Buy a condo in Austin: read the resale certificate and the documents behind the fee

What documents must a seller give a condo buyer in Austin?

When you buy a condo in Austin from anyone other than the developer, Texas Property Code Section 82.157 says the seller “must furnish to the purchaser a current copy of the declaration, bylaws, any association rules, and a resale certificate that must have been prepared not earlier than three months before the date it is delivered to the purchaser,” and must do so “before executing a contract or conveying the unit.” The certificate comes from the association, which must furnish it “not later than the 10th day after the date of receiving a written request by a unit owner.” If the association misses that deadline, the seller may give you a sworn affidavit instead, and the two of you may agree in writing to waive the certificate; think hard before you do.

The TREC Residential Condominium Contract (Resale), form 30-18 effective May 4, 2026, turns the statute into deadlines. Paragraph 2 says the certificate “must have been prepared, at Seller's expense, no more than 3 months before the date it is delivered to Buyer,” and that if you have not received the documents or the certificate at signing, “Buyer may terminate the contract within 7 days after Buyer receives the Documents” and again within 7 days after receiving the certificate, with the earnest money refunded. Separately, Section 82.156 lets a buyer who signed without the documents “cancel the contract before the sixth day after the date the purchaser receives those documents.”

Two more papers belong in the same folder. The Seller's Disclosure Notice under Property Code Section 5.008 applies to “residential real property comprising not more than one dwelling unit,” which includes a condominium unit, and TREC's form OP-H asks about the roof type and age, water penetration, flood claims and every appliance and system the unit carries. And Chapter 82 reaches older buildings: it applies in full to condominiums declared on or after January 1, 1994, but Section 82.002(c) applies the resale-certificate, lien, records, insurance and management-certificate sections to earlier regimes as well, so a 1970s Austin building owes you the certificate too.

Sources: Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗ · Texas Real Estate Commission ↗ · Texas Property Code, Chapter 5, Section 5.008 ↗

What does the TREC Condominium Resale Certificate (form 32-5) tell you?

The TREC Condominium Resale Certificate, form 32-5 dated November 4, 2024, is the association's sworn snapshot of the building's finances and legal position for the unit you are buying in Austin. It is signed by an officer or authorized agent of the association, carries the notice that it “must be prepared no more than three months before the date it is delivered to Buyer,” and requires three attachments: the operating budget, the insurance summary and the balance sheet. Its sixteen lettered items track the fourteen statements Section 82.157(a) requires.

Read the money lines together. Item B is the periodic assessment; items C and D are what the seller owes and has not paid; item E is capital spending the board has already approved for the next 12 months; item F is the reserve balance and how much of it is earmarked for a named project; items O and P are the transfer fees and any capital contribution the buyer pays at closing. Section 82.157(c) gives you one protection if the certificate is wrong: if it “incorrectly states the total of delinquent sums owed by the selling unit owner,” the buyer is not liable for delinquencies above the stated total.

The non-money lines are where surprises hide. Item A flags a right of first refusal that can slow or stop the sale; items H and I list unsatisfied judgments and pending suits; item K asks whether the board knows of alterations to the unit that violate the declaration; item L asks whether a governmental authority has sent code-violation notices; and item M discloses any leasehold under the building and how it renews. A blank where an answer belongs is a question, not a pass.

Sources: Texas Real Estate Commission ↗ · Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗

How do I read a condo budget, reserves and special assessments in Austin?

An Austin condo's monthly fee is the association's annual budget divided among the units, so the budget, not the fee, is the number to read. Section 82.112 requires that assessments “be made at least annually and must be based on a budget adopted at least annually by the association,” and Section 82.114 requires the association to keep “detailed financial records that comply with generally accepted accounting principles,” the minutes of association and board meetings, and, for buildings constructed after January 1, 1994, the plans and specifications, and to “annually obtain an independent audit of the records” as a common expense. Under Section 82.1141 those books are open to any unit owner, which means your seller can pull the last audit and twelve months of minutes for you.

Lenders publish the thresholds they use, and they are a fair yardstick for a buyer. Fannie Mae's Full Review requires a budget that “provides for the funding of replacement reserves for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance that is at least 10% of the budget,” and that “no more than 15% of the total units in a project are 60 days or more past due on common expense assessments.” A building that fails either test may still be a fine place to live, but it will be harder to finance and, later, harder to sell.

Special assessments are the budget's confession. Item E of the certificate lists capital expenditures already approved, and Fannie Mae's ineligible-projects rule states that “if the special assessment is associated with a critical repair and the issue is not remediated, the project is ineligible.” Compare the reserve balance in item F against the roof, elevator, plumbing and facade items in the minutes; if a named project has no earmarked reserve, the money will come from a future assessment. Under Section 82.113, every assessment “is a personal obligation of the unit owner and is secured by a continuing lien on the unit,” with priority over most other liens except property taxes and a first deed of trust recorded before the delinquency.

The fee sits on top of the taxes, not inside them: the lien section itself ranks “a lien for real property taxes and other governmental assessments or charges against the unit” ahead of the association's lien, and those taxes are billed to you separately. Our note on building a home budget from the actual parcel covers the taxing units, and the payment estimator lets you add the assessment to principal, interest and taxes for a real asking price.

Sources: Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗ · Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.2-02 ↗ · Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.1-03 ↗

What does a lender check before financing an Austin condo?

A mortgage on an Austin condo is underwritten twice: once on you, once on the building. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide is blunt about the second review: “before delivering a loan secured by an individual unit in a project, the lender must determine that the project meets Fannie Mae's eligibility requirements,” using a Full Review through Condo Project Manager, a Fannie Mae review through its Project Eligibility Review Service, or a streamlined process for established projects. The lender's condo questionnaire to the association is where the certificate's numbers get tested.

The disqualifiers are specific. Fannie Mae defines projects in need of critical repairs as those “needing repairs or replacements that significantly impact the safety, soundness, structural integrity or habitability of the project's building(s),” including “material deficiencies, which if left uncorrected, have the potential to result in or contribute to critical element or system failure within one year” and “any mold, water intrusions or potentially damaging leaks.” A building under a partial or total evacuation order “is ineligible until the unsafe condition has been remediated,” and if an inspection report shows unaddressed critical repairs, “the project is ineligible until the required repairs have been completed and documented accordingly.”

FHA financing has its own gate: HUD's condominium lookup lets anyone search FHA-approved projects by location, name or status, and shows each project as Approved, Expired, Rejected or Withdrawn. Check it before you write an FHA offer. The building's recorded management certificate under Section 82.116 is also worth pulling from the county records, because it must list the management company and “the amount and description of a fee or fees charged to a unit seller or buyer relating to a transfer.” With the 30-year rate at 7.03% in late September 2026, the September 2026 market note shows what a project-review delay costs if a rate lock expires.

Sources: Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.1-01 ↗ · Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-2.1-03 ↗ · U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ↗ · Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗

Who insures what in an Austin condo building?

In an Austin condominium the association insures the building and you insure the inside of your unit, and the line between the two is drawn by the declaration and the master policy. Section 82.111 requires the association to maintain “property insurance on the insurable common elements insuring against all risks of direct physical loss commonly insured against, including fire and extended coverage, in a total amount of at least 80 percent of the replacement cost or actual cash value of the insured property,” plus commercial general liability coverage. Where units are stacked, with horizontal boundaries in the declaration, the master policy “must include the units, but need not include improvements and betterments installed by unit owners.”

If that coverage is not reasonably available, the association must tell every owner and lienholder. The resale certificate's item J states whether the association provides coverage for the benefit of unit owners, with the insurance agent's summary attached; that summary is what your own agent needs to write the unit policy. The Texas Department of Insurance describes the owner's side plainly: “condominium insurance covers your personal property and the interior of your unit. It also provides liability protection and pays additional living expenses.”

Send the master-policy summary and the declaration's unit-boundary definition to your insurance agent before the option period ends, and ask two questions in writing: what the master policy's deductible is and how the declaration allocates it, and whether your policy will cover an assessment the association levies after a loss. Neither answer is on the listing.

Sources: Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗ · Texas Real Estate Commission ↗ · Texas Department of Insurance ↗

What rules can a condo association enforce on how you use the unit?

An Austin condo association's power over your unit comes from Section 82.102, which lets the board “regulate the use, maintenance, repair, replacement, modification, and appearance of the condominium” and “adopt and amend rules regulating the use, occupancy, leasing or sale, maintenance, repair, modification, and appearance of units and common elements, to the extent the regulated actions affect common elements or other units.” Leasing limits, pet rules, renovation approvals and parking assignments all live in the declaration and rules you receive under Section 82.157, and the certificate's item A tells you if the declaration contains a right of first refusal on any sale.

The declaration also draws the property lines inside the building. The TREC contract conveys the unit “together with such Unit's undivided interest in the Common Elements designated by the Declaration, including those areas reserved as Limited Common Elements appurtenant to the Unit,” and asks the parties to list the parking areas and assigned spaces. Whether a balcony, a window, a water heater or a patio is yours, shared, or shared-but-reserved decides who pays when it fails, and the answer is in the declaration's definitions, not in what the unit looks like. A detached condo on a Bouldin Creek lot and a downtown high-rise unit are the same legal animal; the Bouldin Creek cottage-or-infill note and the Mueller shared-responsibilities note show how different the answers can be.

Condominium declarations are not the same as subdivision deed restrictions, though both are recorded with the Travis County Clerk and both run with the land; the zoning and deed restrictions note covers the subdivision side. New-construction condos add a third layer: Section 82.152 requires the developer to give you a condominium information statement before the contract date or conveyance, whichever is earlier, Section 82.158 requires your deposit to be held in escrow in Texas, and Section 82.162 requires any improvement the developer may never build to be labeled “NEED NOT BE BUILT” in the sales material. The new-construction guide covers the rest of a builder purchase.

Sources: Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗ · Texas Real Estate Commission ↗

How should a buyer turn the condo documents into an offer in Austin's 2026 market?

Start from what the market data can and cannot tell you about an Austin condo. Unlock MLS's August 2026 report puts the City of Austin median sale price at $560,000, down 4.3% from a year earlier, on 844 closed sales, with 4,554 active listings and 4.6 months of inventory, but the release covers all residential homes and does not break out condominiums, so no published median describes your building. Price a unit against closed sales in the same project and its nearest comparable buildings, adjusted for floor, view and the assessment.

Then run the paperwork on a calendar. Ask for the declaration, bylaws, rules and a certificate under three months old at contract, and diary the seven-day termination window from the day each arrives. Send the certificate, budget, balance sheet and insurance summary to your lender and insurance agent the same day, because the project review and the master-policy summary decide whether the loan closes and what the unit policy costs. Read twelve months of minutes for building-wide items and match each to a budget line or an earmarked reserve. Inspect the unit as you would a house, and treat anything on the other side of the unit boundary as a question for the association.

None of this predicts assessments or prices, and the statutes above are not legal advice; a Texas real estate attorney reads a declaration faster than a buyer does. If you are weighing a specific unit, bring the address and David can request the documents, line up the building's closed sales and put the assessment beside the taxes and the payment so you are comparing the whole cost of owning it.

Sources: Unlock MLS ↗ · Texas Property Code, Chapter 82 ↗ · Texas Real Estate Commission ↗