form — do not put it on a lease

Search “Texas lead paint disclosure” and most of what returns is TREC No. OP-L, also circulated as TXR 1906. Its full name tells you the problem: Addendum for Seller’s Disclosure of Information on Lead-Based Paint and Lead-Based Paint Hazards as Required by Federal Law. It is adopted at 22 TAC 537.63, which states that the Commission “adopts by reference standard contract form TREC No. OP-L approved by the Commission in 2011 for voluntary use to comply with federal regulation to furnish a lead paint disclosure in properties constructed prior to 1978.”

Two things follow, and both cut against how the form is usually described. First, it is adopted for voluntary use — the rule’s own words — so it is not a Texas mandate even in a sale. Second, and more important for a landlord: it is a seller’s addendum, built for a purchase contract. It carries the purchaser’s 10-day inspection item, because a purchaser is entitled to one. Bolt that form onto a Texas lease and you have just handed your tenant a document asserting an inspection right that federal law does not give tenants, on an instrument every party signs certifying its accuracy. A Texas landlord needs a lessor disclosure carrying the six elements of 40 CFR 745.113(b). That is what the generator on this page produces.

What else Texas contributes

• Duty to repair — Tex. Prop. Code 92.052. A Texas landlord must make a diligent effort to repair a condition that “materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant.” Chapter 92 never mentions lead, but deteriorated lead paint can meet that description on its own facts. Disclosure does not cure a hazard; it only discloses one.
• DSHS abatement notification — 25 TAC 295.214. Texas requires written notice to the DSHS Environmental Lead Notification Section before lead-based paint abatement in target housing. Note who owes it: the rule places the duty on the certified lead firm, not on the property owner. Your contractor files it. It is still worth knowing it exists, because it means your abatement is on the state’s radar.
• Local programmes. Some Texas cities and counties run rental-registration or code-enforcement programmes that can add inspection or notice obligations. These are municipal, not statewide. Check with local code enforcement before assuming none applies.

Because the disclosure obligation is federal rather than state-specific, the same form works for a rental in any state — our