Resale Disclosure Act; resale certificate, responsibility for payment of insurance deductible.
HB1704 amends Virginia’s Resale Disclosure Act by revising the required contents of a resale certificate that a common interest community association must provide when a unit is sold. The bill keeps the existing disclosure framework but reorganizes and expands the list of items that must be included, covering governing documents, assessments, budgets, reserve studies, judgments and pending litigation, insurance information, board and association meeting minutes, leasehold terms, occupancy limits, and a range of use restrictions affecting flags, solar devices, signs, parking, home-based businesses, and rentals.
A key change is the explicit disclosure that governing documents may make an owner responsible for all or part of an insurance deductible when filing a claim against association-provided insurance. The bill also requires certification that the association has filed its annual report with the Common Interest Community Board, including the filing number and expiration date. Overall, the measure is aimed at improving transparency for buyers in condominiums, cooperatives, and other common interest communities by ensuring resale certificates contain more complete and standardized information.
The bill amends § 55.1-2310 of the Code of Virginia, which governs the form and contents of resale certificates under the Resale Disclosure Act. Its practical effect is to expand and clarify the disclosures associations must provide in connection with the sale of a unit in a common interest community, affecting condominium associations, property owners' associations, and cooperative associations, as well as buyers and sellers in those communities. It also reinforces the Common Interest Community Board’s role by tying the resale certificate to the association’s annual report filing status.
The bill appears to have been broadly supported and noncontroversial. It advanced unanimously through subcommittee, committee, and floor votes in both chambers, passing the House 97-0 and the Senate 39-0. The voting record suggests general agreement that the added disclosures are a consumer-protection and transparency measure rather than a contentious policy shift.
No significant opposition is reflected in the available record. The main policy issue embedded in the bill is the expanded disclosure burden on associations, especially the new requirement to disclose potential owner responsibility for insurance deductibles and the detailed listing of restrictions on rentals, solar devices, flags, signs, parking, and home-based businesses. Any concern would likely come from common interest community associations or stakeholders wary of added administrative requirements, but the unanimous votes indicate those concerns did not become a major point of contention.