"Nebraska needs this legislation because we're at risk, much higher risk than a lot of those other states I named."
That line came from Curt Drew, president of National Radon Defense, testifying before a Nebraska legislative committee in support of a bill that would eventually become the state's Radon Resistant New Construction Act. The bill passed. It took effect September 1, 2019. And it created a split that most Lincoln buyers and sellers never think to ask about: whether the house in front of them was built before that date or after it.
Lincoln sits inside the EPA's Zone 1 designation, the agency's highest radon-potential category. That fact alone tends to get repeated on every radon contractor's website in town, usually as a reason to book a test. But the zone designation isn't really the useful piece of information here. Almost every house in Lincoln has some radon reading worth paying attention to. What actually varies from one house to the next, sometimes from one side of a street to the other, is what the law requires the seller to tell you about it, and whether the home already has a mitigation system built into its bones.
The disclosure form asks less than people assume
Nebraska Revised Statute 76-2,120 requires sellers of residential property to give buyers a written disclosure statement, and that statement has to include the seller's knowledge of radon gas on the property along with copies of any radon tests the seller has. That sounds like a testing requirement. It isn't. The law only requires sellers to disclose what they already know. If a seller has never tested, there's a legal answer for that, and it's the truth.
The Nebraska Real Estate Commission's actual Seller Property Condition Disclosure form asks about environmental conditions in Section B, and for each item it gives three boxes: Yes, No, and Do Not Know. Checking Do Not Know isn't evasive. Under the statute, a seller isn't liable for an error or omission in the disclosure if that information wasn't within the seller's personal knowledge. A seller who genuinely never tested for radon can check that box and be fully within the law.
This is the part that catches buyers off guard. A blank or unchecked history on the disclosure form doesn't mean the house has been tested and cleared. It usually means nobody has looked. Attorneys who work with Nebraska sellers routinely advise buyers who care about issues like radon, asbestos, or mold to arrange their own independent inspection rather than treat the disclosure statement as a guarantee, since the form itself states plainly that it is not a warranty of any kind. If you want to know a Lincoln home's actual radon number, the disclosure form was never going to be the place you found it. A test is.
New construction already has a pipe in it
Here's where build date starts to matter more than location. Nebraska's building code now requires a passive radon mitigation system in all new construction, residential and original commercial, statewide. The requirement kicked in for construction after September 1, 2019, with three narrow exceptions: the project used a licensed architect or professional engineer, the county's average radon concentration measures below 2.7 picocuries per liter, or a local building official determines the system isn't necessary for a non-residential structure.
Lancaster County doesn't come close to qualifying for that low-radon exemption. The county has a long documented history of elevated screening results. State radon program records covering small Lancaster County communities outside city limits tell a consistent story: Denton has shown an average screening level around 8.0 picocuries per liter across more than 40 tested homes. Bennet and Davey, elsewhere in the same county, show similarly elevated averages in the same dataset. None of that comes close to the 2.7 threshold that would exempt new construction from the requirement.
What that means in practice: a home built in Lincoln or the surrounding towns after September 2019 almost certainly has a passive vent pipe running from below the foundation through the roof, installed at construction and ready to work with natural airflow. A home built in 1975 two doors down has none of that unless a previous owner added one. Same neighborhood, same school of house, completely different starting point on radon. If you're comparing two similarly priced Lincoln listings and one was built five years ago while the other dates to the 1970s, the build date is telling you more about radon exposure than the address is.
A passive system isn't a guarantee of a clean test either. It's designed to work without a fan, relying on natural pressure differences to vent gas out. The EPA's general guidance still applies regardless of how new the house is: test, and if a system is already installed, confirm it's doing its job rather than assuming it is.
What actually happens when a test comes back high
If a resale home doesn't have that built-in system and a test comes back above the EPA's action level of 4.0 picocuries per liter, the process that follows has a fairly predictable shape:
- A continuous radon monitor or short-term test kit runs for several days to establish a reading.
- If the reading confirms elevated levels, a state-licensed mitigation specialist installs a system, typically a single day's work of four to eight hours.
- A post-installation test runs another two to seven days to confirm the system brought levels down.
- From first test to verified fix, the whole process usually takes one to two weeks.
Cost typically runs $800 to $2,500 depending on foundation type and how severe the reading was, with a standard sub-slab depressurization system landing closer to $1,000 to $1,500. None of this needs to blow up a closing date, but it does need to be scheduled. A test that comes back high during an option period is a timeline problem before it's a price problem, and buyers and sellers who know the one to two week window going in can negotiate around it instead of getting surprised by it.
The rule investors and landlords miss
Nebraska law draws a line that matters if you're buying a property you don't intend to live in yourself. Individuals can test the home where they personally reside without any license. Testing any other property, including one you own, requires a license issued by the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. Ownership doesn't create an exemption.
For a small investor or a landlord buying a rental in Lincoln, this means a hardware store test kit run by the new owner personally doesn't carry the same standing as a licensed test, because the owner doesn't live there. If radon testing matters to how you're evaluating a rental purchase, or you want documentation that will hold up if a future tenant or buyer asks, the test needs to come from a licensed measurement specialist. Companies like National Radon Defense and A to Z Radon Solutions both operate in the Lincoln market and can run that testing under the required state license.
What this means if you're buying or selling in Lincoln right now
The thesis here isn't that Lincoln has a radon problem worse than its reputation suggests. It's that the risk profile of any given house tracks two things that have nothing to do with which side of town it's on: when it was built, and how much the seller actually knows.
If you're selling, get an independent test before you list rather than defaulting to Do Not Know. It's legal to leave that box unchecked, but a seller who has an actual number in hand can answer buyer questions directly instead of leaving the door open for a buyer's own inspection to surface something you could have addressed on your own terms and timeline.
If you're buying, don't read a disclosure form's lack of radon history as a clean bill of health. Ask directly whether the home was built before or after September 2019, since that answer tells you whether a passive system already exists. Then build your own test into your inspection period regardless of the answer, since even a home with a built-in system deserves confirmation rather than assumption.
What Buyers and Sellers Actually Ask
Does Nebraska require a radon test before you can sell a home in Lincoln? No. State law requires the seller to disclose their own knowledge and hand over any existing test results. It doesn't require a test to be performed.
If a home was built after September 2019, does that mean it never needs mitigation? No. It means a passive system is already in place. Passive systems work without a fan and reduce risk, but confirming the actual reading with a test is still the only way to know where the number lands.
What if the seller already had the home mitigated before listing? Nebraska law requires the seller to provide copies of any radon tests they have. If mitigation happened and testing confirmed it worked, that documentation is part of what gets disclosed to you.
Radon isn't a reason to walk away from a Lincoln home, and it isn't a reason to assume a house is fine because nobody mentioned it. It's a build-date-and-paperwork question with a known cost and a known timeline, and knowing which questions to ask before you're under contract keeps it from becoming a surprise. If you're weighing a purchase or getting ready to list in Lincoln or one of the surrounding towns, Randy Ralston can walk through what a specific property's build year and disclosure history actually tell you. Let's Connect.
