Lender Questionnaire Checklist for Property Managers Handling Co-op and Condo Sales

A lender questionnaire checklist for property managers should cover: governing documents, current budget and financials, master insurance policy details, assessment and reserve status, litigation disclosures, occupancy mix, and any known repair or deferred-maintenance issues. For condo sales, lenders often work from Fannie Mae Form 1076 or similar project-review forms. The fastest way to avoid delays is to keep verified building records organized before a sale or refinance request ever arrives.

The email shows up in your inbox on a Tuesday. Closing is in three weeks. The buyer's lender needs the questionnaire back by end of week. The budget is in a folder from last fiscal year, insurance is with your broker, and no one is certain whether the last special assessment was formally closed out.

The problem is not filling in blanks on a form. The problem is knowing which answers are current, documented, and safe to send. A wrong number on a condo questionnaire, or an unanswered field about deferred maintenance, can slow a transaction or flag the building as ineligible with lender review systems.

Boardly focuses specifically on NYC co-op and condo operational work, where building records, prior decisions, and recurring transaction requests sit at the center of a manager's week. This guide gives you a complete operational checklist before the next request arrives.

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What a Lender Questionnaire Is and Why Managers Get Pulled In Late

A lender questionnaire is a building-level due-diligence request sent to the managing agent or HOA on behalf of a buyer or refinancing borrower. The lender needs project-level facts before it can evaluate the loan. A co-op questionnaire and a condo questionnaire serve the same purpose but differ slightly in structure, because co-ops involve proprietary leases and share ownership rather than deeded units.

For condo transactions, many lenders use Fannie Mae Form 1076 (also Freddie Mac Form 476), a standardized project questionnaire covering financial, legal, and physical condition information. The Fannie Mae Selling Guide full review process confirms that lenders performing a full project review must ensure condo and co-op projects meet applicable eligibility requirements before delivering the loan. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac permanently adopted enhanced lending requirements as of July 2023, partly in response to the 2021 Surfside, Florida condominium collapse.

Managers often get pulled in late because the request comes in at contract stage, while the records that answer it were created months or years earlier.

Term	What it means	Who completes it
Condo questionnaire	Building-level financial and physical due diligence for a condo unit purchase or refi	Managing agent or HOA
Co-op questionnaire	Similar to condo, but covers the cooperative corporation structure and proprietary lease details	Managing agent or board
Lender questionnaire	The general term used by lenders; may reference Form 1076/476 or a proprietary form	Managing agent or authorized board rep
Form 1076 / Form 476	Joint Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac standardized condo project questionnaire (December 2021 addendum adds deferred maintenance and structural questions)	HOA or management company

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Lender Questionnaire Checklist for Property Managers

This section is the operational core. The verifier column is the part most checklist guides skip; it tells you who is accountable for confirming each answer before it leaves your office.

Building Identity and Governing Documents

• Legal name of the building entity (co-op corporation or condominium association)
• Physical address and number of residential units
• Bylaws (confirm current version with any recorded amendments)
• Declaration or proprietary lease (co-op)
• House rules if the lender specifically requests them
• Offering plan reference, if the project was originally sold under one
• Tax ID for the HOA or co-op corporation

Verifier: Manager file and board secretary. Do not pull an older version of the bylaws without checking for amendments filed after the last version you have on record.

Financials, Reserves, Assessments, and Arrears

• Current adopted operating budget
• Most recent year-end financial statements (audited or reviewed, depending on what the lender requests)
• Latest interim financials if the lender asks and the board has approved sharing them
• Reserve fund balance and any available reserve study
• Status of any special assessments: active, closed, or pending
• Unit owner delinquency data only if the lender requests it and you are authorized by the board to share it

Verifier: Managing agent and accountant. Do not estimate reserve balances or assessment status from memory.

Note: Some lenders and underwriters have internal thresholds around budget reserves and delinquency rates. Do not state those thresholds as universal requirements; verify any specific number against the individual lender's instructions.

Insurance, Litigation, and Claims History

• Master insurance policy: carrier, coverage type, policy period, and coverage amount
• Liability coverage details
• Fidelity or crime coverage if verified and confirmed in the policy documents
• Open claims or active litigation: confirm status with board counsel and the insurance broker before answering
• Any upcoming policy renewal gaps or coverage changes

Verifier: Insurance broker for policy details; board counsel for litigation status. Never paraphrase litigation status from memory or prior questionnaire answers. If litigation is active, escalate to counsel before responding.

Occupancy, Transfers, and Project Characteristics

• Total residential unit count
• Owner-occupancy figures if tracked by the building
• Investor or non-owner-occupied concentration if documented
• Commercial space square footage, if any exists in the building
• Rental restrictions or sublet policies in place
• Pending sponsor or bulk investor ownership data if documented

Verifier: Manager records. If your building does not track a specific metric, say so clearly and route the lender to the correct source rather than estimating. Per the Fannie Mae Condo Status Finder, project eligibility can be affected by insurance, litigation, short-term rental activity, and reserve-related issues.

Repair, Safety, and Deferred Maintenance Records

• Major capital projects completed or currently underway
• Known structural or safety issues: answer based on documented engineering reports, not verbal history
• Any engineering or inspection reports cleared for disclosure by counsel
• Open building-wide repair items that the questionnaire specifically asks about
• Funding plan for deferred maintenance components, if one exists

Verifier: Manager file and board counsel where disclosure is in question. Since the December 2021 updates to Form 1076, lenders have added specific questions about deferred maintenance, outstanding code violations, and whether the building has a structural or safety deficiency. Condo questionnaires now ask directly whether the HOA is aware of any deficiencies related to the safety, soundness, structural integrity, or habitability of the project's buildings. Answer only what is documented.

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What Documents Should Be Ready Before a Co-op or Condo Sale Hits Your Inbox?

The goal is a standing file you can open on the day the request arrives, not a folder you have to build from scratch under deadline pressure.

A practical folder structure for each building:

• Evergreen folder: Bylaws (current version), declaration or proprietary lease, house rules, tax ID, unit count, HOA or co-op corporation legal name
• Current-year folder: Adopted budget, year-end financials, insurance binder, assessment status memo, any capital project summary
• Sent questionnaires log: Every questionnaire sent, dated, with a note on the form version used. Mark each entry: do not reuse without re-verifying all answers.

A dated compliance calendar across buildings helps confirm whether certificates, budgets, and insurance renewals are current before a request arrives. Reviewing your NYC co-op and condo compliance calendar can also surface which documents are coming due.

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How to Answer a Condo or Co-op Questionnaire Without Guessing

Recycling last year's questionnaire response is one of the most common sources of transaction errors. Building facts change: assessments close out, litigation resolves, budgets are amended, insurance renews on different terms. An answer that was accurate twelve months ago may be wrong today.

A five-step response process:

1. Identify the exact form version. Is the lender using Fannie Mae Form 1076, the Freddie Mac condo review workflow, or a proprietary questionnaire? Each may ask questions in different ways.
2. Verify each answer against a source document. Do not answer from memory. Every field should map to a file: the budget, the insurance cert, the board minutes, the attorney's litigation update.
3. Flag unknowns explicitly. If you cannot verify an answer, write "pending verification" and route the question to the appropriate party: broker, counsel, accountant, or board officer. Do not estimate.
4. Escalate high-risk fields. Litigation status, structural disclosures, and deferred maintenance questions carry legal and financial risk. Escalate these to board counsel before submitting.
5. Keep a copy of exactly what was sent and when. Date-stamp your response file. If the form is revised later or the lender asks a follow-up, you need a record of what you certified.

Building a habit around this process is how you stop losing building decisions to scattered records and outdated answers.

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Where Boardly Fits When Lender Questionnaires Keep Interrupting the Week

The hardest part of a lender questionnaire is usually not the form itself. It is locating the current, board-approved, lender-safe version of the building facts before the deal clock runs out.

NYC property management software built for co-op and condo firms should do one specific thing well here: give you a single organized location for every building's records, history, and decisions, so that when a questionnaire arrives, you are pulling from a verified source rather than searching three email inboxes and a shared drive.

For firms using Boardly, the operational fit is direct:

• Building records and governing documents stored in one place, accessible across the portfolio
• Prior questionnaire responses and board decisions kept as searchable history
• Institutional memory that survives staff turnover and building transitions

You can explore Boardly features to see how the record and workflow capabilities map to recurring manager requests.

When this is not the right fit: Boardly helps organize records and history. It does not replace lender instructions, legal review from board counsel, insurance advice from your broker, or building-specific underwriting judgment. If your main need is mortgage origination, enterprise accounting, or legal compliance review, that requires the appropriate professional.

Boardly is Boardly's own platform, included here because this article discusses ways to organize recurring co-op and condo record requests.

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Common Mistakes That Slow Sales, Refinances, and Package Reviews

• Sending a prior questionnaire as the current response. Fix: always re-verify every field against current documents before resubmitting.
• Using a stale budget or old insurance certificate. Fix: keep a current-year folder updated after each renewal or budget adoption.
• Answering litigation or structural questions from memory. Fix: escalate these fields to counsel or your broker every single time.
• Leaving fields blank instead of writing "pending verification." Fix: an unanswered field can result in the building being flagged as ineligible in lender review systems, including Freddie Mac's Condo Project Advisor.
• Over-answering or sharing unauthorized financial details. Fix: only share what the lender specifically requested and what the board has authorized you to disclose.
• Inconsistent numbers across documents. Fix: cross-check the budget figure, the financial statements, and any assessment references before submitting; a discrepancy triggers follow-up questions.

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FAQ

What is a co-op questionnaire? A co-op questionnaire is a building-level due-diligence form sent to the managing agent or cooperative corporation on behalf of a buyer or refinancing borrower seeking mortgage financing on a co-op unit.

What is a condo questionnaire? A condo questionnaire asks the HOA or managing agent to provide financial, legal, and physical project information a lender needs to evaluate a unit purchase or refinance loan.

Who usually fills out a lender questionnaire for a condo or co-op sale? The managing agent or an authorized representative of the HOA or co-op corporation fills out the questionnaire. Answers to sensitive fields involving litigation or structural issues should be confirmed with board counsel.

What documents do property managers need before a lender questionnaire arrives? At minimum: current budget, year-end financials, master insurance binder, assessment status, governing documents (bylaws, declaration, proprietary lease), and unit count. Have these in one verified location.

Can you answer a lender questionnaire from an old file? No. Building facts change each year. Always re-verify every answer against current source documents, even if the form looks identical to last year's.

What if the board or manager does not know an answer? Write "pending verification" and route the question to the appropriate party: broker, counsel, or accountant. Do not estimate or leave the field blank.

Why do condo questionnaires ask about repairs or deferred maintenance? Following the 2021 Surfside collapse, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac permanently updated their requirements to include deferred maintenance, structural integrity, and safety deficiency questions. An unanswered or flagged field can affect project eligibility for conforming loans.

Are co-op and condo questionnaires the same thing? No. They serve the same due-diligence purpose, but co-op questionnaires reflect cooperative corporate structure and proprietary lease arrangements. Condo questionnaires typically map to standardized forms such as Form 1076.

What slows down a lender questionnaire most often? Missing or outdated documents, unanswered fields (especially around litigation and deferred maintenance), inconsistent financial numbers, and delayed responses from brokers or counsel.

How should property managers store prior questionnaire responses? In a dated log, separate from live building records, marked with the form version used and the date sent. Never reuse a prior response without re-verifying every answer against current documents.

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A Simple Next-Step Process for Your Next Questionnaire Request

The goal is a repeatable system, not a scramble.

1. Build the standing questionnaire folder with evergreen governing docs and a current-year subfolder.
2. Assign document owners by category: broker for insurance, accountant for financials, counsel for litigation.
3. Verify each answer against a source document before the form leaves your hands.
4. Log every response sent, including form version, date, and what was included.
5. Fix the storage problem before the next sale or refinance so you are not repeating this from scratch in three months.

If lender questionnaires keep pulling your team back into old folders and unanswered inboxes, get started with Boardly to see how centralized records change the workflow. For questions about how it fits your portfolio, talk to the Boardly team.