A condo questionnaire is a form the lender sends to the HOA or its management company asking whether the project itself qualifies for financing. The borrower does not fill it out. The association does, and its answers decide whether the loan is sellable to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or FHA.
That is the part that catches people. A borrower file can be flawless and the deal still dies because a third party with no stake in the closing returned a form late, or answered one question in a way that made the whole building ineligible.
Here is what the form asks, why it stalls so often, and how much of it you can predict from documents already sitting in the file.
The short version
- A condo questionnaire is the lender's project-level underwriting form, completed by the HOA or management company, not the borrower.
- Fannie Mae publishes Form 1076 for this, and Freddie Mac's version is Form 476. Many lenders use their own variation.
- It covers project completion, ownership concentration, delinquency, reserves, insurance, litigation, leasing rules, and structural condition.
- The most common delay is not a bad answer. It is a slow one, from a management company that has no deadline pressure.
- A large share of the leasing and governance answers is readable in the CC&Rs and bylaws before the form is even ordered.
What is a condo questionnaire, and who fills it out?
It is the project-level half of a condo loan. The borrower gets underwritten on income, credit, and assets. The building gets underwritten too, and the questionnaire is how the lender collects the facts to do it.
The HOA's board or, more often, its management company completes the form. Fannie Mae publishes a standard version, the Condominium Project Questionnaire, Form 1076, which doubles as Freddie Mac's Form 476. Fannie's Selling Guide treats the form as optional and allows a substantially similar substitute, which is why many lenders send their own branded version instead. The questions are broadly the same regardless of whose letterhead is on top.
Two practical facts shape the transaction.
First, the association charges for it. Fees vary widely by management company and market, and a rush option is common at an additional cost. The borrower usually pays, though the contract can allocate it differently. Confirm the fee and the turnaround with the management company at the same time you order, because the two are rarely posted together.
Second, the timeline belongs to the management company, not to your closing calendar. Some return the form in a few business days. Some take weeks, process requests strictly in the order received, and route anything resembling a legal question to association counsel first. Nothing in the purchase contract obligates them to move faster.
The depth of the form depends on the review type. A limited review, available on some established projects with stronger down payments, asks less. A full review asks everything, including budget and reserve analysis. The lender decides which applies.
What the lender is actually checking
The questionnaire is organized around the handful of project conditions that make a loan unsellable. Broadly, it collects:
- Project completion and control. Is construction finished across all phases, and has control passed from the developer to the owners?
- Ownership concentration. How many units are owner-occupied, and how many are held by a single entity or investor. Both agencies cap single-entity ownership in larger projects.
- Financial health. The budget, the replacement reserve line, and the share of units behind on assessments.
- Insurance. Property, liability, and fidelity coverage, plus flood where applicable.
- Litigation. Whether the association is party to any, and whether it touches the structure or safety of the building.
- Leasing and operations. Rental restrictions, short-term rental activity, and whether the project operates with hotel-like or resort-like services.
- Commercial space. How much of the project's floor area is non-residential.
- Structural condition. Recent inspections, known deficiencies, deferred maintenance, and special assessments or loans tied to repairs.
Two of these thresholds are published and worth knowing precisely. Under Fannie Mae's full review requirements, no more than 15% of the total units may be 60 days or more past due on common expense assessments, and the budget must fund replacement reserves at a minimum of 10% of the budget.
Two of the most common reasons a condo loan dies have nothing to do with the buyer, the seller, or the unit. They are about how many neighbors stopped paying dues and how thinly the association funds its reserves. A single answer in the financial section can make every unit in the building unfinanceable on conventional terms. That is the mechanism behind most non-warrantable condo determinations, and the owner-occupancy ratio question sits right next to it on the same page.
Why the questionnaire stalls, and what to do about it
The structural problem is incentives. The party who has to complete the form is the only party in the chain who gains nothing from the closing. Add high request volume and a form that asks about litigation and structural defects, and slow becomes the default.
Three failure modes account for most of the damage.
It arrives late. The appraisal is paid for, the rate lock is running, and the file cannot clear conditions. Order the questionnaire at the front of the process rather than after the appraisal, and confirm the management company's stated turnaround in writing when you order.
It comes back incomplete. Management companies often leave legal or structural questions blank, or answer "unknown," particularly on the inspection and deferred maintenance sections. Blanks are not neutral. An unanswered question is usually treated as an unmet condition, and curing it can mean waiting on association counsel or an engineer's report.
It comes back accurate and disqualifying. Delinquency over the threshold, a reserve line under 10%, active structural litigation. Nothing in the file fixes this. The remaining paths are a portfolio or non-warrantable loan product, a different agency's review type, or a different building.
When it stalls, the seller is the pressure point, not the association. The seller is the one party who can push their own management company and who loses money if the deal collapses. Escalate there, in writing, early.
Watch the contingency dates rather than the closing date. Closing dates get extended routinely. Financing contingencies expire on a schedule, and the specific remedies available when a lender cannot clear conditions depend on your contract and your state's rules. That is a question for the broker or a real estate attorney, not for a blog post.
What the governing documents tell you before the form comes back
Not everything on the questionnaire is knowable in advance. Delinquency percentages, current owner-occupancy counts, reserve balances, insurance certificates, and inspection history live in the association's financials and records. Those you have to wait for.
But a meaningful share of the form is answered by the governing documents the buyer already receives during the document review period. From the recorded declaration, CC&Rs, and bylaws, you can read:
- Leasing restrictions, rental caps, minimum lease terms, and any short-term rental prohibition
- Whether the association holds a right of first refusal on sales or leases
- Whether the association may approve or reject purchasers and tenants
- Use and occupancy restrictions that signal hotel-like or transient operation
- Whether the declaration creates commercial or non-residential units
- The association's assessment authority and the vote thresholds for special assessments
- Amendment thresholds, which tell you how easily leasing rules could change after closing
Reading those first changes the sequence. Instead of waiting two weeks to learn that the declaration permits nightly rentals or gives the board a right of first refusal, you know it on day one and can decide whether the project is worth the questionnaire fee.
How ClearHOA reads this for you
ClearHOA reads any CC&R, declaration, set of bylaws, rules and regulations, or HOA addendum and returns a plain-English summary in under 90 seconds. It pulls the leasing and rental restrictions, right of first refusal, transfer and capital fees, assessment authority, use restrictions, and the warrantability flags visible in the documents, each with a reference to the section it came from. It reads like a project pre-screen, produced from the packet you already have, before anyone pays a questionnaire fee. Upload the documents and start with the flags.
Frequently asked questions
Who fills out the condo questionnaire?
The HOA's board of directors or, in most cases, the management company that administers the association. The borrower never completes it, and neither does the lender. That is what makes the timeline hard to control: the party with the pen is outside the transaction and has no closing deadline of its own.
How long does a condo questionnaire take?
It depends entirely on the management company. Some return it within a few business days, others take several weeks and process requests strictly in the order received. Many offer a paid rush option. Ask for the stated turnaround in writing when you order, and order early rather than after the appraisal clears.
How much does a condo questionnaire cost and who pays?
The association or its management company sets the fee, and it varies widely by company and market. Rush service typically costs extra. The borrower usually pays it as part of loan costs, though the purchase contract can assign it differently, and the fee is generally non-refundable whether or not the loan closes.
What happens if the HOA refuses to complete the questionnaire?
The lender cannot complete a project review without the information, so the loan usually cannot proceed on agency terms. Some lenders will accept substitute documentation such as the budget, reserve study, and insurance certificates. Otherwise the options narrow to a portfolio or non-warrantable product, or terminating within the financing contingency.
What is the difference between a limited review and a full review?
A limited review is a shorter project review available on certain established projects, generally tied to occupancy type and a larger down payment. A full review examines the association's budget, reserve funding, delinquency, insurance, and litigation in detail. The lender determines which applies based on the loan type and agency guidelines.
If you underwrite or broker condo files, run the governing documents through ClearHOA before you order the questionnaire. Leasing restrictions, right of first refusal, assessment authority, and the warrantability flags readable in the declaration come back in under 90 seconds with section citations. It gives you a project pre-screen in writing, so the questionnaire confirms what you already expect instead of ending the file two weeks in.