Property Condition Assessment (ASTM E2018)
Your lender has asked for a Property Condition Assessment. Here is what that is, what you get, and how it fits the time you have left.
A PCA is a baseline assessment of a commercial building’s physical condition, carried out to ASTM Standard E2018 — the North American guideline for this work. It is what lenders, insurers, purchasers and incoming tenants rely on when they need an independent account of what a building is in for.
What ASTM E2018 actually requires
The standard describes a baseline process with three parts, and a report that pulls them together.
The walk-through survey
A visual, non-invasive observation of the building and the site: structure, envelope, roofing, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection and life safety, interior elements, paving, drainage and utilities. Systems are observed in the condition they are found. Nothing is opened up, taken apart or destructively tested.
Document review
Whatever exists and can be obtained — drawings, permits, maintenance records, service and inspection reports, prior assessments, warranty documents. Good records shorten the job and sharpen the findings. Missing records are themselves a finding, and we say so. On buildings that have been added to over four or five decades, which describes a lot of the northern stock, the gaps in the paperwork are often the most useful thing in the report.
Interviews
Conversations with the people who know the building day to day: the owner, the property manager, the building operator, sometimes the tenants. They tell you where the water gets in and which unit has never worked properly.
What the report contains
- 1
A description of the property and the systems observed.
- 2
The physical deficiencies identified, each one photographed and located.
- 3
A statement of the methodology, the date of the walk-through, and what was and was not accessible on the day.
- 4
Recommendations — repair, further investigation by a specialist, or monitor.
- 5
An opinion of probable costs to remedy, covering immediate repairs and, where you ask for it, a table over an agreed term so you can build it into a capital plan.
- 6
The documents reviewed and the people interviewed.
Reports include photographs, notations and recommendations, and are delivered online through your client portal.
What a baseline PCA is not
Being clear about the boundary is part of the standard, and it protects you as much as us.
- It is not destructive or invasive. Nothing is opened up, cut into or dismantled.
- It is not a code-compliance certification, a permit review or a legal opinion.
- It is not an environmental site assessment. Contamination, soils and hazardous-materials investigations are separate scopes under separate standards.
- It is not a statutory strata depreciation report. If that is what you need, see the strata page — the boundary matters and it is explained there.
- It does not guarantee that nothing will fail. It records what a qualified observer could see, on that day, and what it means.
Who orders one
Purchasers, before subjects come off. Lenders and insurers, as a funding or binding condition. Tenants taking on repair and maintenance obligations under a lease, who would rather know now what they are agreeing to maintain. Owners planning a refinance, a capital budget or a sale who want the findings on their own schedule rather than the buyer’s. And, in this part of the valley, councils, school districts and non-profit or institutional owners who need an independent condition record before a budget or a grant application is finalised.
Fitting a PCA into your due-diligence window
Call us the day the requirement lands, not the week it is due. Tell us the address, the building type and approximate size, the deadline, and who is asking for the report — a lender’s expectations and a tenant’s are not the same, and the scope should be agreed against them.
What usually costs people days is access: roof hatches, mechanical and electrical rooms, sprinkler and fire-alarm rooms, tenant spaces that need notice. We tell you exactly what to line up before we arrive so the site visit is one visit. After the walk-through we go through the findings with you on site, then the written report follows.
Who does the work
Vin McConnachie carries out the assessment personally. Trained in commercial building inspection through Carson Dunlop Weldon & Associates Ltd Canada, a Qualified Home Inspector with Carson Dunlop Canada, and the holder of a Higher National Certificate with Commendation in Building Surveying from Greenwich University, London. Consumer Protection BC Home Inspector Licence #78731. Thirty years and more of assessing buildings in the UK and Canada, and since 2005 across the Okanagan — now working from Vernon and the North Okanagan.
Get the assessment booked
Call or text (250) 212-4025 with your deadline, or book online and tell us the date you are working to.