Apache County Affidavit of Disclosure Form

The Arizona Affidavit of Disclosure is a sworn seller's disclosure required under ARS 33-422 for sales of five or fewer parcels of unimproved or improved land in an unincorporated part of an Arizona county. The statute exists because a large portion of Arizona's private real estate sits outside city limits — on ranches, in unincorporated subdivisions, in the vast rural tracts of Mohave, Yavapai, Cochise, and other counties — and these parcels often lack the services, access, zoning protection, and infrastructure that buyers coming from urban markets assume are in place. The affidavit forces specific disclosures about legal access, physical access, flood risk, soil problems, water and wastewater availability, road maintenance, and similar rural-parcel issues. It is a separate instrument from the general seller property disclosure statement, and it is one of only a few Arizona real estate documents that is recorded alongside the deed itself.

When the Arizona Affidavit of Disclosure Is Used

ARS 33-422 applies specifically to sellers of five or fewer parcels of land located in an unincorporated area of an Arizona county. Typical applications include private sales of rural land by individual owners, sales of vacant lots in rural subdivisions, sales of acreage in unincorporated Mohave County (which has substantial rural land tracts sold to out-of-state buyers), sales in unincorporated Yavapai, Cochise, Pinal, and Coconino county land markets, and estate and family transfers of inherited rural property where the transferring party falls within the five-parcel threshold. The statute does not apply to sales of property within city limits, sales of subdivided land by a regulated subdivider (who is already subject to the separate Arizona subdivision disclosure regime), or sales in counties' incorporated areas where the general seller disclosure statement framework governs.

The Five-or-Fewer-Parcel Threshold

The "five or fewer parcels" language in ARS 33-422 is the trigger for the affidavit requirement. A seller who is selling a single lot from their personal real estate holdings falls within the statute; a seller who regularly sells larger volumes of property is typically operating as a subdivider and falls under a different regulatory regime administered by the Arizona Department of Real Estate. The threshold is evaluated at the seller level, not the transaction level — an individual owner selling their one rural lot falls within the statute; a developer who owns hundreds of parcels and is selling one at a time does not. When a seller's activity crosses into subdivider territory, the detailed subdivision disclosure requirements under ARS 32-2181 et seq. apply instead, with significantly broader and more formal disclosure obligations.

Exclusions From the Seller Definition

ARS 33-422 specifically excludes certain parties from the "seller" definition for purposes of the affidavit requirement. A trustee of a deed of trust conducting a trustee's sale under ARS 33-800 et seq. is not a "seller" required to provide the affidavit — the foreclosure buyer takes subject to the limited disclosures the trustee has made and to any documents of record, not to a seller's disclosure affidavit from a fiduciary who has no personal knowledge of the property. A sheriff or other officer conducting an execution sale under ARS Title 12, chapter 9 or Title 33, chapter 6 is similarly excluded. When the seller is a trustee of a subdivision trust as defined in ARS 6-801, the disclosure affidavit is provided by the beneficiary of the subdivision trust, not the trustee — the trustee holds bare legal title as a financing accommodation, and the beneficiary is the real economic seller who has the information required to make the disclosures.

Timing — Seven Days and Five Days

ARS 33-422(A) requires the seller to provide the written disclosure to the buyer at least seven days before the transfer of property. The seven-day period gives the buyer time to review the disclosures, investigate any concerning items, and consult with professionals if needed. ARS 33-422(D) gives the buyer a five-day right of rescission after receiving the affidavit — the buyer can cancel the transaction for any reason during those five days. This combination (at least seven days before closing, with a five-day post-receipt rescission window) creates a disclosure and reflection period that does not exist in ordinary Arizona residential sales, and it is materially consequential for deal timelines in rural transactions. A seller who delivers the affidavit too late — within the week of closing — creates a right in the buyer to delay or cancel that the seller may not have anticipated.

The Substantive Disclosures

The content required by ARS 33-422 is designed to surface the specific risks of rural, unincorporated Arizona land. Legal access is the threshold issue for many rural parcels — does the property have an easement of record or a legally established right of access from a public road, or is access only across private land with no formal arrangement? Physical access is a separate question — even when legal access exists, the physical roadway may be a dirt track maintained by no one, impassable in monsoon season, or in practical disrepair. Road maintenance disclosure — who, if anyone, maintains the road — matters because rural roads are often maintained by informal neighbor cooperation, by private HOAs, or not at all, and county road maintenance is often not available to purely private rural roads.

FEMA floodplain designation affects insurance costs and construction feasibility. Fissures and expansive soils are particular hazards in Arizona — earth fissures related to groundwater overdraft in certain basins can destroy structures, and expansive clay soils common in parts of the state cause foundation damage over time. Services (electricity, gas, telephone, cable, internet) are often unavailable or available only through expensive extension agreements in rural areas. Water supply — whether by private well, hauled water, a water-hauling service, or a water company — is one of the most consequential disclosures, because water availability drives habitability and rural well conditions vary widely. Wastewater treatment (septic, alternative on-site system, or hookup to a sewer where available) affects development potential and ongoing costs. Zoning and land-use restrictions, proximity to military installations (as reflected on the Arizona Department of Real Estate's military airport and facility maps), and pending legal actions that may cloud title are all on the statutory disclosure list.

Legal Access — the Most Common Rural Title Problem

Legal access deserves particular attention because it is the single most consequential item on the affidavit for rural Arizona property. A parcel with no recorded easement to a public road is effectively unusable — the owner cannot get to the property without trespassing, cannot build without construction access, cannot sell to a buyer whose lender requires recorded access, and often cannot secure title insurance at ordinary terms. Many Arizona rural parcels were subdivided informally decades ago without proper access planning, and owners have used historical practice across neighbors' land that was never reduced to recorded easements. The affidavit of disclosure puts the seller on record about access, which both protects the buyer from unpleasant surprises and, in the case of a misrepresentation, creates the basis for a claim against the seller.

Emergency Services Disclosure

The affidavit includes statutory notice language about the potential inaccessibility of the property to emergency services — a service provider is not liable for damages resulting from inability to reach the property in an emergency. In rural Arizona, this is not theoretical: ambulance and fire response times can be lengthy on rural roads, and roads that become impassable in monsoon flooding can isolate properties for days. Buyers coming from urban markets sometimes underestimate the practical consequences of rural isolation, and the statutory notice is designed to make the issue explicit.

Seller Liability for Omissions and Misrepresentations

The affidavit is sworn testimony by the seller, signed under penalty of perjury before a notary. Seller liability for material omissions and misrepresentations can include actual damages for the buyer's losses, statutory penalties in certain circumstances, rescission of the transaction, and in extreme cases claims of fraud. This exposure is why the affidavit should be completed carefully, with the seller disclosing everything the seller actually knows rather than attempting to minimize or qualify. "I don't know" is often a legitimate answer to disclosure questions when the seller genuinely does not know — but reckless disregard for the truth is not a defense, and a seller who marks "not applicable" to avoid a disclosure the seller should have investigated can face liability as though the disclosure had been false.

Recording the Affidavit

ARS 33-422 requires the affidavit to be recorded alongside the deed of transfer in the office of the recorder in the county where the property is located. This dual-recording requirement — the deed and the affidavit both go on the record together — is distinctive to the rural-land context and creates a permanent record of the seller's disclosures in the chain of title. Subsequent sellers are also required to execute and record an affidavit of disclosure when they later sell the property, and each subsequent affidavit replaces the prior one in the chain. This means a buyer researching a rural property's history can see the most recent seller's disclosures in the recorded chain, which is materially different from the general seller property disclosure statement that is typically delivered to the buyer but not recorded.

Subsequent Sellers and Continuing Obligation

The disclosure obligation runs with each sale of a qualifying rural parcel, not just the first. When a buyer of rural land later resells the property, that subsequent seller must execute and record a new affidavit of disclosure, reflecting the seller's current knowledge — which may be greater than, less than, or the same as the prior seller's knowledge. Conditions that existed but were not disclosed in the prior affidavit may now be disclosed if the new seller has learned about them; conditions that have changed (access has been formalized by an easement of record, a well has failed, services have become available) should be updated in the new affidavit. The successive affidavits create a disclosure history in the chain of title that is useful to future buyers.

Relationship to Other Disclosure Documents

The affidavit of disclosure is in addition to — not a substitute for — other disclosure documents Arizona sellers may be required or expected to provide. For residential sales, sellers typically provide a seller property disclosure statement covering a broader range of subjects; the affidavit of disclosure addresses the particular rural-land issues that the general statement does not. For new construction, contractor disclosures apply on top of the affidavit. For property in active litigation, lis pendens and related disclosures are separate. The affidavit is specifically the rural-unincorporated-land document — valuable precisely because rural land has issues that the general disclosure regime does not reach.

Execution and Acknowledgment

Under ARS 33-401 and 33-422, the affidavit must be in writing, signed by the seller, and acknowledged before a notary public or other officer authorized to take acknowledgments. Arizona does not require subscribing witnesses. When the seller is a business entity or a fiduciary, the signatory's representative capacity should appear in the signature block. When multiple sellers are conveying together — for example, married co-owners — each seller should sign the affidavit, because each is making the sworn disclosures.

Formatting and Recording

ARS 11-480 sets the formatting requirements for every recordable instrument: legible type of at least ten points, white paper no larger than 8.5 by 14 inches, a caption identifying the document (for example, "Affidavit of Disclosure"), a top margin of at least two inches on the first page reserved for the recorder's stamp, and minimum half-inch margins elsewhere. Record the affidavit with the county recorder in the county where the property is located, at the same time as the deed. Confirm current recording fees and accepted forms of payment with the county recorder's office in advance.

What's Included in the Download Package

The Arizona Affidavit of Disclosure package includes the affidavit form structured around the substantive disclosures required by ARS 33-422 — legal access, physical access, road maintenance, flood plain designation, fissures and expansive soils, services, water supply, wastewater, zoning, and pending legal actions — detailed guidelines covering the Arizona-specific drafting, timing, and recording requirements and the interaction with the buyer's five-day rescission right, and a completed example showing how the form should look for a typical rural land sale. All files are available for instant download after purchase.