CAI-National is advising that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is likely to take action in the coming months regarding several proposed revisions to the Condominium Project Approval and Processing Guidelines, which were released last June. These revisions are expected to address, among other issues, transfer fees and the troublesome certification statements.
With respect to transfer fees, CAI anticipates the FHA’s new guidelines will be more in line with the recent final rule issued by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) that allows condominiums, homeowners associations and cooperatives that collect private transfer fees with certain limitations. CAI advises that the FHA has indicated the new policy will likely permit transfer fees used for “administrative” purposes, but will continue to disallow fees that are based on a percentage of a property’s sale price.
With respect to the FHA’s required project approval certifications, CAI anticipates the FHA will make modest adjustments to this certification to clarify certain duties imposed by signing; however, CAI does not expect that the FHA will modify the existing certification to protect signors from making legal determinations or attestations that the condominium is in compliance with all applicable local, state, and federal laws and regulations.
You can read more information on these issues from CAI here.