For twenty-two years, New York sellers had a way around the state's disclosure form. Don't want to answer forty-eight questions about your house? Write a check for $500 at closing instead. Most attorneys called it the practical choice. Most sellers took it.
That option disappeared on March 20, 2024. Every seller of a one-to-four family home in New York now has to complete and hand over the Property Condition Disclosure Statement before a buyer signs a contract, no shortcut available. The form itself changed again on July 1, 2025, adding new language about septic systems. On paper, every seller in Onondaga County is now filling out the identical document. In practice, a seller in Camillus is answering harder questions than a seller in Clay, and the reason has nothing to do with paperwork and everything to do with what sits under the two towns.
The Checkbox That Used to Be Optional
Before 2024, a seller who didn't want to put anything in writing about a leaky basement, an old tank, or a temperamental well simply handed the buyer $500 and moved on. The law's original intent, transparency about a property's condition, got quietly bypassed by a workaround that became standard practice in many markets across the state.
The 2023 amendment that took effect in March 2024 closed that door. Sellers now have to complete the actual disclosure statement, and the credit-in-lieu-of-disclosure option is gone from the law. A seller who fails to provide the form can be held liable for actual damages if a buyer proves the failure was willful.
Three sections of that form matter more in Camillus than they do a few miles away: radon, underground oil tanks, and septic systems. None of them are new questions. What's new is that a Camillus seller can no longer decline to answer them.
The Radon Line: Same Form, Different Town
Onondaga County sits inside the highest-risk radon zone the EPA maps, and the county's own health department reports an average basement radon reading of 8.1 pCi/L, with nearly half of tested homes coming in above the EPA's action level of 4.0 pCi/L. That's a countywide number, and it hides real variation from one town to the next.
Local inspectors who test radon across the region draw a sharper line than the county average suggests. Camillus and Manlius consistently run high. Clay and Cicero, a short drive away, typically don't. A seller in either half of the county fills out the same disclosure question about radon test results. A Camillus seller is simply more likely to have a number worth disclosing.
A short-term radon test in the Syracuse area runs roughly $150 to $250, and if a home does need mitigation, a standard sub-slab depressurization system typically costs $800 to $1,500. That's a manageable number when it's planned for before a listing goes live. It's a much harder conversation when it surfaces for the first time during a buyer's inspection, after a price has already been agreed to.
The Oil Tank Line: What Decades of Oil Heat Left Underground
Before natural gas lines reached most of Central New York, oil heat was standard, and from the 1930s through the 1980s, homeowners commonly buried their fuel tanks rather than keep them visible in the yard. Many of those tanks are still down there, quietly aging in homes built during that stretch.
An underground tank that's leaking can turn into a real liability. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation notes that cleanup for a leaking underground tank can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and that homeowner's insurance policies often carry pollution exclusions that leave the owner covering the cost directly. Removal itself is far more manageable when caught early, typically $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the tank's size, condition, and how hard it is to reach.
The disclosure form asks directly whether the seller knows of an existing or removed underground tank. Sellers aren't required to go dig up their yard to answer honestly, and "unknown" is a legitimate response. But a seller who lists a Camillus home built before the 1980s without ever having checked for a buried tank is choosing to answer that question with less information than a seller who spent an afternoon confirming one way or the other. Given how much of the region's housing stock dates to that era, this isn't a rare edge case in Camillus. It's a routine one.
The Septic Line: What Question 36 Now Says
The July 1, 2025 revision to the disclosure form added specific language to Question 36, pointing sellers toward the New York State Department of Health's informational pamphlet on septic system operation and maintenance. It's a small addition to the form's text, but it lands differently depending on where the house sits.
Camillus's village center runs on municipal sewer. Its outlying parcels, the acreage lots and rural roads that make up a meaningful share of the town's housing, run on private wells and septic systems instead. A seller on one of those parcels now has to engage with a disclosure question that a seller in a fully sewered part of the county can answer with a simple no, not applicable. Septic maintenance records, including the last pump-out date, become part of the file a buyer's agent will expect to see.
What Changed, and When
| Effective Date | What Changed | What It Means for a Camillus Seller |
|---|---|---|
| March 20, 2024 | The $500 credit option was eliminated. Sellers must complete and deliver the actual disclosure statement. | No more skipping the radon, tank, and septic questions with a check at closing. |
| July 1, 2025 | Question 36 added specific septic system disclosure language, pointing to the state's septic maintenance pamphlet. | Sellers on well and septic, common in Camillus's outlying parcels, now answer a more detailed septic question than sellers on municipal sewer. |
What This Means Before You List
None of this is a reason to worry. It's a reason to do the three things ahead of time that used to be optional.
Test for radon before your home goes on the market, not after an offer arrives. A result in hand gives you a real number to work with and, if mitigation is needed, time to schedule it on your own timeline rather than a buyer's.
If your home was built before the 1980s, spend an afternoon confirming whether a tank exists and whether it was properly removed or abandoned in place. A clean answer, either way, is worth more on the disclosure form than an honest "I never checked."
If you're on well and septic, pull your maintenance and pump-out records together before your first showing. The revised Question 36 makes this information part of a standard buyer conversation, not an unusual request.
The disclosure form does not require sellers to investigate their own property. It never has. But the law no longer lets a seller opt out of answering, and in a town where radon runs higher and older homes are more likely to carry a legacy oil tank, walking into that form with answers already in hand is simply a stronger position than walking in without them.
FAQ
Does the disclosure law still apply if I sell through an estate or a trust? Fiduciary transfers, including sales by estates and trustees, remain exempt from the Property Condition Disclosure Act under the current law. Most owner-occupied sales in Camillus do not qualify for this exemption.
Can I still choose to give a buyer money instead of filling out the form? No. The $500 credit option was removed from the law effective March 20, 2024. A seller who fails to deliver a completed disclosure statement can face liability for actual damages if the failure is found to be willful.
What if I genuinely don't know whether my home has an old oil tank? "Unknown" is an acceptable answer on the form, and the law does not require sellers to investigate conditions they aren't already aware of. Given how common buried tanks were in homes built before the 1980s, many Camillus sellers find it worth a modest inspection cost to convert "unknown" into a documented answer before listing.
Does a passing radon test at listing protect me if levels change later? The disclosure statement reflects what you know at the time you sign it. If you later learn information that would make an earlier disclosure materially inaccurate, the law requires a revised statement before closing or occupancy, whichever comes first.
If you're weighing when to list a Camillus home built before the 1980s, or you want a clear read on what your specific property's disclosure obligations actually look like, Lori Harrington has spent her career in this market and can walk you through what to check before a buyer's inspector does it for you. Let's connect.
