Selling an inherited DC condo or co-op unit

A condo or co-op estate sale has a second gatekeeper the rowhouse next door does not: the association or the co-op board. Their paperwork has its own deadlines, its own cancellation rights, and its own way of quietly killing a contract in week three. Here is the DC-specific sequence.

First: condo, co-op, or neither?

The three ownership forms look identical from the sidewalk and behave completely differently at settlement. Pull the recorded deed before promising anyone a timeline.

• Condominium. The estate owns real property — a unit plus an undivided interest in the common elements. There is a deed in the land records, and the sale is governed by the DC Condominium Act (D.C. Code Title 42, Chapter 19) on top of the probate rules.
• Housing cooperative. The estate owns shares (or a membership) in a corporation, plus a proprietary lease on the apartment. Record title to the building stays with the co-op. There is no deed for the unit, and the DC Condominium Act's resale-certificate rules do not apply — the proprietary lease and the co-op's bylaws do.
• Condo-converted rowhouse with two units. Very common in the District. Small two- and three-unit associations often have no reserves, no audited financials, and no one who has ever produced a resale certificate. Budget extra weeks, not fewer.

Either way, the authority to sign comes from probate. If the deed or the shares are in the decedent's individual name, nothing closes until Letters of Administration exist — see Letters of Administration and why they unlock the sale.

The condo resale certificate, and the clock it starts

This is the single most under-managed item in a DC condo estate sale. Under D.C. Code § 42–1904.11(a), on a resale by a unit owner other than the declarant, the seller must obtain from the unit owners' association and furnish to the purchaser — on or before the 10th business day after the purchaser signs the contract — a copy of the condominium instruments plus a certificate containing:

• the statement of unpaid assessments under § 42–1903.13(h), and if applicable the right-of-first-refusal waiver statement under § 42–1903.15;
• approved capital expenditures not in the current budget;
• the status and amount of reserves, including any earmarked by the executive board;
• the most recent statement of financial condition and the current operating budget;
• the status of pending suits and judgments involving the association;
• what insurance the association provides to unit owners;
• a statement that alterations made by the prior owner do not violate the condominium instruments;
• the remaining term of any leasehold estate and its renewal provisions; and
• the date of issuance.

The association has to produce it: under § 42–1904.11(b), the principal officer must furnish the certificate within 10 days of a written request from a unit owner or purchaser.

The cancellation rights are the part that costs estates money. Under § 42–1904.11(a-1):

A note for supervised estates: § 42–1904.01 exempts certain dispositions from this chapter's requirements, including dispositions pursuant to court order. Whether a particular court-authorised probate sale falls inside that exemption is a legal question for your attorney — and as a practical matter, buyers and their lenders still want the financials. We order the package either way.

Unpaid assessments, and the lien nobody recorded

Condo fees do not stop when someone dies, and the association's lien does not need to be recorded to exist. Under § 42–1903.13(a), an assessment becomes a lien on the unit from the time it is due and payable — with interest, late fees, collection costs and legal fees — and subsection (b) makes the recording of the condominium instruments itself record notice, so no separate claim of lien is filed.

Three provisions decide what happens at your settlement:

• Priority. The lien is prior to other liens except one recorded before the declaration, an institutional first mortgage or first deed of trust recorded before the assessment went delinquent, and liens for real estate taxes or municipal charges (§ 42–1903.13(a)(1)). It does jump ahead of that first deed of trust up to six months of budgeted common-expense assessments (§ 42–1903.13(a)(2)).
• The payoff statement is a right, with teeth. Under subsection (h), any unit owner or purchaser may request a recordable statement of unpaid assessments in writing; failure to furnish or make it available within 10 days of receipt extinguishes the lien as to that unit. A reasonable fee can be charged if the instruments allow it.
• Arrears follow the transfer. On a voluntary transfer, unpaid assessments due from the grantor must be paid, or the grantee becomes jointly and severally liable (subject to subsection (h)) — subsection (i). Practically: it comes off the estate's proceeds at settlement.

Two more timing facts worth knowing. Unless the instruments say otherwise, an unpaid assessment becomes past due on the 15th day after it was due and bears interest at the lesser of 10% per annum or the DC maximum first-mortgage rate for natural persons (§ 42–1903.12(e)). And the lien lapses if not discharged or enforced within 3 years of the assessment coming due (§ 42–1903.13(e)).

The Act also gives the association a power of sale to enforce the lien, exercisable by its chief executive officer as trustee, after a recorded and mailed Notice of Foreclosure Sale of Condominium Unit for Assessments Due and at least 31 days' notice, with newspaper advertising on 3 separate days in the 15 days before the sale (§ 42–1903.13(c)). A unit owner may cure at any time before the sale by paying the arrears, late charges, interest and reasonable fees. For an estate, the lesson is simply that a dormant fee balance is not dormant forever — keep the assessments current out of estate funds while the sale is pending, and document it in the accounting.

Holding costs beyond fees — the Class 1A rate, the vacant and blighted classifications, insurance — work the same way they do on a house: see what an inherited DC property costs to hold.

Rights of first refusal and other restraints

Some condominium instruments — and most co-op documents — give the association or the board a right of first refusal, or restrict who a unit may be sold to. In a condominium, DC law limits how much that can hurt you.

§ 42–1903.15 makes any right of first refusal or other restraint on free alienability void unless the condominium instruments provide for promptly furnishing, to a requesting unit owner or purchaser, a recordable statement certifying any waiver of, or failure or refusal to exercise, that right. And if the instruments do provide for it but the association fails or refuses to furnish the statement promptly, all such rights and restraints become inapplicable to the disposition for which the statement was requested. The statement binds the association, its executive board and every unit owner. A reasonable fee may be charged if the instruments so provide.

Co-ops are different — § 42–1903.15 sits in the Condominium Act, not in the proprietary lease. There, approval rights are contractual, and they are usually real.

Co-ops: board approval is the deal

Selling an inherited co-op in DC is less a title problem than a credentialing problem. What the estate transfers is shares plus the proprietary lease, so the questions are corporate and contractual:

1. What does the proprietary lease say happens on the death of a shareholder? Many allow transfer to the estate or to a surviving family member without full board review, and require full package review for anyone else.
2. Who signs? The personal representative, once Letters are issued — the shares are estate personal property. Expect the co-op's counsel or managing agent to want certified Letters and a death certificate before they open a file.
3. Board package and interview. Financials, references, sometimes an in-person interview. This is the step that adds weeks, and it cannot be compressed by pricing.
4. Financing. A co-op buyer needs a share loan, not a mortgage, and not every lender writes them in DC. Underfinanced co-ops, high underlying-mortgage balances, or low owner-occupancy narrow the buyer pool further.
5. Arrears and flip fees. Unpaid monthly carrying charges, assessments and any transfer or flip fee come out of proceeds. Get the numbers in writing from the managing agent early.

Because the co-op's own documents control, and because DC co-op documents vary wildly by building, treat the proprietary lease and bylaws as required reading in week one — not as something the title company will surface later. Recordation and transfer tax treatment of a co-op share transfer is genuinely different from a deed transfer; have the title company and a DC tax professional confirm what applies before you model net proceeds. Do not assume the probate deed exemptions carry over.

The probate layer on top

Everything above happens in addition to the estate work, not instead of it. The pieces that matter most for a unit sale:

• Authority. No signed contract closes without Letters. Whether you are in supervised or unsupervised administration changes whether the sale needs a court step — see supervised vs unsupervised administration.
• Disclosure. An estate fiduciary is excluded from the DC seller-disclosure requirement (§ 42–1301(b)(4)), but the association's own documents still have to be delivered, and the resale certificate carries the unit-level statements. Selling condition-as-is is covered in selling a DC estate house as-is, without repairs.
• Access and keys. Buildings with front-desk staff, fob systems, and freight-elevator reservations make showings and move-out slower than for a house. Ask the managing agent for the rules before scheduling anything.
• Personal property. A unit still full of the decedent's belongings is both a showing problem and an accounting one. Clean-out timing usually drives the listing date more than the market does.
• Multiple heirs. A single unit that four people inherit is the classic partition scenario — see partition actions in DC. If one heir wants to buy the others out, read can the PR or an heir buy the estate house first.

Realistic sequence for a unit sale

For how the estate side of that calendar actually runs in the District, see how long DC probate really takes.

Where we fit

We are a District real estate brokerage, not a law firm, a CPA firm or your association's counsel. Whether a court order changes the resale-certificate obligation, what your proprietary lease permits, and how a co-op share transfer is taxed are questions for your probate attorney, the association's counsel and a DC tax professional. Nothing here is legal or tax advice.

What we do is run the association track in parallel with the estate track: order the resale certificate and the assessment statement in writing on day one, read the budget and reserves before pricing, get any right-of-first-refusal waiver on paper, and — for co-ops — find out what the board actually requires before a buyer is under contract. We also provide a written date-of-death opinion of value the fiduciary can put in the file, whether or not the unit ever lists with us.

Related reading: selling a house in DC probate, a fiduciary's duties when the estate owns a house, inheriting a DC property with a tenant in place, and selling a DC house held in a living trust.

Sources: D.C. Code Title 20; the Probate Division of the D.C. Superior Court and the Office of the Register of Wills (dccourts.gov); and D.C. Law 25-302, the Strengthening Probate Administration Amendment Act of 2024. Rules change and individual cases vary — confirm anything that affects a decision with the Register of Wills or your own attorney.