ASTM E2018-24: What the Property Condition Assessment Guide Requires

E2018 is the standard behind nearly every commercial property condition report in the United States. The current edition, E2018-24, was approved in January 2024 and runs to about twenty-one pages. ASTM sells it; this page paraphrases what it requires and does not reproduce its text. Practitioners should own a copy.

What kind of document it is

E2018 is a guide: a set of options and instructions that does not mandate a single course of action. It establishes a baseline, the minimum level of observation, inquiry, document review and cost opinion that constitutes a property condition assessment, and it allows the user to expand the scope through the enhancements in its appendices or to reduce it, with every departure disclosed as a deviation. It states that performing an assessment under the guide is not itself a professional architectural or engineering service; the professional seal that lenders and clients expect is their requirement, not the guide's.

Structure of the guide

Section	Subject
1 to 4	Scope, referenced documents (new in 2024: E1527, E2026, E2557, E2797, E3224, E3026), terminology, significance and use
5	The user's responsibilities: state objectives and scope, provide a point of contact and access
6	The assessment's three components: walk-through survey, document review and interviews, opinions of cost
7	The consultant: field observer and PCR reviewer, who may be the same person
8	Document review and interviews, including the pre-survey questionnaire and the list of documents to request
9	The walk-through survey: photograph minimums and the ten systems
10	Opinions of cost: threshold, basis, segregation
11	The property condition report: required contents
12	Out-of-scope considerations
Annex A1	Property-type specifics (multifamily unit sampling, office, retail)
Appendix X1	Enhanced due diligence, including long-term costs (the replacement reserve)
Appendix X2	Abbreviated accessibility screening
Appendix X3	Fair Housing Act abbreviated screening

The vocabulary

The terminology section defines the words the report must use consistently. The ones that carry the most weight: physical deficiency (a visible defect or deferred maintenance of a material system, excluding de minimis and routine items); immediate, short-term and long-term costs (see the cost categories guide); expected useful life, remaining useful life and effective age (see the reserve table guide); observe, which in 2024 includes auditory and olfactory means; representative observations; routine maintenance; and the condition terms good, fair and poor, defined relative to the reporting threshold. Each has a glossary entry.

The three components

Walk-through survey. Readily accessible and easily visible areas, representative observations of repetitive elements with the extent disclosed, ten systems in a fixed order: site; structural frame; roofing and building envelope; plumbing; heating; air conditioning and ventilation; electrical; vertical transportation; life safety and fire protection; interior elements. Each system has an observations paragraph and an out-of-scope paragraph in the guide. Photographs at minimum of the elevations, site improvements, roof, structure, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, conveyances, life safety, representative interiors and any unusual condition. See photograph requirements.

Document review and interviews. A pre-survey questionnaire to the owner's point of contact, an interview, and review of the documents the guide lists when readily available, from the certificate of occupancy to prior PCRs. The consultant may rely on information that appears reasonable without verifying it, and the report must say what came from where. See the document request list.

Opinions of cost. Order-of-magnitude construction costs for material deficiencies, with quantity, unit and unit cost per line from an acceptable source, a $3,000 reporting threshold with a four-items-over-$10,000 exception and a life-safety note, immediate and short-term costs segregated, and long-term costs presented separately when included.

The report

The guide prescribes contents, not format. The report must carry an executive summary with a general description, findings and opinions, deviations, consultant disclosure and recommendations for further study; purpose and scope; the walk-through survey by system with a suggested remedy and a plain-language significance for each material deficiency; document review and interviews; additional considerations; qualifications naming the field observer and reviewer; limiting conditions; and exhibits. Statements must distinguish the field observer's own observations from reported and documented information. See how to write a PCR.

The appendices

Long-term costs, the accessibility screening and the Fair Housing screening are enhancements. Including any of them is a deviation from the baseline that the executive summary must list, and their costs are presented separately from the baseline tables. The long-term-cost appendix also states that the reserve table is not a substitute for a community-association reserve study. See PCA vs reserve study.

Editions

1999, 2001, 2008, 2015, 2023, 2024. The 2008 edition's sample table of contents became the industry's report skeleton and survives in practice although the figure was dropped. The 2015 to 2024 changes that affect writing are covered in what changed. Firms still citing E2018-15 should update the citation and the definitions that changed with it.

How Baseline PCR encodes the guide

The engine's data model is the guide's: ten systems, source-tagged observations, deficiencies with remedy and significance, reserve items with EUL, RUL and effective age, the threshold rules, the segregated tables, the deviations list and the named reviewer. Section references are printed at each heading of the report so a reviewer can check the draft against the guide, and the checks flag citations of standards the guide does not reference. The sample report is an E2018-24 report end to end.