Do you have to disclose smoking history when selling a house in California?
Yes, if you actually know about it. AB 455 added Civil Code 1102.6k effective January 1, 2026, and it requires a seller with actual knowledge of tobacco or nicotine smoke residue, or of any history of occupants smoking tobacco or nicotine products on the property, to disclose that in writing. The statute covers vaping and e-cigarettes but does not name cannabis. There's no duty to test, and no fine attached, but a disclosure delivered after the buyer's offer is executed can trigger the standard cancellation window under Civil Code 1102.3.
Most LA sellers have never heard of this one. It took effect January 1, 2026, it applies to your sale whether your house is a $900,000 Fairfax duplex or a $9 million Hollywood Hills estate, and it's sitting on a form your agent is going to hand you.
It's also the kind of disclosure that costs nothing if you handle it in week one and can cost you a buyer if it surfaces in week four.
WHAT THE LAW ACTUALLY SAYS
AB 455, authored by Assemblymember Liz Ortega, was chaptered October 3, 2025 as Chapter 263 and took effect January 1, 2026. It added Civil Code 1102.6k.
The operative language is short. A seller who has actual knowledge of the existence of any residue from smoking tobacco or nicotine products, or any history of occupants smoking tobacco or nicotine products on the property, has to disclose that knowledge to the buyer in writing. The statute calls it "the sole responsibility of a seller," which is unusual phrasing and puts the duty on you rather than on your agent.
Three details do most of the work here.
It's disjunctive. Residue, or a smoking history. Those are two separate triggers. You can have no detectable residue at all and still owe the disclosure because a prior tenant smoked on the property and you know it.
Vaping counts. The statute defines smoking tobacco or nicotine products to include "the use of an electronic cigarette or vape device for inhaling an aerosol." A house where nobody ever lit a cigarette but someone vaped for three years is in scope.
Smell is a statutory indicator. The definition of residue says it "may be indicated by the smell of tobacco smoke or by test results that indicate elevated levels of nicotine on surfaces or in dust." If you can smell it, arguing you didn't know is a hard position.
WHAT IT DOESN'T REQUIRE
You do not have to test. There's no inspection duty, no obligation to hire anyone, and no requirement to go looking for something you don't know about. The Assembly's own analysis of the bill made this explicit: sellers are not obligated to conduct independent investigations or testing to uncover unknown hazards.
You also don't have to remediate. The law is a disclosure statute, full stop.
And there's no fine. Civil Code 1102.13 governs the consequences across this whole family of disclosures: a sale is not invalidated solely because someone failed to comply, and a person who willfully or negligently fails to perform the duty is liable for the buyer's actual damages. No statutory penalty, no punitive schedule. What you're exposed to is ordinary damages, measured by remediation cost or diminution in value, plus the usual concealment and misrepresentation claims that ride along with any disclosure failure.
That sounds mild until you price out sealing and repainting a 4,000-square-foot house with nicotine-stained surfaces.
THE PART THAT AFFECTS YOUR ESCROW
Here's where we've seen the most confusion, including in write-ups by people who should know better.
AB 455 itself contains no cancellation right. Civil Code 1102.6k has two subdivisions and neither one mentions rescission, termination, or a number of days.
The cancellation right comes from the article-wide provision, Civil Code 1102.3, which has been on the books for decades and applies to any disclosure required by this article. If a required disclosure, or a material amendment to one, is delivered after the buyer's offer to purchase has been executed, the buyer gets:
- Three days after delivery in person
- Five days after delivery by deposit in the mail
- Five days after delivery of an electronic record, where the parties agreed to transact electronically
to terminate the offer by written notice.
Two things follow from that, and both matter.
Timing is everything. Deliver the smoke disclosure before the offer is executed and there's no cancellation right at all. Deliver it late, and you've handed a buyer who's gotten cold feet a clean, documented exit. In a market where the buyer at $4 million is already price-sensitive and taking their time, that's not a theoretical risk.
This application hasn't been tested. No published court decision has construed Civil Code 1102.6k, and the statute is only about eight months old. The reasoning is solid, because 1102.6k opens with "in addition to any other disclosure required pursuant to this article" and 1102.3's right attaches to any disclosure required by that same article. But it's an inference from the structure of the code, not a holding. Run it past your transaction attorney rather than treating it as settled.
Either way, the practical answer is the same one we give on every disclosure: get it delivered early, in the package, before anyone writes an offer. Late disclosures are what create rights. This is the same logic we walk through with sellers weighing whether a pre-listing inspection is worth it.
WHOSE SALE THIS COVERS
The statute says "single-family residential property," which sounds narrower than it is. Civil Code 1102 pulls its definition from Business and Professions Code 10018.08, and that definition reaches:
- Real property improved with one to four dwelling units
- A unit in a residential stock cooperative, condominium, or planned unit development
- A mobilehome or manufactured home sold through a real estate broker
So condos are in. Duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes are in. If you're selling income property in the Fairfax or Melrose District, this applies to you. Buildings of five units or more and commercial property are out. An ordinary rental tenancy isn't a transfer at all, but a lease with an option to purchase, a ground lease coupled with improvements, or a leasehold running more than a year sits inside the article.
The standard exemptions carry over from Civil Code 1102.2, so court-ordered and probate sales, foreclosure and lender-owned sales, transfers by a fiduciary administering a trust or a decedent's estate, co-owner to co-owner transfers, and transfers between spouses or within the line of consanguinity are all exempt.
One thing you cannot do is contract around it. Civil Code 1102(c) makes any waiver of the article's requirements void as against public policy.
One more scope question comes up constantly, so it's worth separating cleanly. The statute does not mention cannabis or marijuana anywhere. Its operative term throughout is "tobacco or nicotine products."
The C.A.R. Seller Property Questionnaire is broader. The 12/25 revision added items at Section 18 asking about any occupant "smoking or vaping any substance on or in the Property, whether past or present," alongside a separate question about tobacco and nicotine residue.
So if you're selling with a C.A.R. contract, you'll be answering a question about cannabis that the statute doesn't ask. That's a form and contract obligation rather than a statutory one, and the honest answer is still the right answer. But it's worth knowing which is which if a question comes up about scope.
WHAT WE TELL SELLERS
Answer it in the listing package, not in escrow. If a previous tenant smoked, say so. If you smoked in the house for a decade and remodeled since, say both. If you're not sure whether what you smell is smoke, get a test before you list rather than after a buyer's inspector raises it, because a test result you commissioned is a fact you control.
The disclosure itself almost never kills a deal. Discovering it late does.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Do I have to test my house for thirdhand smoke before selling in California?
No. AB 455 imposes no testing or inspection duty. The obligation is triggered by actual knowledge only, and the Assembly's analysis of the bill confirmed that sellers are not required to investigate to uncover hazards they don't know about.
Does the smoke disclosure law cover marijuana?
The statute does not. Civil Code 1102.6k reaches tobacco and nicotine products, including e-cigarettes and vape devices, and never mentions cannabis. The C.A.R. Seller Property Questionnaire is broader and asks about smoking or vaping any substance, so most California sellers will answer the cannabis question as a matter of the form rather than the statute.
Can a buyer cancel escrow because of a smoke disclosure?
Only if it reaches them after their offer was executed. Civil Code 1102.3 gives a buyer three days after personal delivery, or five days after mail or electronic delivery, to terminate in writing when a required disclosure arrives late. No court has yet applied that provision to a smoke disclosure specifically, so confirm it with your transaction attorney. Either way, delivering it up front with the rest of the package forecloses the question.
Does this apply to condos and duplexes in Los Angeles?
Yes. The definition reaches one to four dwelling units, plus condominium, stock cooperative, and planned unit development units, and it applies whether or not you rent the property out. Buildings of five or more units and commercial property are outside it.
What happens if I don't disclose smoking history?
There's no fine and the sale isn't voidable on that basis alone. Under Civil Code 1102.13, a willful or negligent failure makes you liable for the buyer's actual damages, which in a smoke case typically means the cost of sealing, repainting, and replacing affected surfaces, and it opens the door to concealment and misrepresentation claims.
The smoke disclosure is cheap to handle and expensive to handle late, which describes most of California's disclosure regime. If you'd like the same kind of market read we share with our clients every month, sign up for Real Brief, our monthly insights into the LA luxury real estate market, delivered straight to your inbox.
Alexis Ramos and Luke Abbott are the founders of Ramos & Abbott Homes, a luxury real estate team with Sotheby's International Realty in Beverly Hills. Together they specialize in architectural and historic homes, new construction, and income properties across West Hollywood, Sunset Strip, Hancock Park, Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, Melrose District, Fairfax District, Sunset Square, and Spaulding Square.
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