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  • 2016-01-28 (xsd:date)
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  • FALSE: Illegal for Flint Residents to Sell Homes (en)
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  • In January 2016, an event known as the Flint water crisis, pertaining to lead contamination in the city's water supply and a resulting emergency in the area, emerged as a major news story. The unfolding event led to a number of rumors, including one that Child Protective Services (CPS) was threatening to take children from affected homes (which was false), and another that maintained it was illegal for Flint homeowners to sell their properties in the city due to the crisis. The Child Protective Services rumor originates with a publication called The Free Thought Project, which also published an article holding that: As with the CPS story, the portion claiming that the government had made it illegal to sell homes in Flint stemmed from a single, unvetted source, in this case a Flint resident's comment captured in a Russia Today video clip. At approximately the 1:06 mark of the clip, the resident states that it's illegal to sell your home with a known copper and lead problem, a statement widely interpreted both in media reports and on social media sites to mean that all home sales in Flint were consequently illegal: In an attempt to clarify the claim, we contacted relevant state agencies in Michigan as well as several local real estate businesses. Representatives from both Coldwell Banker and Century 21 in Flint stated they were aware of no such regulation or legal restriction on selling homes, and that property sales in Flint have not been affected by any restriction on real estate transactions. We asked whether it was expressly illegal to sell a home in which pipes required replacement, and both representatives said that the scenario would be covered in disclosures related to the transaction. (Problems relating to the home would fall under the auspices of the seller's disclosure, whereas local infrastructure matters would be disclosed by the listing broker.) On Reddit, an individual poster represented as a Flint resident expressed frustration and skepticism with both rumors, citing his own experiences and observing that the speculation failed to take into account that the situation on the ground in Flint is an emergency: Aside from statements made by one person in two interviews, we were unable to track down any information that substantiated the claim it is expressly illegal to sell homes in Flint due to the water crisis. Mays' assertion that buyers might be less keen on purchasing a home in Flint until the crisis was resolved were plausible, but it doesn't appear that any legal restrictions prevent residents of that town from selling their homes. On 29 January 2015, a representative from MDHHS's Joint Information Center responded to our inquiry: (en)
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