ASTM E2018-24 vs E2018-15: What Changed in the Property Condition Assessment Guide

E2018 has been revised six times since 1999. The 2024 edition was approved on 1 January 2024 and is a light edit of the 2023 edition, which was the substantive rewrite of the 2015 text that most firms had been citing for eight years. If your template still says E2018-15, these are the changes that affect what you write. Bureau Veritas counts more than 140 individual revisions between the 2015 and 2024 texts; most are editorial. The ones below change the report.

Immediate costs are defined by consequence, not by a calendar

Under the 2015 guide, immediate repairs were the ones needed "within one year." The 2024 definition drops the time window. Immediate costs now cover three things: imminent life-safety issues; conditions which, if left uncorrected, would cause a building system to fail or would significantly escalate the cost of the remedy; and recorded or reported building or fire code violations. A roof seam leaking over occupied space is immediate because of what continued leakage does to the deck and insulation, not because of when the calendar says it must be fixed.

For the writer this means each immediate item should say which of the three tests it meets. A reviewer at the lender will look for that reasoning.

Short-term costs lost their time window too

The older text suggested short-term repairs were generally undertaken within one to two years. The 2024 definition says only that they do not warrant immediate attention but should be undertaken on a priority basis. Firms that still print "within 1 to 2 years" in their Table 1 headings are quoting a definition that no longer exists.

Long-term costs are now a defined term

The replacement reserve table that every lender PCR already carried is, for the first time, named in the guide: long-term costs are opinions of cost for the anticipated replacement of building systems and components over an evaluation period the user defines. The guide notes they are often presented in a table and that they are not enhancements or upgrades. The table remains an enhancement to the baseline scope (it lives in the appendix on enhanced due diligence), so it is still listed as a deviation, but the vocabulary is now official. See the reserve table explained.

"Observe" includes what you hear and smell

The 2024 definition of observe is to collect information by visual, auditory and olfactory means, within the limits of what is easily visible and readily accessible. A bearing squeal at a rooftop unit, a musty odor in a restroom or a hum at a transformer is now a documented observation in its own right, and the report should record it as one, with the sense that detected it.

The user is asked to define scope and evaluation period up front

The section on the user's responsibilities now emphasises that the user should state the objectives of the assessment and, for long-term costs, the evaluation period, before the work starts. For consultants this is a contracting change: the proposal should capture the evaluation period, the inflation assumption, the reporting threshold and the additional considerations wanted, so the report can list its deviations without surprises.

Referenced documents

The 2024 edition adds a referenced-documents section pointing to the ASTM standards for adjacent scopes: E1527 for the Phase I environmental site assessment, E2026 and E2557 for seismic and probable maximum loss, E2797 and E3224 for energy, and E3026 for moisture-affected areas. A PCR that touches those subjects as additional considerations should cite the relevant guide rather than describe the work loosely.

Accessibility became an abbreviated screening; Fair Housing was added

The ADA appendix was rewritten as an abbreviated accessibility screening with a checklist, and a parallel Fair Housing Act screening appendix was added for multifamily properties. Both remain outside the baseline and both are presented as additional considerations with their costs shown separately.

Roofing merged into the building envelope; the sample table of contents is gone

The walk-through survey now treats roofing and the building envelope together as one system, though most firms still write them as separate subsections. The sample table of contents figure that the 2008 edition carried, and that the industry adopted as its report skeleton, is no longer printed; the section order it established survives in practice (see how to write a PCR).

Section numbering shifted

Relative to the 2008 edition, the walk-through survey, the cost section and the report section each moved down by one (the walk-through is now section 9, costs section 10, the report section 11). Templates that cite "Section 9 Opinions of Cost" are citing the 2008 numbering. The HUD CNA e-Tool useful-life table still says its numbering follows the 2008 outline, which is why its component list starts at section 3.

What did not change

The three-part structure of the assessment (walk-through survey, document review and interviews, opinions of cost); the reporting threshold of $3,000 with the four-items-over-$10,000 rule; the requirement that costs carry quantity, unit and unit cost; the requirement to distinguish observed from reported from documented information; the good, fair and poor definitions; and the statement that following the guide is not itself a professional engineering service.

Practical checklist for a template migration

• Replace "within one year" and "within one to two years" in the Table 1 headings and the cost methodology with the consequence-based definitions.
• Add "long-term costs" as the name of the reserve table and keep it listed as a deviation.
• Add auditory and olfactory to the definition of observation in the scope section.
• Capture the evaluation period, inflation rate and threshold in the proposal and repeat them in the executive summary.
• Cite E2018-24 on the cover and in the letter, and E1527, E3026 and the others where the report touches their subjects.
• Check every section reference against the 2024 numbering.

Seeing the 2024 form in practice

The sample report is written to E2018-24 throughout: consequence-based immediate items, long-term costs named as such and listed as a deviation, auditory and olfactory observations recorded where they occurred, and the referenced standards cited where the additional considerations touch them.