No one is safe –property owners from California’s first-time homebuyers to our senior citizens with homes built prior to 1981 now face the very real likelihood of decreased home values, new financial liability, forced public disclosures and mandatory government inspections due to a recent court ruling.

The California courts recently ruled that homes built before 1981 are a public nuisance because they are presumed to contain some lead paint. The ruling also saddled homeowners of homes built between 1951 and 1980 with the primary responsibility to fix the “public nuisance” problem that the court created.

The public nuisance label places frightening new burdens on the backs of California’s cash-strapped homeowners, including the likelihood of decreased property values.

Owners of homes built before 1981 must now agree to the government’s plan for searching and removing lead paint from their homes – a process that can be expensive and intrusive – to remove the stigma and protect their home values.

This will be a devastating blow for California’s seniors who depend on their home as their nest egg. For all homeowners – from low-income to middle class – the added expenses will threaten their financial stability and well-being.

The court ruling acknowledges that manufacturers of lead paint could not know the unknowable – the testing protocols that we have today did not exist at the time when the government specified the use of lead paint in government buildings and encouraged its use in homes. Similarly, the court acknowledges that “drugs, facilities, foods and products of all kinds that were at one time viewed as harmless are later shown to be anything but.”

The fact that paint companies were found retroactively liable for not knowing what science could not detect exposes all entrepreneurs to virtually limitless risk, placing an impossible burden on California’s business community. 

The court essentially decided to single-handedly override and rewrite our state’s housing policy, circumventing the California Legislature – the body of our state government that we elected to develop policies that protect the best interest of our state.

Those who are now forced to pay the price – California homeowners – were denied involvement in the court case.

Impacted homeowners deserve a voice.

One way for their voice to be heard is through their elected officials, which is why we’re calling on the California Legislature to remove the stain of the public nuisance label on homeowners.

Smart public policy happens when we come together – elected representatives, paint companies and property owners need to be part of the process and the solution.

The legislative solutions that have been proposed to date only make the problem worse for homeowners.

We would like to see a solution that lifts the public nuisance burden on homeowners and puts money directly in the hands of homeowners to clean up lead paint.

Gary Passmore is president of the Congress of California Seniors.