Selling a house with knob and tube in California is legal, and no state rule requires replacing the wiring first. What a seller owes the buyer is disclosure: the electrical statement every seller now delivers, and an honest answer about known defects. The real decision is whether to rewire before listing or disclose and let the price reflect it.
LA Knob and Tube replaces knob and tube wiring in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale and South Pasadena, for owners who are rewiring to sell as well as owners staying put. This guide covers the forms, the tradeoffs and the documentation. It is not legal advice; your agent or a real estate attorney decides how your disclosures are worded.
The electrical statement every seller now gives
Since January 1, 2026, Civil Code section 1102.6i requires the seller or the seller’s agent to deliver a prescribed electrical statement to the buyer. It advises that the buyer may want a qualified professional to inspect the main service panel, subpanels and wiring. It warns that substandard, recalled or faulty wiring may be a fire risk and may make property insurance difficult to obtain, and that limited electrical capacity may hinder solar, electric heating and water heating, or EV charging. Sales within three years of the certificate of occupancy are exempt.
The statement is the same text for almost every resale, whatever the wiring. It is not a statement that your house has a problem, and it does not replace disclosing what you know. What it does is invite buyers to look closely at the electrical system, which makes it more likely knob and tube will be found during escrow if it is there. Sellers who know what their wiring is, and can show it, are better placed when that happens.
The Transfer Disclosure Statement
The Transfer Disclosure Statement under Civil Code section 1102.6 asks sellers about known significant defects or malfunctions in a list of components that includes electrical systems. The form does not name knob and tube.
The practical question is what you know. If a past inspection, an insurer’s letter or an electrician has told you the house has active knob and tube, that knowledge exists whether or not you write it down, and a buyer’s inspector is likely to find the wiring anyway. Disclosing a known condition, with whatever documentation you have, usually costs less than having it surface late in escrow. Your agent or a real estate attorney can advise on wording.
Fix before listing, or disclose and price it in
Neither path is right for every house. The choice turns on a few facts.
How much is still live. A house where only a few bedroom circuits remain is a different conversation from one where most of the house runs on original wiring. A knob and tube inspection before listing tells you which you have and gives you a written scope to show buyers.
What buyers’ insurers will do. Buyers need insurance to close with a lender, and some carriers decline houses with active knob and tube. If your likely buyers face that, the wiring becomes a closing risk, not just a price point. The California insurance guide explains how carriers’ answers differ.
Time before listing. Rewiring a house takes days to weeks, depending on circuits and access, plus patching and the city inspection. Done before staging, it disrupts an empty or lightly furnished house, and openings can be patched and painted before photos.
How buyers price uncertainty. A buyer facing an unknown scope may ask for more than the work would cost. A written scope and price, even if you do not do the work, narrows that gap.
Rewiring first removes a negotiation point and an insurance obstacle but puts the cost and the schedule on you. Disclosing and pricing it in is faster, and it leaves the buyer free to choose the scope, but the discount is out of your hands. Some sellers split the difference with a partial replacement of the circuits that carry the heaviest loads or sit near water, such as kitchens and bathrooms, plus any attic runs. For full replacement, whole-house rewiring is the cleaner story to tell a buyer.
For budgeting, whole-house knob and tube replacement typically costs $10 to $20 per square foot of living area in the LA area before panel work and patching, and a national budgeting range for a typical house is $12,000 to $35,000. The LA cost guide explains what moves a house within those ranges.
Documenting partial work
Partial replacement is where sales most often go wrong, because a house that is partly rewired is easy to describe as rewired. A buyer’s inspector who finds live knob and tube in a bedroom after the listing said “rewired” has a reason to distrust everything else.
The documentation that prevents that is straightforward. Keep the permit and its final inspection. Keep the contractor’s invoice describing what was replaced. Keep the labeled panel schedule. And keep a written list of every circuit that still runs on knob and tube, with the rooms and outlets it serves, which is what a partial job leaves you with. The guide to active and abandoned knob and tube explains why “disconnected at both ends” is the phrase a buyer’s electrician will look for.
If earlier owners did the work, look for permits on the building department’s records. In the City of Los Angeles, LADBS permit history is public, and a finaled permit for past rewiring is useful evidence even if you never met the contractor.
Answering buyers’ requests
If a buyer asks for the wiring to be replaced before closing, ask for their insurer’s written requirement so the scope matches it. If you agree to do the work, it should be permitted and finaled before close, with a labeled panel and a list of anything remaining. If you would rather offer a credit, a written scope and quote from your own evaluation gives the number a basis. The buying guide shows the same process from the other side of the table.
If you are a few months from listing, that is enough time to map the wiring and decide. Call and we can start with an evaluation.