Free Washington, D.C. Lead-Based Paint Disclosure

A Washington, D.C. lead-based paint disclosure is the 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 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. Federal 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. But the District of Columbia — a federal district, not a state — is one of the minority of U.S. jurisdictions that legislated its own lead regime on top: the Lead-Hazard Prevention and Elimination Act of 2008, codified at D.C. Code 8-231.01 et seq. If you rent a pre-1978 unit in the District, the federal form alone does not make you compliant.

The disclosure transfers information and creates a dated, signed record that the transfer happened. It does not certify that a unit is safe, it does not test anything, and it does not promise the absence of lead. Federal law asks a narrow question — what do you actually know, and what paperwork do you hold? — and requires you to answer it honestly in writing before the tenant is committed.

Congress built the rule on a simple premise: a tenant who knows a pre-1978 building may contain lead-based paint can make different choices about where to live, how to clean, whether to let a toddler chew a windowsill, and when to ask for repairs. The disclosure is the mechanism that moves what the landlord knows into the tenant’s hands at the one moment it can still change the decision — before signing.

The District added a second premise on top. The Lead-Hazard Prevention and Elimination Act is not primarily an information statute; it is a hazard-elimination statute. D.C. Code 8-231.02(a) states flatly that “[a]ll dwelling units, common areas of multifamily properties, and child-occupied facilities constructed prior to 1978 shall be maintained free of lead-based paint hazards.” That is an affirmative condition duty, not a disclosure duty, and it does not depend on whether a child lives there. Federal law asks you to tell the truth about what you know; District law also tells you what condition the property must be in. Landlords who treat the D.C. Act as “the federal form with extra paperwork” miss this, and it is the part that generates enforcement. The same instinct runs through the District’s Washington, D.C. habitability laws, which impose condition obligations independent of anything a tenant is told.

Yes — and it is one of the more demanding in the country. This is the single most important thing to understand about renting pre-1978 housing in the District, and it is the point most national form sites get wrong by omission. Many states add nothing to the federal rule; a landlord in those states complies by delivering the federal form and the EPA pamphlet. The District is not one of them.

The operative statute is the Lead-Hazard Prevention and Elimination Act of 2008 (D.C. Law 17-381, substantially rewritten by D.C. Law 18-348 in 2011), codified at D.C. Code 8-231.01 through 8-231.20. It is administered by the District Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE). Because the District is a federal district rather than a state, the Council legislates for it and the Mayor implements — which is why nearly every duty in the Act is phrased as something “the Mayor” does or a “form provided by the Mayor,” and why the practical detail lives with DOEE.

Here is what the District adds, element by element. Each is stated with who owes it, what triggers it, the deadline, and the exact cite.

This is the most misreported fact on this entire topic, and it is worth getting exactly right because the error runs in a dangerous direction.

Search for a D.C. lead disclosure form and you will be told, correctly, that “this form is required for properties built before 1986.” Nearly every source stops there. The natural inference — that the District extended lead paint disclosure from 1978 to 1986 — is wrong. The 1986 date has nothing to do with paint.

DOEE split its lead disclosure into two documents: a DC Rental Lead Disclosure Form and a DC Sales Lead Disclosure Form. The rental form covers two different hazards in one document — lead-based paint and lead-bearing plumbing — and it explains its own scope on its face:

“This form is required for properties built before 1986. For properties built before 1978, this form must be used in addition to the Federal Lead Disclosure form because the DC Law provides additional protections for the renter. For properties built between 1978 and 1986, property owners or managers do not need to complete Section B below regarding lead-based paint.“

— DC Lead Disclosure Form for DC Rental Properties, DOEE (March 2020 revision)

Section B is the lead-based-paint section. So for a building put up in, say, 1982, you use DOEE’s form — and you skip the paint half of it. The reason the form reaches back to 1986 at all is stated a few lines later on the same document: “Residential dwellings built before 1986 are presumed to have lead service lines and lead-bearing plumbing.” That is a plumbing presumption, and it is the form’s own statement of scope — the date is printed on DOEE’s document, not written into the District’s lead statute. The form carries the plumbing questions in its Section C, which asks whether lead-bearing plumbing or a lead service line serves the unit and whether the public- and private-side lines have been replaced. On the sales side, the Lead Water Service Line Replacement and Disclosure Amendment Act of 2018 (D.C. Law 22-241) added those same items — lead test results, lead-bearing plumbing, and the lead service line serving the property — to the seller’s disclosure at D.C. Code 42-1305. That is a seller-disclosure chapter and it does not reach an ordinary tenancy: 42-1301(a)(1) applies the chapter “only to the transfer or sale of real estate located in the District of Columbia consisting of not less than one nor more than 4 residential dwelling units, whether by sale, exchange, installment land contract, lease with an option to purchase, or any other option to purchase,” and 42-1301(a)(2) applies it “only where the purchaser expresses, in writing, an intent to reside in the property to be transferred.” A lease with an option to purchase is in; a straightforward rental is not. So if you are renting, the plumbing questions come to you from DOEE’s form, not from 42-1305.

The practical upshot, stated plainly:

• Built before 1978: federal disclosure and DOEE’s rental form, both sections. This is the case the generator below is built for.
• Built 1978–1986: DOEE’s rental form, skipping Section B (paint). No federal lead paint disclosure — the property is not target housing. The reason you are filling anything out is plumbing.
• Built 1986 or later: neither lead form applies on these grounds.

Anyone who tells you the District requires lead paint disclosure for a 1983 building has misread the form. The paint trigger in D.C. Code 8-231.04 is, and has always been, housing “constructed before 1978.” The word “1986” does not appear anywhere in the District’s lead-paint statute.

The lease disclosure is not free-form. 40 CFR 745.113(b) specifies that “[e]ach contract to lease target housing shall include, as an attachment or within the contract, the following elements, in the language of the contract.” Six elements, no substitutions:

1. The Lead Warning Statement, in the language the regulation prescribes — 745.113(b)(1) introduces it as “[a] Lead Warning Statement with the following language” and then sets the text out in full. The lease version is shorter than the sales version and they are not interchangeable. The generator below prints the regulation’s current lease text verbatim, including the word “known” that the amendment effective 13 January 2025 (89 FR 89416) added to the warning statement, as explained below.
2. The lessor’s disclosure — either stating known lead-based paint and/or hazards, or indicating no knowledge. If you know of any, you must also provide the basis for the determination, the location, and the condition of the painted surfaces.
3. A list of records and reports available to the lessor that have been provided to the lessee. “If no such records or reports are available, the lessor shall so indicate” — the blank is not permitted to stay blank; the negative is itself a disclosure.
4. The lessee’s statement affirming receipt of the information in (b)(2) and (b)(3) and of the lead hazard information pamphlet required under 15 U.S.C. 2696.
5. The agent’s statement, where an agent is involved, that the agent has informed the lessor of the lessor’s obligations under 42 U.S.C. 4852d and is aware of the duty to ensure compliance.
6. The signatures of the lessors, agents, and lessees certifying the accuracy of their statements, to the best of their knowledge, with dates.

Note what is not in that list: any inspection opportunity. Element (a)(5) of the same regulation — the received-or-waived statement about the 10-day opportunity — appears only on the sales disclosure. The lease limb has no such item, because tenants have no such right. More on that below.

The disclosure duties themselves sit one section earlier, at 40 CFR 745.107(a), which requires that certain activities “shall be completed before the purchaser or lessee is obligated under any contract to purchase or lease target housing that is not otherwise an exempt transaction pursuant to 745.101.” Those activities are: provide an EPA-approved pamphlet; disclose known lead-based paint and hazards to the purchaser or lessee; disclose the same to each agent; and provide any available records or reports, including records regarding common areas and, in multifamily target housing, records regarding other dwellings where they form part of a building-wide evaluation. That last clause catches landlords by surprise: a building-wide risk assessment is disclosable to every tenant in the building, not only to the unit it examined.

Federal duties attach only to target housing. 40 CFR 745.103, as amended effective 13 January 2025 (89 FR 89416), defines it as “any housing constructed prior to 1978, except housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities or any 0-bedroom dwelling (unless any child who is less than 6 years of age resides or is expected to reside in such housing).”

Read that sentence carefully, because its structure is routinely mangled and it was amended in 2025. There are two exclusions from the pre-1978 universe, and since the amendment both carry the same child condition:

• Housing for the elderly or persons with disabilities — excluded, unless any child under six resides or is expected to reside there. Since the 2025 amendment the parenthetical attaches to the 0-bedroom limb as well. “Housing for the elderly” is itself defined in 745.103 as retirement communities or similar housing reserved for households with one or more persons 62 or older at initial occupancy.
• Any 0-bedroom dwelling — excluded, unless any child under six resides or is expected to reside there. Before the 13 January 2025 amendment (89 FR 89416) this limb was unconditional, and most charts still show it that way.

The construction date is the trigger, and it is the date of construction — not the date the paint was applied, and not the date of a later renovation. A 1974 building that was gut-renovated in 2015 is still target housing. Confirm the year from the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue property record, the certificate of occupancy, or the permit file rather than from a listing sheet.

A historical note that is worth keeping straight because it is the source of a common error: the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s ban at 16 CFR 1303.1 reaches paint manufactured after 27 February 1978. That is the origin story for the 1978 line, and it explains why the cutoff exists. It is not the operative test. The operative test is 745.103’s “constructed prior to 1978.” Do not conflate the two — a building finished in 1977 is target housing regardless of when any particular can of paint was made.

Here the two regimes genuinely diverge, and the divergence favours the tenant. This point appears on none of the pages currently ranking for D.C. lead queries, so it is worth setting out the primary text on both sides.

Federal law excludes studios only when no young child lives there. 40 CFR 745.103 defines a 0-bedroom dwelling as “any residential dwelling in which the living area is not separated from the sleeping area,” and adds that “[t]he term includes efficiencies, studio apartments, dormitory housing, military barracks, and rentals of individual rooms in residential dwellings.” As shown above, since the 2025 amendment the 0-bedroom exclusion carries the child-under-six condition. A pre-1978 studio is federal target housing when a child under six resides or is expected to reside there; only where no such child is present does the federal rule exclude it. That remaining gap is where the District reaches further.

The District’s Act contains no such carve-out. D.C. Code 8-231.01(11) defines a “dwelling unit” as “a room or group of rooms that form a single independent habitable unit for permanent occupation by one or more individuals, that has living facilities with permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, and sanitation.” Its exclusion list is short and specific: hotel, motel, or seasonal/transient units (unless occupied by a person at risk for more than 30 days); secured areas accessible only to authorized personnel; housing for the elderly or units designated exclusively for persons with disabilities (unless a person at risk resides, is expected to reside, or visits regularly); and unoccupied units awaiting demolition. There is no 0-bedroom limb. There is no studio limb. The word “studio” does not appear in the statute.

On the face of the two texts, then: a pre-1978 D.C. studio with its own kitchen and bathroom satisfies the District’s “dwelling unit” definition — it is a single independent habitable unit with permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, and sanitation — and so the D.C. duties in 8-231.02 and 8-231.04 reach it, even where the federal duty does not — that is, even when no child under six is present. The sensible course for a D.C. studio landlord is to complete DOEE’s form and meet the District’s obligations, and to treat the federal exclusion as irrelevant to your D.C. exposure rather than as a shield.

Two honest limits on that analysis. First, the federal 0-bedroom definition also sweeps in “rentals of individual rooms in residential dwellings” — a rented bedroom sharing a kitchen and bath with the rest of a house would likely fail the District’s “permanent provisions for … eating[] and sanitation” requirement too, so that fact pattern may fall outside both regimes. Second, this is a reading of the statutory text; we have not located a DOEE rule or a D.C. decision squarely applying the Act to a studio, and we do not assert one exists. If you own a pre-1978 studio in the District, this is a question worth putting to DOEE in writing.

40 CFR 745.101 lists the transactions the federal subpart does not reach. It “applies to all transactions to sell or lease target housing, including subleases, with the exception of the following”:

• (a) Sales of target housing at foreclosure. A sales-side exemption; it has no rental application.
• (b) Leases of target housing that have been found to be lead-based paint free by an inspector certified under the federal certification program or a federally accredited State or tribal program. Note the standard: lead-based paint free, certified by a certified inspector. A clean risk assessment is not the same finding, and your own belief that the building was stripped decades ago is not a certification.
• (c) Short-term leases of 100 days or less, where no lease renewal or extension can occur. Both halves matter. A 90-day lease with a renewal option is not exempt, because renewal can occur.
• (d) Renewals of existing leases in target housing where the lessor has previously disclosed all information required under 40 CFR 745.107 and no new information described in 745.107 has come into the lessor’s possession. The regulation adds that “renewal shall include both renegotiation of existing lease terms and/or ratification of a new lease.”

None of these four exemptions carries a child condition. None of them turns on whether a young child lives in the unit. If you have read otherwise, you have read a page that invented it.

Two cautions specific to the renewal exemption, which is the one landlords lean on most. First, it is conditioned on new information: if you have since obtained a risk assessment, received a DOEE order, or otherwise come into possession of information described in 745.107, the exemption evaporates and you must disclose again at renewal. Second — and this is the trap — the federal renewal exemption does not touch your District duties. D.C. Code 8-231.04(e) requires the owner to provide notice of tenant rights on the Mayor’s form “whenever the tenant executes or renews a lease for the unit and whenever the owner provides notice of a rent increase.” A renewal that is federally exempt still triggers a D.C. Tenant Rights form. If you are also raising the rent at renewal, review the sequencing in the Washington, D.C. rent increase laws, because the same event now triggers two separate paper duties.

40 CFR 745.107(a)(1) requires the lessor to “provide the purchaser or lessee with an EPA-approved lead hazard information pamphlet,” specifically the EPA document Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home (EPA document 747-K-94-001) “or an equivalent pamphlet that has been approved for use in that State by EPA.” The lessee’s signature at element (b)(4) of 745.113 acknowledges receipt of it.

Three practical points. The pamphlet is delivered, not summarised — a paragraph in your lease saying “tenant is aware of lead hazards” satisfies nothing. It must be the current edition; EPA revises it, and an obsolete printout invites an argument you do not need to have. And in the District, the pamphlet has a second life: D.C. Code 8-231.04(f)(2) requires you to provide the Lead Warning Statement described in 40 C.F.R. 745.113 and the lead hazard information pamphlet again if you discover lead-based paint mid-tenancy — with an express carve-out that they “need not be provided if they have been provided to the tenant within the prior 12 months.”

If one D.C. requirement is going to catch an out-of-town landlord, it is this one. Nothing in federal law requires a landlord to test anything, ever. The District requires exactly that in defined circumstances, and the trigger is not lead — it is people.

A person at risk is defined at D.C. Code 8-231.01(31) as “a child under age 6 or a pregnant woman.” A clearance report is defined at 8-231.01(6) as a report issued by a risk assessor, a lead-based paint inspector, or a dust sampling technician finding that the area tested has passed a clearance examination, and specifying the steps taken to ensure the absence of lead-based paint hazards, including confirmation that any encapsulation was performed to the manufacturer’s specifications.

Two duties follow:

• Before the lease (8-231.04(b)). “The owner of a dwelling unit constructed before 1978, which unit will be occupied or regularly visited by a person at risk, shall provide to the tenant an accurately and fully completed lead disclosure form and a clearance report issued within the previous 12 months.” The disclosures “shall be disclosed before the tenant is obligated under any contract to lease the dwelling unit.” Note “or regularly visited” — a grandchild who visits every weekend counts; the child need not live there.
• On written request during the tenancy (8-231.04(c)). If a tenant “notifies the owner of the property in writing that a person at risk resides in or regularly visits the dwelling unit, the owner of the dwelling unit shall provide to the tenant within 30 days a clearance report issued within the previous 12 months.” A tenancy that began with no child in it converts the moment a tenant becomes pregnant and puts it in writing. Thirty days, on the owner’s dime.

The 12-month currency requirement does real work: a clearance report is a snapshot, and a report from three years ago will not satisfy either duty.

D.C. Code 8-231.04(e) is one sentence long and is missed constantly: “The owner of a dwelling unit shall provide notice to its tenants of their rights under this subchapter on a form provided by the Mayor whenever the tenant executes or renews a lease for the unit and whenever the owner provides notice of a rent increase.”

Three things are worth noticing. This duty is not limited to pre-1978 units on the face of the sentence — it says “a dwelling unit.” It recurs: not once at move-in, but at every execution, every renewal, and every rent-increase notice. And it is a form provided by the Mayor, meaning DOEE’s DC Tenant Rights form specifically, not a paragraph you drafted.

DOEE’s own compliance guidance lists three District forms a pre-1978 landlord issues: the DC Lead Disclosure form to a tenant prior to obligation under a lease (or a buyer prior to contract); the DC Tenant Rights form before a tenant executes or renews a lease and whenever the owner provides notice of a rent increase; and a Property Access form to a tenant at least 48 hours prior to work under the District’s lead law. That third one maps onto 8-231.06(a), discussed below.

Search “lead paint 10 days” and you will get a confident, wrong answer. There are two entirely different 10-day rules in play here, they share nothing but the number, and conflating them is the most common substantive error in this subject area.

The federal rule is a sales rule. 40 CFR 745.110(a) reads, in full: “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. The statute it implements is scoped identically at 42 U.S.C. 4852d(a)(1)(C). 40 CFR 745.110(b) lets a purchaser waive the opportunity in writing — again, a purchaser.

The structure of the disclosure regulation confirms it. 40 CFR 745.113(a)(5) — on the sales attachment — requires “[a] statement by the purchaser affirming receipt of the information” together with the received-or-waived language about the 10-day opportunity. The lease attachment at 745.113(b) has six elements and none of them is an inspection item. The drafters put the 10-day machinery on the sales limb and left it off the lease limb, deliberately.

So: a D.C. tenant has no 10-day inspection right. Not under federal law, and not under the District’s Act, which creates no such window either. A landlord who wants to offer one voluntarily may — it is decent practice and it costs nothing to allow — but it is an offer, not compliance, and it must never be printed on the disclosure as though it were law. That is why the generator below prints no 10-day line and no waiver box.

The D.C. rule runs the other way in time. D.C. Code 8-231.04(f) provides that “[i]f the owner of a dwelling unit learns of the presence of lead-based paint in a dwelling unit, the owner shall: (1) Notify the tenant of the presence of lead-based paint within 10 days after discovering its presence; and (2) Provide the tenant with a Lead Warning Statement described in 40 C.F.R. 745.113 and the lead hazard information pamphlet … provided, that the Lead Warning Statement and lead hazard information pamphlet need not be provided if they have been provided to the tenant within the prior 12 months.” This is a duty that fires during a tenancy, on discovery, and it is one a landlord can breach without ever having done anything wrong at lease signing.

The generator produces the federal lease disclosure required by 40 CFR 745.113(b) for a pre-1978 D.C. rental. The PDF reproduces the lease Lead Warning Statement verbatim, 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. It prints a D.C. footer reminding you that the DOEE form travels with it.

▶ Watch overview

Washington, D.C. lead-based paint disclosure overview

Electronic delivery and e-signature are workable for the federal disclosure, and EPA has long accepted them provided the tenant genuinely receives the information and the pamphlet before becoming obligated and the signed record is retained and reproducible. The mechanics matter more than the medium: a link the tenant never opened is not delivery, and a portal that loses the signed artifact defeats the retention rule.

Two D.C.-specific cautions. First, the District’s forms are DOEE forms; delivering them electronically is fine, but altering their content to fit a portal is not — D.C. Code 8-231.04(a)(2) requires that “[t]he disclosures shall be provided on the lead disclosure form provided by the Mayor.” Second, the six-year retention clock at 8-231.13(a) is twice the federal one, which is longer than many property-management platforms retain documents by default. Check your platform’s retention setting against the six-year requirement rather than assuming, and keep an independent copy.

40 CFR 745.113(c)(1) provides that “[t]he lessor, and any agent, shall retain a copy of the completed attachment or lease contract containing the information required under paragraph (b) of this section for no less than 3 years from the commencement of the leasing period.” The clock runs from the start of the leasing period, not from signing and not from move-out.

D.C. Code 8-231.13(a) sets a longer clock for District records: owners “shall maintain copies of any records or reports required by this subchapter, for 6 years, or as the Mayor may otherwise establish by rule, and shall make those documents available for inspection by the Mayor upon request.” DOEE’s rental form states the same expectation in plain language, instructing owners to keep the signed original for at least six years from the date of the most recent signature because they may be audited. Where two clocks apply to one file, keep the longer one.

40 CFR 745.113(c)(2) is worth quoting exactly, because it is frequently overstated: “This 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 statement about what the recordkeeping rule does not limit. It is not a statute of limitations, and it does not say that the expiry of three years is or is not a defence to anything. Read it for what it says.

The retained file is also your only practical defence. In an enforcement inquiry the question is not whether you remember disclosing; it is whether you can produce a dated, signed document. D.C. Code 8-231.13(c) adds a further obligation that has no federal analogue: an owner must maintain copies of all lead reports for the building or any part of it, and “make the reports available to tenants, tenants’ agents, and government officials for review and photocopying at reasonable hours and at a location reasonably close to the property.” Your lead file is not merely retained; it is inspectable by your tenants.

Disclosure is a leasing duty. The moment you disturb paint in a pre-1978 unit, a different body of law engages, and in the District it engages harder than elsewhere.

Federally, EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting rule (40 CFR Part 745 Subpart E) requires firms performing renovation, repair, or painting that disturbs paint in pre-1978 housing to be EPA-certified, to use certified renovators and lead-safe work practices, and to deliver a lead-hazard information pamphlet to occupants before work begins.

In the District, D.C. Code 8-231.01(29) defines “lead-safe work practices” as a prescribed set of activities ensuring that “any work that disturbs a painted surface on a structure constructed prior to 1978 generates a minimum of dust and debris,” that debris is contained and the area thoroughly cleaned, in accordance with methods established by the Mayor by rule consistent with applicable federal requirements. DOEE’s guidance is direct: a DC-certified contractor is required for most projects disturbing lead-based paint on pre-1978 residential buildings.

Two further D.C. mechanisms are worth knowing. D.C. Code 8-231.01(32) defines “presumed lead-based paint” as paint affixed to a component in a pre-1978 dwelling unit or child-occupied facility — and D.C. Code 8-231.03(f) provides that where presumed lead-based paint is identified in an uncontained and non-intact condition, the Mayor may issue a Notice of Violation ordering repair using lead-safe work practices and requiring a clearance report. The presumption is rebuttable: “Presumed lead-based paint may be rebutted by production of a lead-based paint inspection report from an inspector or risk assessor, affirming that such paint is not lead-based.” In other words, in the District, peeling paint on a pre-1978 building is treated as lead until you prove otherwise.

And if DOEE orders work, D.C. Code 8-231.03(d)(2) can put you on the hook for the tenant’s temporary relocation: the owner “shall pay all reasonable temporary relocation expenses that may be required until the dwelling unit has passed a clearance examination and a reasonable amount of time has passed to allow the tenant to return to the dwelling unit, unless a risk assessment report issued by the Mayor states that temporary tenant relocation is not necessary.” Read the emphasised limb: the meter does not stop the moment the unit clears. It runs until the tenant has had a reasonable opportunity to move back — and that limb is there on purpose, added by the 2011 amendment (D.C. Law 18-348), which replaced a rule that had ended at “clearance examination” full stop. Before any relocation the owner must give the tenant at least 14 days’ written notice under 8-231.03(d)(2)(B), unless the Mayor orders a shorter period or the owner and tenant agree one, and the tenant has a right to return “under the same terms.” Compliance under 8-231.03(d)(3) is due within 30 days of a written order unless the Mayor directs otherwise or grants a good-faith extension.

Lead work requires getting into the unit, and the District regulates that specifically rather than leaving it to the general entry rules. D.C. Code 8-231.06(a) provides that “[a] tenant shall allow access to his or her dwelling unit, at reasonable times, to the unit owner or the owner’s employee or representative to facilitate any work or inspection required under this subchapter following the provision of written notice by the owner at least 48 hours prior to the work or inspection” — with the proviso that entry may not occur without the occupant’s permission unless a warrant is obtained from the Superior Court under D.C. Code 11-941.

The notice is not a bare heads-up. D.C. Code 8-231.06(b) requires it to include a description of the general nature and locations of the planned work or inspection, the applicable requirements for containment, occupant protection, and relocation, the expected starting and ending dates, and any other information the Mayor prescribes. DOEE issues a Property Access form for this purpose.

The Act also anticipates a refusing tenant. Under 8-231.06(c), if the owner demonstrates to the Mayor’s satisfaction that the tenant refuses access after the owner gave no less than 7 days’ notice, the owner is exempt from the requirements of the subchapter that depend on that access for as long as that tenant occupies the unit or until the tenant allows access — though the Mayor may still order the owner to meet the tenant’s reasonable conditions for access. And under 8-231.06(d), a tenant may deny access to any person not properly certified under D.C. Code 8-231.10 to perform the work. These lead-specific rules sit alongside the District’s ordinary entry framework in the Washington, D.C. landlord entry laws; where lead work is the purpose, the 48-hour written notice in 8-231.06(a) is the governing rule.

Exposure comes from two directions, and only one of them can be quoted as a number.

District penalties are statutory and fixed. D.C. Code 8-231.15(b) provides that “[a]ny violation of this subchapter or implementing rule is punishable by a civil penalty not to exceed $25,000 for each day of each offense. Each day a violation continues shall be deemed a separate offense.” The per-day, per-offense structure is the part to notice: a disclosure failure that persists across a tenancy is not one violation. D.C. Code 8-231.16(a) adds criminal exposure — any person who knowingly or willingly violates the subchapter or its implementing rules “shall be subject, upon conviction, to a fine of not more than $25,000 for each day of each violation, imprisonment for not more than one year, or both” — and 8-231.16(b) provides that “[f]alsification of information required by this subchapter shall be a violation of this subchapter.” Under 8-231.15(d) and 8-231.16(c) the Superior Court weighs the nature, circumstances, extent, gravity, actual or potential harm, ability to pay, history of prior violations, and degree of culpability. D.C. Code 8-231.15(c) allows civil infraction fines as alternative sanctions under Chapter 18 of Title 2.

Federal penalty figures cannot honestly be printed. 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b) supplies the federal civil penalty, but the dollar amounts are adjusted for inflation every year under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act and published in EPA’s table at 40 CFR 19.4. Any fixed federal figure on a web page is a snapshot that was wrong the following January, which is precisely why so many pages quoting one are stale. We cite the mechanism instead: 40 CFR 19.4 for the current civil amount, and 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3), under which a person who knowingly violates the section is jointly and severally liable to the purchaser or lessee for treble the amount of damages incurred, with 4852d(b)(4) addressing costs and fees. Check 40 CFR 19.4 for today’s number rather than trusting any figure printed anywhere, including here.

One more, easily overlooked: D.C. Code 8-231.02(c) permits the District to deny “any license, registration, or permit relating to the use or occupancy of a child-occupied facility or dwelling unit to an owner of that property if the owner is in violation of this subchapter.” In a city where rental housing requires a licence, that is a sharper instrument than a fine.

Disclosure violations rarely surface through audits of paperwork. They surface when a child’s blood lead level comes back elevated, when a tenant complains about peeling paint, or when a renovation goes wrong and someone reports it.

The District’s machinery starts with the child. D.C. Code 8-231.03(a) provides that whenever a child under six with an elevated blood lead level resides in or regularly visits a dwelling unit or child-occupied facility, “the Mayor shall conduct a risk assessment of the appropriate properties, and the owner, occupant or owner’s agent shall cooperate with and shall not impede the Mayor’s conduct of such assessment.” An “elevated blood lead level” is defined at 8-231.01(13) as at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter, or a more stringent standard adopted by CDC or by the Mayor by rule. D.C. Code 8-231.03(b) adds a second route: on reasonable belief — “which may be based upon a request by a tenant” — that there is a risk of a lead-based paint hazard in a pre-1978 unit, common area, or child-occupied facility, the Mayor shall take action and provide a report to both owner and tenant. A single tenant complaint is a sufficient trigger.

DOEE’s powers are broad. Under D.C. Code 8-231.05(a), on presentation of credentials, the Mayor may enter and inspect property reasonably believed subject to the subchapter — to conduct a risk assessment, collect samples, inspect or copy retained reports, examine surfaces, or verify compliance — and may enter without notice on reasonable belief of an imminent threat to occupants’ health and safety. The counterweight is at 8-231.05(f): no entry or inspection of residential premises without the occupant’s permission unless a warrant issues from the Superior Court. Denying DOEE access is itself a violation under 8-231.05(c), exposing the owner to the civil and criminal penalties above, and the Mayor may seek a search warrant. If an owner ignores an order, 8-231.05(e) allows the District to do the work itself, charge the owner, and take a judgment plus a continuing lien on all of the owner’s property, real or personal.

The Attorney General for the District of Columbia may bring civil actions for injunctive relief under both 8-231.05(b)(3) and 8-231.15(e), and prosecutes criminal matters under 8-231.16(d). If you are on the receiving end of an action, D.C. Code 8-231.15(f) gives a person adversely affected the right to a hearing on written request filed within 15 calendar days of the action — a short fuse worth diarising.

Federal enforcement runs in parallel through EPA and HUD, which share responsibility for the disclosure rule and have historically pursued landlords with large pre-1978 portfolios. Nothing about D.C. enforcement displaces it.

Federal law is unambiguous. 40 CFR 745.107(a) states: “Nothing in this section implies a positive obligation on the seller or lessor to conduct any evaluation or reduction activities.” The disclosure rule compels honesty about actual knowledge, not investigation. If nothing has been tested and you hold no reports, “no knowledge” is truthful and lawful, and checking it is not an admission of anything.

The District complicates that in two ways that a landlord must hold in mind simultaneously.

First, D.C. Code 8-231.02(a) is a condition standard, not an information standard: pre-1978 dwelling units, common areas, and child-occupied facilities “shall be maintained free of lead-based paint hazards.” A “lead-based paint hazard” is defined broadly at 8-231.01(22) as any condition causing exposure from lead-contaminated dust, lead-contaminated soil, deteriorated lead-based paint or presumed lead-based paint, or lead-based paint or presumed lead-based paint disturbed without containment. That duty does not wait for a child, a complaint, or a test.

Second, the clearance duties at 8-231.04(b) and (c) require actual testing by a certified professional whenever a person at risk enters the picture. So while no D.C. statute says “test every unit,” a pre-1978 D.C. rental occupied or regularly visited by a child under six or a pregnant woman cannot practically be compliant without testing. The honest summary: federal law never makes you test; District law makes you test in defined circumstances and makes you keep the property hazard-free in all of them.

Every summary of D.C. lead law says a landlord may not punish a tenant for exercising lead-law rights. That is correct. But the section everyone cites does not actually say it, and knowing where the prohibition really lives is what makes the point usable.

D.C. Code 8-231.07 is titled “Prohibition against retaliation.” Its entire operative text is two subsections: “(a) A tenant may provide information to the Mayor concerning deteriorated paint or lead-based paint hazards within a property or elevated blood levels of a person at risk. (b) The provision of information in subsection (a) of this section shall be considered tenant rights.” There is no prohibition in it. The section confers a right and labels it.

The prohibition is in the District’s general retaliation statute, D.C. Code 42-3505.02(a): “No housing provider shall take any retaliatory action against any tenant who exercises any right conferred upon the tenant by this chapter, by any rule or order issued pursuant to this chapter, or by any other provision of law.” The lead-law rights arrive through that last limb — which is exactly why 8-231.07(b) bothers to declare the tenant’s reporting to be “tenant rights.” The statute lists what retaliatory action may include: any action seeking to recover possession not otherwise permitted by law, unlawfully increasing rent, decreasing services, increasing a tenant’s obligations, undue inconvenience, violating the tenant’s privacy, harassment, reducing quality or quantity of service, refusing to honour or renew a lease, terminating a tenancy without cause, “or any other form of threat or coercion.”

The teeth are in D.C. Code 42-3505.02(b). Where, within the 6 months preceding the housing provider’s action, the tenant did any of six listed things — including making a witnessed request for repairs needed to bring the unit into compliance with the housing regulations, contacting District officials about existing or suspected housing-regulation violations, or making an effort to secure or enforce rights under the lease — then “the trier of fact shall presume retaliatory action has been taken, and shall enter judgment in the tenant’s favor unless the housing provider comes forward with clear and convincing evidence to rebut this presumption.” The burden flips, and clear and convincing is a demanding standard.

The practical lesson for a D.C. landlord: once a tenant has reported paint conditions to DOEE, any adverse step within the next six months — a non-renewal, a rent increase, a notice to quit — will be presumed retaliatory, and you will carry a heavy burden to prove otherwise. Document independent, contemporaneous reasons before you act, and see the D.C. eviction notice laws for how the presumption interacts with possession actions.

Lead duties do not sit alone. A pre-1978 D.C. rental with deteriorating paint is simultaneously a lead problem under D.C. Code 8-231.02(a) and a housing-code problem under the District’s general habitability framework, and a tenant can pursue either or both.

The Act expressly preserves those parallel routes. D.C. Code 8-231.03(e) provides that “[n]othing in this section shall be construed to interfere with tenants’ rights under other District law,” and adds that where an owner intends to substantially rehabilitate, demolish, or discontinue a housing accommodation to comply with the subchapter, the procedures at D.C. Code 42-3505.01 and 42-3507.01 apply — you cannot use lead compliance as a route around the Rental Housing Act’s protections.

The overlap has a practical consequence worth planning for. Deteriorated paint reported to DOEE can produce a lead order; the same condition reported to the housing inspector can produce a housing-code violation; and an outstanding housing-code violation independently disqualifies you from the three-clearance-reports alternative at 8-231.04(d)(2), which requires that the property “was not, and is not, subject to any housing code violations that occurred during the past 5 years or any that are outstanding.” A violation you shrugged off four years ago can cost you a compliance option today. The general condition duties are set out in the Washington, D.C. habitability laws.

Delivering only the federal form

The most common D.C. failure by a wide margin. The federal disclosure satisfies 40 CFR 745.113(b) and nothing whatever in D.C. Code 8-231.04. A pre-1978 D.C. rental needs both documents, plus the DOEE Tenant Rights form. Landlords who manage property in several jurisdictions and run one national template are the usual casualties.

Reading “before 1986” as a paint rule

It is a plumbing rule. DOEE’s own form says so: for properties built between 1978 and 1986 you skip Section B, the lead-based-paint section. Completing a paint disclosure for a 1983 building is harmless in itself; believing the District requires it means you have misread the form, and the same misreading tends to travel with a belief that pre-1978 units need nothing extra.

Printing a 10-day inspection offer on a lease disclosure

40 CFR 745.110(a) gives that opportunity to a purchaser, before a purchase. Putting it on a tenant’s form misstates the law on a document every party signs certifying accuracy. Offer an inspection window voluntarily if you like — just do not print it as a legal right.

Missing the 10-day discovery notice

The 10-day rule that does bind a landlord is D.C. Code 8-231.04(f)(1): once you learn lead-based paint is present, the tenant must be told within 10 days. Landlords who commission testing and then sit on the result while deciding what to do breach this without ever realising a clock was running.

Assuming a studio is exempt

Federally it is only when no child under six lives there — since the 13 January 2025 amendment (89 FR 89416) the 0-bedroom exclusion carries the same child condition as the elderly/disabled limb, so a studio housing a young child is federal target housing. And either way the District’s “dwelling unit” definition at D.C. Code 8-231.01(11) has no studio carve-out, so the federal exclusion is never a D.C. defence.

Thinking only the elderly or disabled limb has a child condition

Before 2025 that was right; it no longer is. Since the 13 January 2025 amendment (89 FR 89416) the child-under-six condition attaches to both the elderly/disabled limb and the 0-bedroom limb of 40 CFR 745.103. Charts still saying the 0-bedroom exclusion carries no child condition are quoting the pre-amendment text, and this sentence is misquoted constantly.

Keeping the file three years

Federal law says three (40 CFR 745.113(c)(1)); D.C. Code 8-231.13(a) says six. Purging at three destroys your own best evidence while the District can still audit you, and DOEE’s form tells owners in plain words to keep the signed original for at least six years.

Forgetting the Tenant Rights form at renewal and at every rent increase

D.C. Code 8-231.04(e) requires it at lease execution, at renewal, and whenever you serve a rent-increase notice. It recurs. Most landlords deliver it once at move-in, if at all, and never again through years of renewals.

Relying on the federal renewal exemption for D.C. duties

40 CFR 745.101(d) can excuse a federal re-disclosure at renewal where nothing new has come into your possession. It does nothing at all about D.C. Code 8-231.04(e), which fires on renewal regardless of what you knew or when.

Treating a clean risk assessment as a lead-free certification

The exemption at 40 CFR 745.101(b) requires a finding that the housing is lead-based paint free by a certified inspector, and the D.C. alternative at 8-231.04(d)(1) requires certification that the unit is a “lead-free unit” as defined at 8-231.01(28). Neither is satisfied by a risk assessment that merely found no current hazards. They answer different questions.

Ignoring “or regularly visited”

Both D.C. Code 8-231.04(b) and (c) reach a person at risk who regularly visits the unit, not only one who lives there. A grandchild who stays every weekend triggers the clearance-report duty as surely as a resident toddler.

Pre-ticking the tenant’s acknowledgments

Items (c) and (d) of the disclosure are the lessee’s statements. Completing them before the tenant has received anything puts a false statement on a document certified for accuracy by every signatory — and D.C. Code 8-231.16(b) makes falsification of information required by the subchapter a violation in its own right.

Renovating with an uncertified handyman

DOEE requires a DC-certified contractor for most work disturbing lead-based paint on pre-1978 buildings, and under D.C. Code 8-231.06(d) your tenant may lawfully refuse to admit anyone not properly certified under 8-231.10 to do the work. The cheap crew is not cheaper.

Acting against a tenant who complained

D.C. Code 42-3505.02(b) presumes retaliation for six months after a tenant contacts District officials about violations, and lets you rebut that presumption only by clear and convincing evidence. A non-renewal that felt commercially obvious to you will not look that way to the trier of fact.

A D.C. tenant in pre-1978 housing has a stronger position than a tenant almost anywhere else in the country, and the rights come from three places at once.

Before signing, a tenant is entitled to the federal disclosure and the EPA pamphlet (40 CFR 745.107(a)(1)-(2)), to any records or reports the landlord holds — including building-wide evaluations covering other units (745.107(a)(4)) — to DOEE’s lead disclosure form with information reasonably known to the owner (D.C. Code 8-231.04(a)), and, if a person at risk will live there or visit regularly, to a clearance report issued within the previous 12 months (8-231.04(b)). A tenant asked to sign without these is being asked to waive something the law does not permit to be skipped.

During the tenancy, a tenant may put the landlord on written notice that a person at risk resides in or regularly visits the unit and receive a current clearance report within 30 days (8-231.04(c)); is entitled to the DC Tenant Rights form at renewal and at every rent-increase notice (8-231.04(e)); must be told within 10 days if the landlord discovers lead-based paint (8-231.04(f)); may inspect and photocopy the building’s lead reports at reasonable hours and at a location reasonably close to the property (8-231.13(c)); may report conditions to DOEE and thereby trigger mandatory agency action (8-231.03(b)); may refuse entry to anyone not properly certified to do the work (8-231.06(d)); and, if DOEE orders work, is entitled to relocation expenses, at least 14 days’ written notice, and a right to return to the unit under the same terms (8-231.03(d)(2)).

If things go wrong, the tenant’s federal remedy is 42 U.S.C. 4852d(b)(3): a knowing violator is jointly and severally liable to the lessee for treble the amount of damages incurred, with 4852d(b)(4) addressing costs and reasonable attorney fees. 40 CFR 745.113(c)(2) confirms that the recordkeeping rule “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).” On the District side, enforcement runs through DOEE and the Attorney General rather than a private lead-law action, and D.C. Code 8-231.17 bars claims against the District itself — a provision about suing the government, not about suing a landlord. Retaliation for exercising any of this is separately actionable under D.C. Code 42-3505.02.

What none of this does is void the lease. EPA is clear that the disclosure rule does not cancel leasing or sales contracts, and no provision of 40 CFR Part 745 Subpart F or of the District’s Act makes a lease void or voidable for a disclosure failure. A tenant who was never given a disclosure has real remedies; walking away from the lease on that basis alone is not one of them.

The lead disclosure is one document in a stack that has to be right before a tenant is obligated. Everything above is about a tenancy you have already decided to grant — and in the District, the decision itself is regulated, with a use-of-criminal-history framework and application-fee rules that catch out-of-town owners. The requirements are set out in the Washington, D.C. tenant screening laws, and the broader picture sits in the Washington, D.C. landlord-tenant laws hub.

If you are still evaluating applicants for a pre-1978 D.C. unit, you can start a tenant screening report and keep the paperwork in one place; our data practices and the choices available to you are described at data options. Deposit handling after signing follows the Washington, D.C. security deposit laws.

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