Virginia HOA and condo laws: management company interview questions

Virginia gives community-association boards an unusually useful starting point for evaluating management companies. The Commonwealth licenses common interest community managers, regulates parts of their conduct, requires written management contracts, and maintains statutes for property owners' associations and condominium associations. Those rules do not choose a company for the board. They help the board ask for evidence instead of accepting a generic promise to "handle compliance."

The legal framework depends on the community. A planned community may be governed by the Virginia Property Owners' Association Act. A condominium may be governed by the Virginia Condominium Act. The declaration, condominium instruments, articles, bylaws, rules, resolutions, contracts, development history, and other law also matter. The Common Interest Community Board and Office of the Common Interest Community Ombudsman administer licensing, registration, complaint, and regulatory functions within their authority.

Give Virginia association counsel the recorded documents and community facts before treating any checklist as a legal conclusion. A management company should administer counsel-approved procedures, preserve evidence, meet contract duties, and escalate questions. It should not quietly act as the association's lawyer.

This guide was reviewed against official Virginia sources available on October 21, 2026. It is general board education, not legal, accounting, tax, audit, insurance, reserve-study, fair-housing, debt-collection, foreclosure, employment, construction, cybersecurity, or real-estate advice. Laws, regulations, forms, licenses, and agency procedures change. Verify current official sources and obtain qualified Virginia advice for the association's facts.

Give each finalist the same association profile

Prepare one written fact set before the interviews:

• Community type, formation date, recording information, development phases, annexations, and declarant-control status.
• Declaration or condominium instruments, plats, articles, bylaws, rules, resolutions, policies, and amendments.
• Legal entity name, tax identification number, Virginia registration status, registered office or agent, and Common Interest Community Board registration when applicable.
• Number and type of lots or units, common areas or elements, amenities, private infrastructure, employees, commercial components, and master or sub-association relationships.
• Current assessments, reserves, debt, delinquencies, insurance, claims, litigation, major contracts, capital projects, and known compliance issues.
• Banks, payment processors, accounting system, owner portal, domains, records repositories, integrations, vendors, and recovery contacts.
• Meeting, election, budget, reserve, disclosure, records-request, complaint, resale, enforcement, collection, maintenance, and insurance calendars.

Require every candidate to identify assumptions, exclusions, and questions for counsel. A strong proposal distinguishes management work from board decisions and professional advice.

1. Are the company and assigned people properly licensed and certified?

Ask:

What Virginia common interest community manager license covers this engagement, which employees will provide management services, how are they certified and supervised, and how will the board verify current status?

Virginia Code section 54.1-2346 generally prohibits a person from acting as a common interest community manager without a license unless an exemption applies. Subsection C of section 54.1-2346 addresses employee certification and supervision. The Common Interest Community Board publishes licensing and regulatory information and a public license lookup.

Request:

• The exact legal name of the contracting entity and its Virginia license number.
• Names, roles, credentials, and employment status of the assigned manager, supervisor, accounting team, and backup staff.
• The certification and supervision arrangement for employees performing management services.
• Any subcontractor or affiliated company performing bookkeeping, collections, maintenance coordination, call-center, technology, inspection, or disclosure work.
• Public disciplinary history and the date the board verified each relevant license.
• Written notice requirements for a lapse, discipline, ownership change, supervising-person change, or replacement of key staff.

Check current status directly through the Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation. An industry designation, biography, or proposal badge does not replace a state license or employee certification when one is required.

2. Does the proposed contract include Virginia's required protections?

Virginia law and the Common Interest Community Manager Regulations require a written contract and address its contents. Ask the candidate to annotate its agreement against the current statutory and regulatory requirements rather than merely stating that the template is compliant.

Review with counsel:

• Contracting parties, effective date, term, renewal, termination, and transition period.
• Services, exclusions, service standards, response times, assigned team, supervision, and backup coverage.
• Management fee, event fees, pass-through costs, payment-processing charges, affiliated-vendor compensation, annual increases, and termination charges.
• Authority for spending, contracting, collections, banking, investments, reserves, records, notices, and emergency work.
• Fidelity or employee-dishonesty coverage and other required or promised insurance.
• Funds handling, financial reporting, record access, complaints, data security, incident response, software, ownership, and exports.
• Conflicts, disclosures, legal referrals, collections, maintenance, resale work, and subcontractors.
• Termination duties, record delivery, final accounting, cooperation, and deadlines.

Map each sales promise to a contract section, named role, frequency, evidence, and price. If the promised workflow appears only in a demonstration or email, the board should assume it is not part of the agreement until the signed contract says otherwise.

3. How will you protect association funds and financial records?

Virginia Code section 54.1-2346 addresses internal controls and independent CPA review or audit requirements for licensed managers in circumstances within its scope. The regulations also address association funds, accounts, records, and prohibited conduct. Ask for the candidate's written funds-control map.

It should identify:

• Legal title and tax identification number on every operating, reserve, capital, lockbox, merchant, and investment account.
• Signers, online users, administrators, recovery contacts, token or multifactor controls, alerts, and removal procedures.
• Assessment deposits, returned payments, owner credits, payment plans, collection receipts, and correction controls.
• Vendor onboarding and independent verification of bank-detail changes.
• Invoice intake, duplicate review, coding, approval, release, cleared evidence, and exception reporting.
• Reserve transfers and capital disbursement approvals.
• Monthly reconciliation preparer, reviewer, deadline, old-item investigation, and board evidence.
• CPA engagement, scope, timing, findings, and corrective-action ownership.

Ask the candidate to demonstrate one owner payment and one vendor payment from source through the board's monthly report. Then test a fraudulent bank-change request. The company should show separation of duties, independent verification, authority limits, alerts, audit history, and escalation.

The association should retain direct institutional awareness of its accounts. Confirm who can establish ownership, recover access, stop a payment, remove a former employee, and move the relationship to a successor manager.

4. How will you control association records and owner requests?

The Virginia Property Owners' Association Act and Condominium Act provide record-inspection rights and procedures within their respective scopes. For a property owners' association, section 55.1-1815 generally uses a five-business-day response period when professionally managed and a ten-business-day period when not professionally managed, subject to the statute's terms, extensions, exclusions, and facts. Condominium procedures are addressed separately, including section 55.1-1945.

Do not ask the manager to memorize one deadline and apply it to every request. Ask for a workflow that identifies the community type, requester, record, purpose when relevant, delivery method, statutory and document rules, protected material, extension, cost, counsel review, production, and evidence.

The demonstration should connect:

• Governing documents, plats, resolutions, policies, and amendments.
• Meeting notices, agendas, packets, minutes, ballots, proxies, and results.
• Budgets, financial statements, ledgers, reconciliations, invoices, approvals, tax files, and reserves.
• Owner rosters, consents, addresses, unit or lot history, and privacy controls.
• Assessments, payments, credits, charges, payment plans, collection status, and corrections.
• Contracts, bids, insurance, claims, permits, inspections, warranties, and projects.
• Architecture, maintenance, enforcement, accommodations, complaints, and legal files.
• Request intake, deadline, search, review, redaction, approval, delivery, fee, and closure.

A shared inbox is not a records process. Require a request register, backup owner, restricted-access model, retention schedule, searchable repository, and transition export.

5. How will you administer meetings, decisions, and complaints?

Ask for one anonymized annual calendar and one complete meeting file. It should identify the notice, agenda, packet deadline, owner-submission process, quorum, voting, proxies when applicable, conflicts, executive-session handling, minutes, follow-up, and record retention for the association's legal form and documents.

The manager should distinguish board procedure from legal advice. Ask what happens when:

• Quorum or voting eligibility is disputed.
• An owner challenges notice or requests an agenda item.
• A director has a conflict.
• The board wants to act outside a meeting.
• An executive-session topic or record is questioned.
• Electronic participation fails.
• A board instruction appears inconsistent with law or the governing documents.

Virginia's common-interest-community framework also includes an association complaint process and the Office of the Common Interest Community Ombudsman. Ask the candidate to show how it receives, labels, acknowledges, investigates, routes, decides, preserves, and closes an association complaint, and how it distinguishes that process from a maintenance request, records request, accommodation request, neighbor dispute, violation appeal, insurance claim, or legal matter.

6. How will you manage resale disclosure work?

Virginia's Resale Disclosure Act (Virginia Code sections 55.1-2307 through 55.1-2317) now governs resale certificates for property owners' associations, condominiums, and cooperatives; the association, its managing agent, or a third-party preparer must deliver the certificate within 14 days after a written request by the seller or the seller's agent, and the Common Interest Community Board sets the maximum fees. A management company should still not use a single generic resale package for every community.

Ask:

• Which statute and current form or content rules apply to this association?
• Who receives an order, confirms authority, calculates the fee, gathers records, reviews the package, delivers it, and preserves evidence?
• How are assessment balances, violations, approved expenditures, insurance, budgets, reserves, litigation, governing documents, and other required information validated?
• What is the quality-control process for an owner name, property address, lot or unit number, deadline, stale document, missing amendment, or inconsistent balance?
• How are updates, cancellations, rush requests, lender questions, and post-closing account changes handled?
• Which charges belong to the association, manager, statutory process, or another vendor?

Ask for an anonymized package and an exception log. The strongest answer will show source ownership, reviewer, effective date, delivery evidence, and a correction process rather than only a button in a portal.

7. What monthly financial package will directors receive?

Request an anonymized month-end package for a Virginia community similar in size and complexity. Identify the preparer, reviewer, close date, and evidence behind each component:

• Balance sheet.
• Income and expense statement.
• Budget-to-actual comparison.
• General ledger detail.
• Bank reconciliation summary and source evidence.
• Assessment receivable aging and collection status.
• Owner credits and prepayments.
• Accounts payable and open commitments.
• Reserve and capital-project activity.
• Variance and exception notes.
• Decisions required from the board.

Ask how late entries, stale checks, unmatched deposits, returned payments, opening balances, owner-account disputes, corrections, and prior-period adjustments are controlled. A dashboard is useful, but it is not a substitute for reconciled books and documented review.

8. How will reserves, maintenance, insurance, and projects stay connected?

The manager should maintain one risk and capital calendar rather than separate files that never meet. Ask it to demonstrate how it coordinates:

• Reserve-study recommendations, statutory or governing-document requirements, annual funding decisions, and owner communication.
• Roofs, exteriors, structures, roads, drainage, elevators, fire systems, utilities, pools, gates, and property-specific equipment.
• Preventive maintenance, inspections, permits, warranties, testing, and vendor qualifications.
• Insurance renewal, applications, valuations, deductibles, claims, loss-control recommendations, and project notification.
• Bids, contracts, board authorization, schedule, payment controls, change orders, closeout, and reserve-study updates.
• Emergency response, incident records, evidence preservation, insurer notice, and legal escalation.

The manager should not present itself as the association's engineer, reserve specialist, lawyer, accountant, insurance producer, or contractor unless separately qualified. Its value is the operating calendar, documentation, coordination, follow-up, and escalation that help the board and professionals act on time.

9. What will the board and owners see in the software?

Require a role-based demonstration with anonymized data for a president, treasurer, director, committee member, homeowner, auditor, and vendor. Test reports, reconciliations, invoices, approvals, owner ledgers, documents, communications, meetings, maintenance, architecture, violations, complaints, and exports.

Identify:

• Which company owns the tenant, subscription, domain, integrations, payment relationship, and administrator role.
• Which modules, users, transactions, mailings, storage, support, conversions, and exports cost extra.
• Who controls recovery email, multifactor authentication, API credentials, bank links, and emergency access.
• How former staff and directors are removed.
• How the company responds to a security incident, outage, vendor failure, or compromised account.
• What the association receives during a transition and whether any portal access disappears.

At least two currently authorized association representatives should know the recovery path even if the manager operates the system daily. That does not mean every director needs unrestricted administrator rights.

10. Can the association leave with usable records on time?

Virginia's manager regulations (18VAC48-50-190) make it a prohibited act to fail to provide complete association records within 30 days after a written request from the association or after contract termination, unless the parties agree otherwise in writing. Ask the candidate to explain the current requirement and then commit to a detailed transition schedule in the contract. Do not wait until termination to discover the format, fee, or dependency.

Require a sample transition package containing:

• Owners, units or lots, charges, payments, credits, delinquencies, and collection status.
• General ledger, chart of accounts, budgets, reconciliations, statements, tax files, reserves, and open payables.
• Contracts, vendors, invoices, approvals, insurance, claims, permits, warranties, and projects.
• Governing documents, minutes, ballots, policies, complaint files, notices, and open decisions.
• Maintenance, architecture, enforcement, accommodations, disputes, and legal files.
• Communications, attachments, audit history, open tasks, user lists, and retention metadata.
• Banks, processors, utilities, domains, phone numbers, software, integrations, recovery contacts, and vendor accounts.

Confirm file formats, naming, dates, media, transfer security, final close, open-items register, read-only access, retention, deletion, successor cooperation, and fees. A mass of PDFs without structured owner, accounting, vendor, and task data is not a usable handoff.

11. How will the company prove ongoing compliance and service quality?

Ask for a quarterly management-control report. It can be concise, but should identify:

• License and certification status changes.
• Open records requests and association complaints.
• Meeting, election, budget, registration, disclosure, and policy deadlines.
• Unreconciled accounts, old items, financial corrections, and CPA findings.
• Delinquencies, legal referrals, owner disputes, and resale exceptions.
• Insurance, inspection, permit, maintenance, and capital risks.
• Cybersecurity incidents, access changes, outages, and recovery tests.
• Staff changes, portfolio size, vacancies, vendor conflicts, and unresolved escalations.
• Contract service levels and decisions needed from the board.

Evidence should be available for material claims. A board should not need to micromanage routine work, but it should be able to verify that controlled processes are operating.

Virginia finalist scorecard

Score evidence, not presentation confidence:

1. Current Virginia company license, employee certification, and supervision.
2. Contract compliance, scope clarity, fees, authority limits, and transition protections.
3. Funds controls, reconciliations, CPA oversight, and board reporting.
4. Records-request, complaint, meeting, election, and policy procedures.
5. Resale disclosure quality control and delivery evidence.
6. Maintenance, reserve, insurance, project, and emergency coordination.
7. Software roles, recovery, cybersecurity, exports, and owner experience.
8. Assigned-team capacity, backup coverage, escalation, and staff continuity.
9. Usable records, funds, credentials, and open-items transfer.
10. References from comparable Virginia associations.

Use the same profile, questions, demonstration script, scorecard, references, and contract-review standard for every finalist. Preserve proposals, public license checks, conflicts, notes, scores, and the board's decision in the procurement file.

Questions for Virginia references

Speak with communities similar in legal form, size, building type, age, and complexity. Ask:

• Did the assigned team match the proposal?
• Were financial packages complete, reconciled, and on time?
• Could directors verify invoices, balances, reserves, and bank evidence?
• Were meetings, owner requests, complaints, and resale packages handled consistently?
• How did the company respond to an error, vacancy, claim, emergency, or major project?
• Were additional fees and affiliated-vendor relationships predictable?
• Did the association receive usable records and credentials during a staff, software, or manager change?
• What would the reference negotiate differently today?

Ask for one specific example after every general answer.

Official Virginia sources and live checks

• Virginia Common Interest Community Board
• Virginia Code section 54.1-2345: definitions
• Virginia Code section 54.1-2346: licensing, contracts, internal controls, and related duties
• Common Interest Community Manager Regulations, 18VAC48-50
• 18VAC48-50-190: prohibited acts
• Virginia Property Owners' Association Act
• Virginia Condominium Act
• Virginia Code section 55.1-1815: property owners' association records
• Virginia Resale Disclosure Act, sections 55.1-2307 through 55.1-2317
• Virginia Code section 55.1-2309: resale certificate delivery within 14 days
• Virginia association complaint regulations and Ombudsman framework

Use the Virginia Legislative Information System and Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation to recheck statutory text, effective dates, regulations, forms, licenses, and agency procedures before relying on this guide.