The Illinois 22.1 Disclosure: What Your Board Needs to Have Ready
Key Takeaways:
- Section 22.1 of the Illinois Condominium Property Act requires boards to provide specific financial, legal, and governing documents when a unit is resold.
- The statute gives 30 business days to respond, but real estate contracts often compress that to five or ten — preparation is everything.
- “Anticipated” capital expenditures includes projects discussed but not yet approved — your meeting minutes matter.
- Vague or evasive answers don’t reduce liability; they arguably increase it.
- The lender questionnaire is a separate, non-statutory packet that can also kill a sale if you’re not prepared.
The first time I got a 22.1 disclosure request, I didn’t even know what it was.
An owner in our building was selling their unit, and their real estate attorney sent over a questionnaire and a list of documents the board was legally required to provide. Financial statements, reserve fund balances, insurance details, pending litigation, anticipated capital expenditures — all of it needed to be compiled and returned within days.
I was the board president of a 16-unit building in Chicago. We had no management company. By that point I’d already built Nestingbird’s accounting system to track our finances, but I hadn’t built the reporting side yet — and more importantly, I had no system for tracking the specific answers a 22.1 questionnaire requires. Producing the packet meant generating accrual reports by hand, digging through files for our declaration and bylaws, and answering a questionnaire full of questions I’d never been asked before. Each answer had to be accurate, and I had no way to verify half of them without cross-referencing meeting minutes, bank records, and insurance documents. The first one took me the better part of a weekend.
Over the course of my tenure, I handled four of these. After the first one, the process got easier — but not in a way that felt good. I was mostly copying answers from the previous questionnaire, which saved time but introduced a different problem: I had no way of knowing if those answers were still accurate. Had an owner made alterations to their unit? Had our insurance coverage changed? Were there new discussions about capital expenditures that needed to be disclosed? Without a system that kept this information current — or a way to get owner feedback to verify it — I was signing off on answers I wasn’t fully confident in. That’s a liability, and it weighed on me every time.
If you’re on an Illinois condo board, a 22.1 request is coming. Here’s what it actually requires and how to be ready for it.
What Is a 22.1 Disclosure?
Section 22.1 of the Illinois Condominium Property Act (765 ILCS 605/22.1) requires that when a condo unit is resold, the seller must obtain specific documents and financial information from the board and make them available to the prospective buyer. You’ll also hear this called a “resale packet,” “resale certificate,” or “estoppel letter” — in practice these terms get used interchangeably, though they’re technically distinct.
The purpose is straightforward: give the buyer a clear picture of the association’s financial health, legal standing, and governing rules before they commit to purchasing. It’s a consumer protection measure — the legislative intent was to ensure buyers aren’t blindsided by undisclosed special assessments, deferred maintenance, or association debt after closing.
The board’s obligation is triggered when the selling owner submits a written request. Once that request is received, the statute gives the association up to 30 business days to respond. In practice, though, the real estate contract often compresses that timeline to five or ten business days — which is why being prepared matters so much more than knowing the legal deadline.
What the Board Must Provide
The statute spells out nine categories of information. Here’s what each one actually means in plain English:
1. Governing documents. A copy of the declaration (CC&Rs), bylaws, any amendments, and current rules and regulations. If your building has ever amended its declaration — even once — you need to include the amendment. Missing amendments have been the basis of legal claims against associations.
2. Statement of the unit’s account. This isn’t a statement about the association’s finances generally — it’s specific to the unit being sold. It must show any unpaid assessments or charges owed by the selling owner. This is the estoppel component: the buyer needs to know if they’re inheriting someone else’s debt.
3. Anticipated capital expenditures. A statement of any capital expenditures the board anticipates within the current or next two fiscal years. This is one of the most legally significant items in the packet. Illinois courts have held that “anticipated” means more than just formally approved projects — it includes expenditures that have been discussed and are likely to happen. If your board has been talking about a roof replacement but hasn’t voted on it yet, it probably needs to be disclosed here.
4. Reserve fund status. The current balance and status of any reserve for replacement fund, including whether any portion has been earmarked for a specific project. If your association has voted to waive reserve requirements (which Illinois law allows with a two-thirds vote), that fact must be disclosed in bold print.
5. Financial statements. A copy of the association’s most recent financial statement, the current operating budget, and a statement of financial condition for the last fiscal year available. Even with our accounting tracked in a system, producing the actual reports — especially accrual-based statements — was a manual process the first couple of times. If your board doesn’t have any accounting system at all, this item alone can consume an entire weekend.
6. Insurance information. The association’s master insurance policy details — what’s covered, what isn’t, policy limits, and deductible amounts. Buyers and their lenders need to verify that the building carries adequate coverage.
7. Pending litigation or judgments. Any outstanding lawsuits, judgments, or pending actions involving the association. Even if you think a claim is frivolous, it needs to be disclosed.
8. Alterations and compliance. A good-faith statement that any improvements or alterations made to the unit or its limited common elements are believed to comply with the condominium instruments. This is an area where many associations punt — responding with “we have not inspected the premises” — but the statute expects an affirmative good-faith statement, not a disclaimer.
9. Contact information. The name and mailing address of the principal officer of the association or the designated agent for receiving notices.
Where Boards Get Tripped Up
The most common problems I’ve seen — and experienced — come down to three things.
Compressed timelines. The statute gives you 30 days. The real estate contract often gives the seller five. That means the moment a request lands in your inbox, you’re already behind if your documents aren’t organized and your financials aren’t current. In a hot Chicago market, a slow response can jeopardize a sale — and your neighbors won’t be happy about it.
Financial reports that won’t hold up to scrutiny. Even if your board is tracking income and expenses, that’s not the same as having formatted financial statements that will stand up to evaluation by a buyer’s attorney. Accrual-based reporting is especially painful to produce manually. The gap between “we have the data” and “we can produce the report” is where most of the time gets burned.
Vague or evasive answers. There’s a well-documented pattern — especially among management companies — of providing circular, non-responsive answers to 22.1 questions. Responses like “we have not inspected the premises” or “please refer to the seller” might feel like they reduce liability, but they arguably fail to satisfy the statute’s requirements and can expose the association to claims down the road. The safer approach is to answer directly and in good faith, noting the limits of your knowledge where necessary.
How to Be Ready Before the Request Arrives
The best time to prepare for a 22.1 disclosure is right now, before anyone is selling. Here’s what that looks like:
Keep your governing documents in one place. Declaration, bylaws, all amendments, current rules and regulations — ideally digital, easily shareable, and confirmed to be current. If you’re not sure whether your recorded documents include all amendments, it’s worth checking with your county recorder’s office.
Maintain monthly financial reports. If you’re producing income statements, balance sheets, and budget comparisons on a monthly or quarterly basis, the financial section of a 22.1 packet is just a matter of pulling the most recent reports. If you’re only looking at your finances once a year, every unit sale becomes a fire drill.
Track your reserve fund separately. Know your current balance, know what’s been earmarked, and have a written record of any votes to waive reserve funding requirements. This information should be immediately accessible, not buried in meeting minutes from two years ago.
Document board discussions about future projects. Given that Illinois law requires disclosure of “anticipated” capital expenditures — not just approved ones — your meeting minutes should clearly reflect what’s been discussed, what’s been tabled, and what’s been approved. This protects the board and gives buyers the transparency the statute intends.
Build a response template and keep your answers current. After my first disclosure, I built a catalogue of common questions and response templates so future requests could be turned around quickly. The speed problem was solved — but the accuracy problem wasn’t. I was still copying forward answers with no mechanism for verifying whether anything had changed since the last sale. Had an owner renovated? Had the board discussed a new capital project? The only way to know was to manually chase down each data point. That gap — between having answers and trusting them — is now built into Nestingbird. The system maintains disclosure-ready information alongside your financial and document records, so when a 22.1 request comes in, you’re generating a packet from current data rather than copying from a stale template and hoping nothing’s changed.
The Lender Questionnaire: The Other Packet Nobody Warns You About
In addition to the 22.1 disclosure, most buyers’ lenders will send the board a separate condominium questionnaire. This isn’t required by statute — there’s no law compelling you to fill it out. But if you don’t, the buyer’s financing will almost certainly be denied, which effectively kills the sale.
Lender questionnaires go well beyond what Section 22.1 requires. Common questions include whether at least 10% of the budget goes to reserves, how many units are more than 60 days delinquent, whether the association has any knowledge of environmental issues, and whether two board members are required to sign checks against the reserve account.
For a well-organized board, these are easy to answer. For a board that’s been winging it, each question is another opportunity to realize you don’t have the information you need. The preparation advice above covers both scenarios — if your financials, documents, and reserves are in order, the lender questionnaire is just another form to fill out, not another crisis to manage.
The Bottom Line
A 22.1 disclosure request shouldn’t feel like an emergency. It’s a predictable event — people sell condos — and the information required is information your board should already be tracking. The statute exists to protect buyers, but it also functions as a minimum standard for what a well-run association should have on hand at all times.
If producing a disclosure packet today would require you to reconstruct your financials, hunt for your governing documents, or guess at your reserve balance, that’s a signal. Not that you’re a bad board member, but that your systems aren’t supporting you. Fix the systems, and the next time someone sells, it’s an hour of your day instead of a weekend.
About the Author: Nathan Jones is the founder of Nestingbird, a platform that helps HOA boards and property managers handle finances, maintenance, and communication — including automated 22.1 disclosure packet generation.