Can You Sell a House with Mold?

If you’ve lived in your house for a while and noticed a black spot on the wall, or perhaps a home inspection revealed mold in your house, you might wonder if this will affect your home sale. What can you do? What are your options? Most importantly, can you sell a house with mold? The fast answer is yes, but read on to learn more about why mold is an issue, where it’s likely to crop up, and how it can affect your real estate deal.

Why Mold Matters

For most potential home buyers, seeing mold or finding out that it’s lurking somewhere in the walls instantly makes them hesitant. For good reason too. Apart from making a house smell old, mold has been known to cause a variety of health problems, especially when residents experience long-term exposure. Airborne mold spores enter our respiratory system and can cause difficulty breathing, wheezing, coughing, rashes, headaches, and sneezing (to name a few side effects).

Three types of mold are pathogenic, allergenic, and toxigenic. While allergenic mold spores won’t typically cause severe side effects other than allergic reactions and asthma symptoms, toxigenic mold spores like black mold produce toxins and pathogenic mold spores cause infections that can be life-threatening.

Where We Find Mold

Mold is a type of fungi that can be found mostly everywhere; however, it doesn’t grow until it lands on something. It grows both indoors and outdoors wherever there’s moisture and oxygen. In terms of growing on properties, mold typically likes to grow in areas that experience consistent moisture. 

For example, if your house has a wet roof, moss can grow which can then lead to mold spreading inside the house. Another such likely place is a leaky roof that could cause mold growth in an attic. Leaking pipes, crawl spaces near dirt or soil, and bathrooms are other places where moisture can be trapped and create a breeding ground for mold.

Mold isn’t just damaging to our health, but it can damage the physical structures it grows on by weakening them over time. The walls, tiles, floorboards or insulation can all be rotted away by mold. 

There’s Mold… Now What?

If you find mold in your house there’s no need to pack up your bags or completely disregard the listing. The Environmental Protection Agency advises that a moldy area less than 10 square feet could be taken care of personally through different mold cleanup tactics. However, scrubbing off mold with detergent and water might not work on tricky surfaces like carpet and ceiling tiles. In that case, or in cases where the mold is more widespread, professionals can inspect your home, track down the source of mold and thoroughly remove it.

Do You Need to Inform Potential Buyers About Mold?

Whether or not you need to disclose mold before you sell your house varies from state to state. However, the majority of states require that sellers disclose any defects in paperwork (including whether or not the home has a history of water damage/mold, and if so, if there were any professional treatments carried out to remedy the issue). 

Regardless of your state’s specific requirements, informing potential buyers about mold is the best way to handle the situation. Not only are you protecting them from future health problems, but it ensures there’s no problem with the buyer later down the road—no one wants to get sued! 

Alternatively, potential buyers should look out for listings that are for sale by owner because sometimes the seller is unaware of underlying issues or they’re less than forthcoming about the home’s misgivings, especially if the state doesn’t require sellers to disclose mold. Buyers may include an inspection contingency which may allow them to cancel the deal should they find an environmental hazard like mold. 

How Does Mold Affect a Real Estate Deal?

How much mold affects your real estate deal depends on how severe the mold problem has spread and where it’s located. If the mold is primarily located outside, it shouldn’t be too much of a health concern, but sellers should still ensure it doesn’t affect the curb appeal of the house, taking measures to remove it before the house is listed. If the mold is inside, potential buyers may find it easier to accept if the mold is found in a common area like a windowless bathroom with a shower. However, if mold is found in typically dry areas like the walls or floors, it can be a warning of larger underlying issues. 

Who Pays to Remove the Mold?

There are typically two options. One, the buyer pays less for the moldy home because they will have to pay for the mold remediation themselves (costing up to $6000). Or two, the seller and buyer may reach an agreement where the seller agrees to fix the mold problem. The buyer can’t force the seller to fix the mold issue, but if the seller doesn’t accommodate, the buyer may walk away from the deal. 

How much power the seller holds in these negotiations depends on the current real estate market conditions. Presently, America is experiencing a nationwide seller’s market with tense competition and low inventory, meaning that the seller may refuse to make concessions and the buyer may be forced to compromise.