House General & Housing committee leans to concur with Senate change: sellers to give buyers FEMA flood maps

MAY 27 — The House Committee on General & Housing signaled May 27 that it will concur with a Senate amendment to H.106, a bill about seller disclosures for properties in FEMA-mapped flood hazard areas. In a straw poll, committee members indicated support for replacing a seller’s affirmative statement about a property’s flood-map status with a requirement that sellers provide buyers a physical or electronic copy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) or a notice that the map is unavailable.

The change shifts the seller’s role from declaring whether a property is in a mapped flood hazard area to furnishing the official FEMA map or a link to it. Cameron Wood, legislative counsel, told the committee the House-passed version required sellers to tell buyers whether the property was within a FEMA-mapped flood hazard area and included a statutory defense if a seller, after a reasonable attempt, could not determine map status and had notified the buyer of that inability. He said the Senate amendment adds an intent section and instead directs…