Washington HB 1500: What Changed for Resale Certificates

Engrossed Substitute House Bill 1500 passed both chambers in March 2026, was signed on March 24, and took effect June 11, 2026, as Chapter 194, Laws of 2026. It amends RCW 64.90.640 — the WUCIOA resale certificate statute. This article covers three of its changes and the enforcement subsection it adds; the same act also moved the buyer cancellation window to five business days, expanded the item (u) records list to include all current board policies and the full reserve study, and requires the certificate to state "NONE" or "RECORDS UNAVAILABLE" for any category not provided.

What the Law Changes

Change 1: Financial statement requirement (minor)

Prior law required "the annual financial statement of the association, including the audit report if it has been prepared, for the year immediately preceding the current year." The amended statute says "most recent financial audit report available."

This is a loosening. Associations that have never had an audit no longer need to produce a full prior-year financial statement for this section — they disclose what they have. Associations that do have audits provide the most recent one regardless of fiscal year timing.

Change 2: No surcharges for electronic documents (pointed)

New language in Section 2(b): the $275 preparation fee "may not include any additional charges for providing documents that are maintained in electronic form on a website, web portal, or application available to unit owners."

Translation: if the governing documents, meeting minutes, and reserve study already exist electronically, the association cannot charge extra to include them in the resale certificate. The fee covers preparation. Not document retrieval from the association's own systems.

Change 3: No forced third-party accounts (pointed)

New Section 2(c): "An association may not require a unit owner to contract with or establish an account with a third party in order to provide payment for or accept delivery of a resale certificate."

This is the provision that matters.

What Subsection (2)(c) Addresses

Some associations, and some management companies on their behalf, deliver resale certificates through a document platform run by a third party. The requestor opens an account on the platform, pays there, and receives the certificate there. The certificate itself is a document the association is legally required to provide.

These platforms take the order, collect the fee, and deliver the packet, often for many associations at once. The figures in the certificate still come from the association's records.

Subsection (2)(c) names no platform. It limits what an association may require of a unit owner: the owner cannot be required to contract with or establish an account with a third party in order to provide payment for or accept delivery of the certificate. The limit took effect June 11, 2026.

Subsection (4), described below, sets the duties of an authorized agent that charges a fee to furnish the certificate.

From Bill to Law

The House passed ESHB 1500 on March 11, 2026, 61 to 34. The Senate passed it on March 4, 39 to 9. The Governor signed it on March 24. It took effect June 11, 2026.

An association that requires a unit owner to contract with or establish an account with a third party in order to provide payment for or accept delivery of a WUCIOA resale certificate is now out of compliance with RCW 64.90.640(2)(c). The homeowner remedy is in subsection (4): an enforcement action against the association or the authorized agent, with attorney fees to the prevailing party.

The Enforcement Mechanism

The act adds a new subsection (4) to RCW 64.90.640:

(a) An authorized agent that charges a fee for furnishing a resale certificate is responsible for the timeliness of delivery and for exercising reasonable care in preparing it.

(b) A unit owner may bring an action against the association or any authorized agent for fees charged, timeliness of delivery, or preparation quality. The court may award reasonable attorney fees to the prevailing party.

This is attorney-fee-shifting, and it reaches the agent as well as the association. An authorized agent that charges a fee to furnish the certificate now answers for timely delivery and reasonable care in preparing it.

The Architecture Question

Associations and their managers use outside platforms for a practical reason: the certificate draws on records kept in several places. The financial data lives in one place. The governance documents live in another. The reserve study is a PDF someone emailed two years ago. The special assessment tracking is a spreadsheet. Assembling all of it into a compliant document is skilled work, done under a 10-day clock.

HB 1500 does not change where those records live. It changes what an association may require of the owner and what an agent answers for.

Whoever prepares it, the certificate is only as good as the records behind it. Manual preparation of a 26-item statutory disclosure is how errors happen. When the data already lives in one place, structured and current, the preparer generates the certificate from the source.

That is an architecture decision, not a vendor selection decision.

Where CommunityPay Stands

CommunityPay generates resale certificates from the live general ledger. Owner balances, special assessments, delinquency status, reserve fund balances, insurance coverage, governance attestation — all pulled from the system of record at the moment of generation.

The association's manager, accounting firm, or staff prepares the certificate inside the books the association already keeps, and it is generated in minutes once the disclosures are confirmed. CommunityPay makes no per-certificate charge to the association, its manager, or its accounting firm; certificates are included in the platform subscription. A title company or other requestor that orders a certificate through CommunityPay pays the preparation fee after it is generated. The data is already structured because it was entered through a fund-segregated, enforcement-driven accounting system — not assembled after the fact from spreadsheets and emails.

The 26 WUCIOA disclosure items are mapped to their statutory subsections. The preparer reviews a guided disclosure modal confirming each item. The certificate includes a SHA-256 content hash for verification. The entire process — from request to generated certificate — happens within the platform the association already uses for accounting.

This is not a response to ESHB 1500. This architecture predates the bill.

ESHB 1500 (Chapter 194, Laws of 2026, effective June 11, 2026) amends RCW 64.90.640 and RCW 64.06.020. The session law text is available on the Washington Legislature website. CommunityPay's WUCIOA compliance profile covers all 26 disclosure items with statute-mapped data sections. See how Washington resale certificates work.