Buying and selling

Selling a home in a fire hazard zone

AB 38 requires documented defensible space compliance when a home in a High or Very High zone changes hands. Unlike the Zone 0 rule, this machinery already exists, already runs, and does not wait for anything.

What the law requires

For a home in a High or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, the seller must provide the buyer with documentation showing the property complies with defensible space requirements, before close of escrow. The requirement comes from AB 38 and sits in Civil Code 1102.19.

Since 1 July 2025, sellers must also provide information on the State Fire Marshal's low-cost retrofit list, disclose which of those retrofits were completed during their ownership, and disclose known structural vulnerabilities.

If documentation cannot be obtained in time, buyer and seller may agree in writing that the buyer will obtain it within a set period after closing. The exact window is set locally — Ventura County allows 60 days after closing. Get the agreement in writing and file it as the local agency requires.

The threshold is wider than Zone 0's

Worth being precise about, because it trips people up. Zone 0 reaches Very High zones in the LRA, and the whole of the SRA. AB 38 reaches High or Very High, in either responsibility area.

So a High-zone property in the LRA can be outside the state Zone 0 rule while still being squarely inside the AB 38 disclosure requirement.

The process varies enormously by county

There is no statewide inspection procedure, fee, or lead time. Each fire agency runs its own. Two worked examples:

	Ventura County FPD	City of San Diego
Trigger	High or Very High, SRA or LRA	Very High
Inspection fee	No fee currently	$163 Home Risk Assessment
Typical turnaround	7–10 days	Varies
Recommended lead time	Minimum 2 weeks before escrow closes	Ask when booking
Correction window	30 days from notice, or before escrow closes, whichever is first	Per compliance plan
Buyer assumption	Up to 60 days after closing, filed via C.A.R. Form FHDS	Not published

Neither is representative. That is the point — check yours rather than assuming.

Practical sequence for sellers

Confirm your zone and your fire agency before listing. Both matter, and in some counties the city and the county fire district are different bodies with different forms.
Book the inspection early. Two weeks is the minimum most agencies suggest; in a busy season it slips.
Walk the property first and clear the obvious failures. Re-inspection after corrections is a second appointment and a second wait.
Assemble the retrofit disclosure alongside the inspection — the low-cost retrofit list, what you completed, and known vulnerabilities.
If you will not make it, agree the buyer-assumption addendum in writing and file it with the fire agency before escrow closes.

How Zone 0 changes this

Once the Zone 0 rule is in force, defensible space compliance includes the Zone 0 requirements that have come due. That means the inspection a seller passes in year four is a harder inspection than the one in year one, as successive tiers land.

Two practical consequences. Sellers in later years should expect to do more before listing. And buyers acquiring a property mid-phase-in inherit whatever tiers remain outstanding — worth pricing into the deal, and worth asking about specifically rather than relying on the compliance document alone, which speaks to the requirements in force on the day it was issued.

For agents. The disclosure documents themselves — including the C.A.R. Form FHDS — are copyrighted forms available through the California Association of Realtors. Nothing on this site reproduces them, and you should use the current official version rather than any copy found online.

Local disclosure processes

Sources: Civil Code 1102.19; AB 38 (2019) and subsequent amendments; Ventura County Fire Department AB-38 Real Estate Defensible Space Inspection FAQ and VCFPD Ordinance 34 Section 617; City of San Diego Fire-Rescue published guidance.