From Capitol Hill row-house condominiums to the newer buildings around Navy Yard and NoMa, Bellum keeps DC association finances current, documented, and ready when an owner, a buyer, or an auditor asks.
Many associations in the District are condominiums, from large buildings to small ones run entirely by volunteer owners. The DC Condominium Act gives those owners strong rights to see the books — and gives buyers a resale certificate that has to include the association's reserves, its operating budget, and its most recent statement of financial condition.
That means a DC board is only as ready as its last reconciliation. Bellum keeps the financial side current every month: receipts and expenditures recorded in detail, reserve balances tracked, a budget the board can stand behind, and year-end statements that are ready to go into a resale certificate or in front of an independent auditor.
General orientation only — your association attorney is the authority for your community.
D.C. Code Title 42, Chapter 19 (§ 42-1901.01 et seq.) applies to all condominiums created in the District. Section 42-1903.14 requires detailed records of receipts and expenditures, makes the books available for examination and copying by owners in good standing for a proper purpose, and subjects them to an independent audit at the request of owners holding one-third of the votes, or a lower percentage if the condominium instruments set one.
Under § 42-1904.11, the association must furnish a resale certificate within 10 days of a written request. It includes the status and amount of reserves, any approved capital expenditures not reflected in the operating budget, the current operating budget, and the statement of financial condition for the most recent fiscal year. A buyer who does not receive it in time may cancel the contract.
Unless the instruments say otherwise, condominium assessments become past due on the 15th day (§ 42-1903.12), and the association's lien takes priority over an institutional lender's first mortgage for up to six months of regular budget-based assessments (§ 42-1903.13). The District has no separate statute for non-condominium homeowners associations comparable to the Condominium Act; an HOA incorporated as a nonprofit operates under its own declaration and bylaws together with the Nonprofit Corporation Act of 2010 (D.C. Code Title 29, Chapter 4), which requires accounting records and gives members access to the latest annual financial statements on request (§§ 29-413.01 and 29-413.20).
The statutes and guides we point Washington, DC boards to.
The District's condominium statute: how condominiums are formed and governed, and the rules unit owners' associations operate under.
A practical checklist for HOA and condo boards on planning reserve contributions, reviewing reserve studies, and keeping reserve money separate from operating funds. It helps boards spot funding gaps and prepare for repairs without surprise special assessments.
What volunteer boards should look for when hiring a management company, one of the biggest decisions they make for the community.
How to vet landscaping, pool and maintenance vendors and what to review before the board signs a service contract.
Newsletters, email and other channels boards use to keep owners informed, including how to share budget highlights.
Which association records to keep, for how long, and why a written retention policy that follows state law matters.
Bellum supports associations across Washington, DC remotely, with clients and communities in markets including those below.
Under the Condominium Act, owners holding one-third of the votes can require one, and your condominium instruments may set a lower threshold. We keep the books reconciled monthly with supporting detail organized alongside the statements, so the auditor starts from clean records rather than a reconstruction.
The Act gives the association 10 days from a written request. Because we keep reserve balances, the operating budget, and year-end statements current, the financial figures are ready when the request comes in — the board or its counsel still signs off on the certificate itself.
Yes. Small condominiums without a management company are a good fit: we take on the accounting, assessment tracking, and reporting, and the owners keep running the building.
Send us your latest financial statement and budget and we will tell you what we would tighten up.
