Condo questionnaire requests: handling lenders' custom forms

Every unit sale or refinance in a condo association can bring a condo questionnaire to the management company: a lender, title company or loan processor wants facts about the project before it makes the loan. Some arrive as the standard Fannie Mae Form 1076 (the same document as Freddie Mac Form 476). Many arrive as the lender's own form, with its own numbering, wording and layout.

This guide is for the resale or closing coordinator, and the manager who signs, at a management company that fills these forms. It covers why the custom forms exist, how to triage one, where each answer should come from, and the mistakes that send forms back.

Why do lenders send their own condo questionnaires?

Fannie Mae's Selling Guide treats Form 1076 as optional. It encourages lenders to use it, and says "a substantially similar form may also be used in its place" (B4-2.1-01). Lenders take that freedom. They add questions their own underwriting or their investors want, split one 1076 question into three, or ask in a different order.

The volume is real. In a 2023 Brick Underground article, the CEO of a New York management firm said: "We usually get between five and 10 orders a week, which entails filling out between 50-150 questions per questionnaire." A FirstService Residential executive in the same piece explained why a single standard form has not taken over: "different lending institutions ask different questions."

The good news is in that same fact. Much of what a lender's form asks is also on the 1076, in different words. If your desk has a current, completed 1076 for the association, most of a custom form is a matching exercise, not research.

How do you triage a custom questionnaire?

Before answering anything, read the whole form once and sort its questions into four kinds. This takes a few minutes and saves most of the rework.

Two kinds deserve extra care. Judgment questions carry the most risk: a wrong "No" can be relied on by the lender and the buyer. And "this sale" questions are easy to confuse with project questions. "Is the unit current on its assessments?" sounds like a project fact, but the answer belongs to one unit and one date. Copy it into a template and it will be wrong on the next form.

Where should each answer come from?

The habit that separates a fast, safe desk from a fast, risky one is simple: every answer has a source you could point to if the lender called.

• From the 1076: note the line, such as "V.1 total units" or "VI.3 hazard policy number", and the 1076's completion date. A figure from a 1076 that is six months old may be stale; delinquencies and insurance change most often.
• Computed: if the lender asks for a percentage the 1076 gives as counts (owner-occupied share, investor share), compute it from the counts and say what you divided by. One reviewer quoted in the Brick Underground piece complained of answers like "2%" with no base: "Two percent of what? Sale price? Profit?"
• From an earlier answer: if you answered the same question for the same lender last month, reuse it, but check that nothing has changed since.
• From a document: budget, reserve study, attorney's letter. Note which version.

If a question has no source, it is not answered yet. Leave it for the manager rather than guessing.

How should judgment questions be answered?

Managers have good reason to be careful with these. In the same article, an executive at Maxwell Kates said: "We were warned by legal counsel to be careful about making certain statements about the structural viability of a building," and "We're not engineers." A FirstService Residential executive described answering "We are not aware of defects" when a building has no engineer's report.

Many firms keep a short list of standard wordings for these questions. If yours does, get counsel to approve the wording once, and then apply it question by question, with the manager choosing it each time rather than a template filling it in. What a statement commits the association to can depend on state law and the governing documents, so this guide does not suggest wording of its own.

What mistakes send a form back?

A project reviewer quoted in the article described what reaches his side of the desk: "We ask pretty involved questions and get one- or two-word answers." The piece also mentions a form with "zero" as the total number of shares, and one returned mostly blank. A short review pass catches most of these:

• Every question has an answer or an explicit "not applicable", never a gap
• Numbers have units and a base: "6 of 48 units (12.5%)", not "12.5"
• Unit counts add up: owner-occupied, second home and investor units do not exceed units sold
• Dates are present where asked: the as-of date of the delinquency count, policy expiration dates
• Insurance answers name the carrier, phone and policy number, not "contact agent"
• Judgment questions were answered by the manager, by name
• Borrower and loan details match the order, and were not carried over from another sale
• The signature block is signed by someone authorized to sign it

How long should turnaround be?

Lenders work to closing dates, so turnaround is where complaints start. The Brick Underground article describes common practice in New York: "Standard questionnaires can take five business days, or three expedited," and "Larger ones can take seven days, or five expedited." Each firm sets its own terms. Whatever yours are, publish them on the order page, start the clock when payment and the form are both in, and tell the lender early if a judgment question is waiting on the attorney.

The biggest lever on turnaround is preparation, not speed. A desk that keeps a current 1076, budget and insurance file for every association answers most of a 120-question custom form by matching, and spends its time on the handful of questions that need the manager. See the Fannie Mae condo questionnaire guide for what to keep in that file, and the limited condo questionnaire guide if a lender sends the short form.

Where does software fit?

Ordering portals handle ordering, payment and delivery. Questionnaire Desk does the matching step: you upload the lender's PDF, and it answers each question from the association's latest 1076 and the answers your firm approved before, with the source shown for each one. Fillable PDFs are filled in place; flat and scanned ones get a numbered answer sheet. Judgment questions are left for the manager, and nothing is signed or sent to the lender. Whether you use a tool or a spreadsheet, the method is the same: triage, a source for every answer, and the manager on the questions that need judgment. The Questionnaire Desk sample shows the method on a fictional association with no sign-up, and our comparison of an AI form filler against a condo-specific tool covers the choice of tool.

FAQ

Who fills out the condo questionnaire?

The homeowners' association, usually through its management company: a resale or closing coordinator prepares it and the community association manager, or another authorized person, signs. The lender fills in only its own contact details and the due date.

Who typically pays for the condo questionnaire?

The management company or association charges a fee for preparing it, and who ends up paying depends on the transaction and the contract: often the buyer through the lender's closing costs, sometimes the seller. Fees and any caps vary by firm and by state.

How long does it take to get a condo questionnaire?

It depends on the firm's published terms and the form. In the New York practice Brick Underground describes, a standard questionnaire takes five business days, or three expedited, and larger ones seven, or five expedited. Ask the management company for its terms when you order.