If your building has passed a special assessment — or one is on the horizon — you’re probably wondering whether it will kill your sale before it starts.

The short answer: it won’t, if you handle it right. Buyers are buying condos all over Arlington right now despite assessments, rising HOA fees, and tighter lender scrutiny. The inventory is thin (2.1 months of supply as of May 2026) and condos are selling in roughly 10 days — a sign that demand hasn’t backed off despite assessments and rising fees. Buyers have motivation.

But there are rules you must follow, and there are strategy decisions that will cost you money or deals if you get them wrong.

Here’s everything you need to know before you list.

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What Virginia Law Requires You to Disclose

Virginia is a caveat emptor state — “buyer beware.” In practice, that means buyers are expected to do their own due diligence. Sellers are not required to volunteer every unflattering fact about their unit.

But special assessments are a different matter.

Under the Virginia Resale Disclosure Act (§ 55.1-2307 et seq.), every condo seller in Virginia must provide the buyer with a formal HOA resale package — and that package must include:

• Any approved special assessment, including the amount and payment schedule
• Any pending special assessment that has been approved by the board but not yet levied
• Any expenditure approved by the association that will require an additional assessment in the current or next fiscal year
• The reserve fund balance and the percentage of reserves currently funded

Your association is required to deliver this package within 14 days of a written request. The statutory fee cap for a standard request is $150, though expedited delivery often costs more.

You don’t fill out this disclosure yourself — the HOA or condo association does. But as the seller, you’re responsible for requesting it and delivering it to the buyer. If you skip this step, or if it arrives late and incomplete, you can face contract cancellation or worse.

The bottom line: You cannot close a Virginia condo sale without delivering the resale package. If there’s a special assessment in that package, the buyer will see it. Plan for that conversation before it happens on the fly.

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The Resale Package Review Period — What It Means for You

The NVAR contract includes a negotiated review period that begins once the buyer receives the resale package. During this window, the buyer can cancel for any reason and receive a full refund of their earnest money deposit.

This period is a contract term — it’s not automatically three days. If the parties leave the field blank, it defaults to three days. But buyers and sellers can negotiate a longer or shorter window. A motivated buyer in a competitive situation may agree to a shorter period; a cautious buyer reviewing a complex resale package may push for more time.

Even an incomplete resale package starts the clock. So if your HOA delivers a partial document, the buyer’s review window begins anyway.

As a seller, you want this clock to start as early as possible. Order the resale package before you go under contract if you can — having it ready to deliver at or before ratification gives your buyer less reason to ask for an extended review window.

Work with your agent to time the request strategically. Don’t wait until you’re under contract to order it.

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How a Special Assessment Affects Your Buyer’s Financing

This is where things get complicated — and where Arlington sellers need to pay attention heading into the second half of 2026.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rolled out significant condo underwriting changes effective August 3, 2026. Every condo transaction now requires Full Review, and reserve fund minimums jump from 10% to 15%. Lenders are scrutinizing condo financials more carefully than at any point in the last decade.

What this means for special assessments:

If your building has a large pending special assessment — particularly one tied to deferred maintenance, structural repairs, or critical safety issues — your buyer’s lender may flag the building as non-warrantable. A non-warrantable condo means the buyer cannot use conventional Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac financing. Their only options become portfolio loans or cash.

That doesn’t automatically kill your deal, but it dramatically shrinks your buyer pool and likely affects your price.

Here’s the rough breakdown of how lenders tend to view assessments:

• Routine assessments (roof replacement, elevator modernization, parking deck resurfacing): Generally manageable. If the building’s reserve fund is otherwise healthy, most lenders move forward with documentation.
• Large structural or safety-related assessments: May trigger a non-warrantability determination. Buyers will need alternative financing.
• Multiple consecutive assessments: A red flag for lenders and sophisticated buyers alike. Signals ongoing reserve fund shortfalls.

If you’re not sure which category your building falls into, that’s exactly the kind of building-level analysis I run for every listing before we set a price.

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Who Pays the Special Assessment — and What Your Contract Says

Here’s something many Arlington condo sellers don’t realize until they’re already under contract: under the standard NVAR purchase agreement, you’re already on the hook for the assessment.

Paragraph 19 of the NVAR contract — the Title paragraph — states that the seller will pay any special assessments and comply with all notices or orders of violations affecting the property on the settlement date. Unless you and the buyer negotiate different terms in writing, the seller pays off the assessment at closing. Full stop.

That changes how you think about strategy. The question isn’t really “should I pay it or pass it to the buyer?” — it’s “how do I price this property knowing I’m paying the assessment, and are there deal structures that make more sense given the numbers?”

What Your Options Actually Are

Pay it off at settlement (the NVAR default). Under a standard contract, the assessment balance gets paid out of your proceeds at closing, just like any other lien or obligation. This is the cleanest outcome for buyer financing and requires no special negotiation. If the assessment is fully levied and the amount is known, your net sheet will simply reflect it as a closing cost.

Negotiate a price reduction with the buyer taking the assessment. If you and the buyer agree in writing to a different arrangement — where the buyer assumes responsibility for a pending or ongoing assessment — you can structure the contract that way. This typically shows up as a lower sale price reflecting the buyer’s future obligation, along with explicit contract language shifting the assessment responsibility. It’s workable, but it requires the buyer’s lender to be comfortable with it, and not all lenders are.

Seller credit in lieu of paying the assessment. Another negotiated approach: price at market and offer a closing cost credit that offsets what the buyer will eventually pay. This can keep your list price competitive for online search visibility while making the economics work. Lender rules cap seller credits at 3%–6% of the purchase price depending on loan type, so confirm the numbers with your agent and the buyer’s lender before committing to this structure.

The key point: know your assessment balance before you list, factor it into your net sheet, and don’t get surprised at the closing table.

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What Sophisticated Buyers Will Ask

In Arlington’s current market, many buyers — particularly Amazon HQ2 employees, government contractors, and DC-area transplants — are well-informed. They’re reading condo financial statements. They’re asking about reserve fund health. If they’re working with a good buyer’s agent, they’ll know to ask:

• What is the current reserve fund balance and percentage funded?
• Is the building Fannie Mae-warrantable?
• What was the special assessment for, and has the underlying issue been resolved?
• Are there any additional assessments expected in the next 1–3 years?

The last question is the one that really matters. A one-time assessment that fixed a real problem (new roof, repaired parking structure) is very different from the first in a series of assessments that signal ongoing underfunding. Buyers who understand this distinction will discount more aggressively for the second scenario.

Be prepared to tell the story clearly: what the assessment was for, whether the problem is resolved, and what the building’s financial picture looks like going forward. Transparency here builds buyer confidence. Evasiveness destroys it.

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Neighborhoods Where This Matters Most

Not all Arlington condo buildings are created equal on this issue. Buildings in Rosslyn, Crystal City, and Pentagon City tend to be older high-rises with larger common areas, more complex mechanical systems, and — in some cases — years of deferred maintenance now coming due. The older the building, the more likely an assessment is in the pipeline.

Newer buildings in Ballston, Clarendon, and Virginia Square generally have newer systems and more recent reserve studies, though some rapid-construction buildings have had their own structural surprises.

The point: you need building-level intelligence, not neighborhood generalizations. What happened in 1400 Crystal Drive last year has nothing to do with what’s happening in a newer Ballston tower next door.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Bottom Line

A special assessment is a speed bump, not a dead end — if you go in with the right information and a clear strategy.

What will hurt you is discovering the assessment mid-transaction, scrambling to explain it to a nervous buyer, and watching the deal unravel during the resale package review period. That’s the version of this story I help my sellers avoid.

Every building in Arlington has a different financial picture right now. Before you price your unit, you need to know exactly what your resale package will say, how it will land with buyers and their lenders, and how to frame it as a solvable problem rather than a red flag.

That’s exactly the kind of building-level analysis I run for every seller before we ever talk about going live.

If you want to know what your unit is actually worth — not a Zestimate, but a real building-level analysis — that’s what I do. Start your selling plan at ArlingtonCondo.com/sell.

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About Rick Bosl

Rick Bosl is Arlington’s condo specialist — with 23+ years of experience, 325+ transactions closed, and $165M+ in sales volume focused almost exclusively on Arlington’s condo market. As the founder of ArlingtonCondo.com and Managing Broker at KW Metro Center, Rick knows every building, every floor plan, and what buyers in each neighborhood are willing to pay. He holds the CRS and GRI designations and brings an electrical engineering degree and MBA to every transaction — because condo decisions should be driven by data, not guesswork. Licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and DC.