The field record
Pre-Survey Information Request & Document Request List Template
Last updated 2026-10-09
The request list is the cheapest document in the engagement and the one that decides how much of the report can be written from evidence rather than from inference. Everything a walk-through survey cannot see — when the roof was last touched, what was permitted, what the service contractor has been replacing every spring — arrives on paper or not at all, and it arrives only if somebody asked for it early enough, in writing, item by item.
It is also the record that makes a later limitation credible. A report that says a document was requested and not provided is making a checkable statement, and the thing that makes it checkable is a dated list with a named recipient. Where that list does not exist, the same sentence in the limitations section reads as a reconstruction — because that is what it is.
The structure below is written to be sent, not filed: a header that states the engagement and the deadline, groups of items a property manager can actually assemble, the access and logistics asks that have to travel with the document request because they fail for the same reason, and a closing section that states plainly what happens to an item that does not arrive. The worked example is the request issued for the fictional Bellwether Commons assessment together with what came back, and it does not end tidily — several items were never provided, and the report shipped saying so.
Jurisdiction
Written primarily against US practice: the ASTM E2018 baseline, agency scopes such as Fannie Mae Form 4099, and — where a page says so explicitly — California statute. Client scope governs any individual engagement and may expand or reduce what is described here. State and local inspection obligations differ, and licensure requirements for the work described vary by state. Outside the US, treat the structure as transferable and the standards and statutes as not.
Pre-Survey Information Request template
Free Word download, no email required. Or open it in Professional Drafter — it lands in your template library, ready to draft against.
When to use this document
- At engagement, before the site visit is scheduled rather than after — the lead time is the whole point, and a list sent the week before arrives too late to influence unit selection.
- Rather than the [document review and interviews record](/field-observations/limitations-and-field-conditions/), which is the downstream artifact: this one is the outbound ask, and the record is what you write once the answers, non-answers and interviews are in.
- Again, as a dated re-request, whenever a material item is still outstanding at the point the draft is being assembled. The second request is often what gets the item, and where it does not, it is what makes the limitation specific.
Worked example
Fictional. The information request issued for the Bellwether Commons property condition assessment — 132 units, eleven residential buildings plus a clubhouse, Columbus, Ohio — sent 20 February 2026 for a 4 March 2026 site visit, shown with the status of each group at the date the report was issued. All names, dates, documents and quantities below are invented and illustrative for this fictional property, and are not values to reuse. Several items were never provided, and this example does not resolve.
Request Header and Delivery Instructions
Property: Bellwether Commons, Columbus, Ohio. Client: Northbank Capital. Engagement reference NC-2026-0217, property condition assessment for acquisition due diligence. Request issued 20 February 2026 by the assessor to Denise Halloway, property manager, with a copy to the client's transaction contact and to the owner's asset manager at Bellwether Commons Holdings LLC. Return by email to the assessor's engagement address; electronic copies preferred, and scans of invoices and warranties are acceptable. Items are needed by 27 February 2026, ahead of the scheduled site visit on 4 March 2026. The covering note states plainly why that date and not a later one: the occupancy records govern which units are selected for observation, and a selection cannot be prepared in advance from a rent roll that arrives on the day. Re-requested in full by email 2 March 2026 and again, for the outstanding items only, on 5 March 2026, the day after the visit.
Property and Occupancy Records
Requested: current rent roll; days-vacant report; move-out report; unit mix schedule; list of down or offline units with the reason and date for each; any unit the owner would prefer not be entered. Provided: the rent roll only, received by email at 07:52 on 4 March 2026 — the morning of the site visit — rather than by the 27 February date requested. Not provided: days-vacant report, move-out report. The consequence was immediate and is recorded in the report rather than smoothed over: unit selection could not be prepared in advance and could not be weighted toward long-vacant units, which is where deferred condition tends to concentrate. Fifteen units were selected on site with the property manager from the rent roll received that morning, distributed by hand across unit type, building and floor at the leasing office; two of those originally selected were not entered and two alternates of the same type in the same buildings were substituted. The report describes that selection as what it was and does not describe it as random. Management reported four down units for turnover, all four were offered and observed, and that count came from an interview rather than from the requested list.
Drawings, Specifications and Construction Records
Requested: site plan with dimensions or areas; architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing drawings, as-built where held; posted panel schedules; roof assembly specifications; scopes for any renovation. Provided: none. Not provided: all of it. Two consequences carry into the report. First, no site plan means the paving and walkway quantities rest on an area estimated from aerial imagery, and the reserve schedule identifies that line as an estimated quantity rather than a measured one. Second, no electrical drawings and no posted panel schedules left the painted-over manufacturer labels in the two unit panels opened on site as the only available evidence of panel make, and there was none. The report carries panel identification as an open matter in the executive summary and prices nothing for it, because a figure attached to an unidentified panel would be invented and a reader would carry it forward as though it had been derived. The recommendation is an electrician's identification across a sample of buildings, which the owner can obtain and the assessor cannot.
Permits, Certificates and Violation Notices
Requested: certificates of occupancy; open and recently closed building permits; fire and life-safety inspection and testing records; all notices of violation or correction orders, open or closed, for the period stated in the request. Provided: nothing documentary. The property manager stated in interview on 4 March 2026 that she was aware of no open building department matters and of no outstanding violations. That statement is recorded in the report as an interview answer attributed to her, and nothing in the report asserts that there are no open permits or no unpermitted work — an absence of records is not a clean record, and the distinction is stated on the page so that no reader can collapse the two. No fire alarm or sprinkler inspection records were produced; the three emergency lighting units that failed the push-to-test check during the walk-through survey are therefore reported without any history of prior testing behind them.
Maintenance Records and Service Contracts
Requested: work order history for the preceding two years, exported, with trade and location; the preventive maintenance schedule; all service contracts in force; the vendor list; leased equipment agreements including the laundry. Provided: a vendor contact list, one page, undated, naming a landscaping contractor and a pest control contractor. Not provided: work orders, preventive maintenance schedule, roofing contract, mechanical contract, laundry lease. The maintenance manager said in interview that leaks at buildings 3 and 7 recur every winter and are patched each time, and no work order history exists in the file to corroborate either the frequency or what was done. The laundry equipment was described as leased and vendor-maintained; without the lease, the report makes no statement about whose obligation that equipment is and carries no reserve line for it, which is noted as a gap rather than as a conclusion.
Capital Expenditure History
Requested: capital expenditure by year and component, with the scope of each item; invoices or contracts for roof, paving, envelope, mechanical and life-safety work; work planned, budgeted or under contract. Provided: an owner's summary spreadsheet listing an exterior painting project in 2018 and a parking lot overlay recorded against 2011, each as a single line with an amount and no scope. Not provided: invoices, contracts, or any statement of extent. The overlay line is the one that matters and it is the one the record cannot settle. The maintenance manager first described the overlay as covering the southern lot and later described it as covering the whole property; both answers are recorded. With no invoice to resolve the conflict, and with the northern parking area under snow and unobservable on the day, the northern surface is treated throughout the report as unverified.
Warranties and Prior Reports
Requested: roof, equipment and workmanship warranties with their transfer provisions; prior condition reports, engineering studies and roof or envelope surveys; any prior environmental assessment. Provided: none. Not provided: all of it. No roof and no item of equipment is credited anywhere in this report with remaining warranty coverage, and the absence of credit is stated rather than left to be inferred. The property manager reported that a condition report had been prepared for the current owner's 2019 acquisition, said she would locate and send it, and had not done so as of the issue date; nothing in this report relies on it, and the clubhouse roof recoating the maintenance manager placed several years back remains undocumented. No prior environmental assessment was produced, and this report makes no environmental statement of any kind.
Site Access and Logistics
Requested: site contact and mobile number; who would accompany each portion of the survey; the means of roof access available on site, including ladder length and whether any interior roof hatch exists; keys and master access to mechanical, electrical and service rooms; resident notification in advance of the visit; and any safety or security induction required. Provided in part, and by telephone rather than in writing. The property manager confirmed on 2 March 2026 that she would accompany the exterior and unit portions and that the maintenance manager would open the mechanical and electrical rooms; both held, and all residents were notified of the inspection by management before the visit. Nothing was confirmed in advance about roof access, and the answer arrived on the morning of the visit: the maintenance manager reported that no ladder of adequate length is kept on site and that the clubhouse has no interior roof hatch. The clubhouse low-slope roof was therefore not accessed. The request had named lift and drone arrangements as items to confirm in advance, no answer was given, and nothing was arranged in time to be used. That sequence — the ask was made, the ask was not answered, the observation was lost — is set out in the limitations section in those terms, because it is the part a reader cannot reconstruct from the finished report.
Non-Provision and Its Consequences
The closing paragraph of the 20 February request stated that items requested and not provided would be identified as such in the report, that no credit would be given for warranty coverage or completed work that could not be evidenced, and that an unresolved item might be carried conservatively. The report does each of those things by name. Outstanding at the issue date of 27 March 2026, after re-requests on 2 and 5 March: days-vacant report, move-out report, all drawings and panel schedules, all permit and life-safety testing records, work orders and the preventive maintenance schedule, roofing and mechanical service contracts, the laundry lease, all warranties, and the 2019 condition report. Final status of each item was confirmed with Denise Halloway by email on 25 March 2026 and the list above is as she confirmed it, with the 2019 condition report still described as findable. It had not arrived when the report was issued, and the report does not wait on it: the limitations section names it as promised and not provided, and the clubhouse roof, the northern parking area and the panel identification remain open in the delivered report rather than resolved in it.
Section-by-section guide
What each section is for, what a good one contains, and where they typically go wrong.
1.Request Header and Delivery Instructions
Who is asking, under what engagement, of whom, by when, and where it goes. Name a single recipient and a single return channel: a request addressed to a company is a request nobody owns. The deadline should sit far enough ahead of the site visit that what arrives can still change the plan — the occupancy records in particular are useless if they land on the morning of the walk-through survey, which is exactly when they tend to land.
2.Property and Occupancy Records
The group with a deadline that actually bites, because it governs unit selection rather than merely informing the narrative. Ask for the current rent roll, the days-vacant report and the move-out report by name, and say what each is for. Fannie Mae's May 2024 PCA FAQ described the expectation at Q8: use the rent roll, the days-vacant report and the move-out report to choose which vacant units to observe, and interview the maintenance manager as well. The same FAQ closes the loop at Q6, and note who it has you asking: the consultant requests the rent roll from the LENDER well in advance, and if it has not arrived before the site inspection the report documents that it was requested from the Lender and not provided. On an agency loan that request travels through the lender, not the property manager — so a list sent only to site management can leave you without the sentence you will want later.
3.Drawings, Specifications and Construction Records
Ask for what exists rather than for a set, because an older garden apartment property usually has fragments: a site plan, a partial architectural set, an as-built from one renovation. Each fragment does a specific job. The site plan replaces an area measured off an aerial photograph, which is the single most common estimated quantity in a reserve schedule. Electrical drawings and posted panel schedules are worth asking for separately and by name: they are sometimes the only way to establish a panel make where the label has been painted over, and Form 4099's Appendix G, effective 28 January 2026, names four recalled panel families — Zinsco and GTE-Sylvania, Challenger, Bulldog and ITE-Pushmatic, and Federal Pacific Stab-Lok — to be recommended for replacement as an Immediate Repair, and expects every report to state the branch wiring type as visually verified and photographed. A drawing does not discharge the visual verification, but it tells you what to look for before you are standing in front of an unlabelled panel.
4.Permits, Certificates and Violation Notices
Open permits, closed permits for recent capital work, certificates of occupancy, fire and life-safety inspection records, elevator certificates where there is an elevator, and any outstanding notice of violation or correction order from a building, fire, health or accessibility authority. Two reasons to ask rather than to infer. First, permit history is the cheapest corroboration available for a date the maintenance manager half-remembers. Second, an open violation is a condition with an external deadline attached, which is a different animal from a physical deficiency the assessor identified — and a report that silently omits one the owner knew about is the report nobody wants to have signed.
5.Maintenance Records and Service Contracts
Work orders, the preventive maintenance schedule, and the service contracts themselves. The contracts are the underused half: a roofing contract that has been renewed annually for years tells you the roof has been managed, and a mechanical contract whose scope excludes compressors tells you what has not been. Ask for a date range rather than for everything, because a request for 'all work orders' at a property of any size returns either nothing or a spreadsheet nobody can use. Where the records are held in a management system, ask for the export rather than the screen.
6.Capital Expenditure History
What has been spent, on what, in which year, and whether the work covered the whole property or part of it. This is the group that most changes a reserve schedule, because a replacement with a date and an invoice behind it is evidence of age where everything else is inference from appearance. Ask for the scope as well as the amount: an overlay recorded as a lump sum against the whole property, when it in fact covered one parking area, is worse than no record at all, and the way to find that out is to ask for the invoice rather than the general ledger line.
7.Warranties and Prior Reports
Manufacturer and contractor warranties, and any prior condition report, engineering study, roof survey, environmental report or specialist assessment held by the owner. Warranties are asked for because a component under remaining coverage is treated differently in a schedule from one that is not, and because no credit should be given for coverage nobody has seen. Prior reports are asked for openly and then handled carefully: a previous assessment is useful for establishing what a component looked like at a known date, and it is not a substitute for this survey. Where a prior report is provided, say in your own report that it was reviewed and what was taken from it; where it is promised and never arrives, say that instead.
8.Site Access and Logistics
Not documents, and in the request anyway, because access fails for the same reason a document fails: nobody was asked in time. State who will accompany the survey and for which parts of it, that roof access is needed and by what means, that mechanical, electrical and service rooms will need opening, and that residents are to be notified. Fannie Mae's May 2024 PCA FAQ addressed residents who were not notified at Q7, and asked for three things rather than two: document the lack of cooperation by the property manager or owner, identify which specific units were requested for inspection but were unavailable, and consider whether the lack of unit access should result in a more conservative Replacement Reserve estimate. The third is the one that gets dropped — an access limitation that leaves every number unchanged has not been taken seriously. Form 4099 describes the unit list going to the site contact typically 24 to 36 hours ahead — which is only possible if the occupancy records arrived before that.
9.Non-Provision and Its Consequences
The closing paragraph that turns the list from an administrative courtesy into part of the record. State that items not provided will be identified in the report as requested and not provided, that no credit will be given for a warranty or a repair that could not be evidenced, and that an unresolved gap may be carried conservatively. Say it neutrally and say it once: the purpose is not leverage, it is that the recipient should know the consequence while there is still time to avoid it. Then do what the paragraph says, which is where most of these go wrong — a request list that threatened a consequence and a report that imposed none teaches the next recipient that the list is optional.
Common mistakes
The failure modes that show up most often when this document is reviewed later.
Sending the list once, undated, to an email alias.
An undated request to a shared mailbox cannot support a sentence in the limitations section. The thing that makes 'requested and not provided' checkable is a dated list with a named recipient — without it, the statement is a reconstruction and reads like one.
Asking for the occupancy records at the same time as everything else, with no earlier deadline.
The rent roll, days-vacant report and move-out report are the only items whose lateness cannot be absorbed: they govern which units are selected. A rent roll that arrives on the morning of the visit means the selection was made at the leasing office, and that is a permanent feature of the report.
Asking for 'all maintenance records'.
An unbounded ask at a property of any size returns either nothing or an export nobody can use, and both outcomes look the same in the file. A stated period, by trade and location, is answerable — and an answerable request is the one that gets answered.
Asking for the capital expenditure amount without the scope.
A lump sum against 'parking lot overlay' does not say which lot. Treated as whole-property work when it covered one area, it understates the remaining quantity, and the only document that settles it is the invoice rather than the ledger line.
Leaving access and logistics out because they are not documents.
They fail for the same reason a document fails — nobody was asked in time. Roof access, keys and resident notification all have lead times, and an unasked question about a ladder becomes an unobserved roof, which then has to be carried conservatively.
Stating a consequence for non-provision and then not imposing it.
A report that credits a warranty nobody produced, or prices an item it could not identify, contradicts its own request list. It also teaches the next recipient that the list is optional, which is a cost paid on the next engagement rather than this one.
Questions
- How far ahead should the request go out?
- Far enough that what arrives can still change the plan, which in practice means the occupancy records need their own earlier deadline. Fannie Mae Form 4099 describes the list of units going to the site contact typically 24 to 36 hours before the visit; working back from that, a rent roll that lands on the day of the visit is too late by definition, because the selection it was supposed to inform has already been made.
- Does ASTM E2018 say what documents to request?
- E2018-24 describes document review and interviews as part of the baseline process alongside the walk-through survey, and it is a guide rather than a code — it describes a baseline scope that a client may expand or reduce, and it sets no mandatory request list. The standard is paywalled, so check the edition you hold for its own section numbering. In practice the itemised list is driven by the client scope: on an agency loan, by Form 4099 or Freddie Mac's Chapter 62; otherwise by what the reserve schedule will have to rest on.
- What belongs in the request on a Freddie Mac loan rather than a Fannie Mae one?
- The occupancy records matter even more, because the unit sampling floor is flat rather than tiered. Freddie Mac's Multifamily Seller/Servicer Guide, Chapter 62 sets at least 10 percent of residential units, including at least half the vacant units and at least half the down units, plus 100 percent of commercial units. Half of the vacant units and half of the down units cannot be identified without a current rent roll and a list of down units with reasons, so both go in the request with the earlier deadline and the commercial tenant schedule goes with them.
- Should electrical drawings really be asked for separately?
- Yes, and by name. Form 4099's Appendix G, effective 28 January 2026, names four recalled panel families — Zinsco and GTE-Sylvania, Challenger, Bulldog and ITE-Pushmatic, and Federal Pacific Stab-Lok — to be recommended for replacement as an Immediate Repair, and expects every report to state the branch wiring type as visually verified and photographed. Drawings and posted panel schedules do not discharge that visual verification, but where labels have been painted over they may be the only route to a panel make at all, and asking for them in the general drawings bundle is how they get overlooked.
- What if the owner simply will not provide something?
- Record the request, the re-request, the named recipient and the date, then say so in the report and let the consequence follow. Fannie Mae's May 2024 PCA FAQ, dated 1 May 2024, was explicit that a rent roll requested from the Lender in advance and not provided before the site visit is documented as such (Q6), and that a lack of cooperation over unit access is documented with the specific units identified and the Replacement Reserve reconsidered (Q7). The honest treatment is to name the gap, say which figure it affects, and say what would resolve it.
The blank template
Exactly what is in the Word download, so you can see the structure before deciding whether you want it.
Request Header and Delivery Instructions
Property and Occupancy Records
- Current rent roll, dated, with unit number, type, floor, building and occupancy status
- Days-vacant report and move-out report — state in the request that these drive which vacant units are selected
- Down or offline units, with the reason and the date each went offline
- Any unit the owner would prefer not be entered, identified now rather than at the door
Drawings, Specifications and Construction Records
- Site plan — state that it is wanted to verify paving and walkway quantities
- Original construction drawings, and as-builts for any later alteration
- Electrical drawings and panel schedules, called out separately
- Specifications or submittals for any roof, envelope or mechanical replacement
Permits, Certificates and Violation Notices
- Open permits, and permits closed for any recent capital work
- Fire alarm, sprinkler, extinguisher and emergency lighting inspection and test records
- Any notice of violation, correction order or abatement notice, with its current status
- Accessibility complaints, settlements or remediation plans
Maintenance Records and Service Contracts
- Work order history for a stated recent period, exported, with trade and location
- Service contracts in force — roofing, mechanical, elevator, fire protection, landscaping, pest
- Leased equipment agreements, including laundry, with the maintenance obligation identified
- The maintenance manager's own log, whatever form it takes
Capital Expenditure History
- Capital expenditure by year and by component, with the scope of each
- Invoices or contracts for roof, paving, envelope, mechanical and life-safety work
- Work currently planned, budgeted or under contract, with the expected date
- Any reserve study, capital plan or owner's budget prepared for the property
Warranties and Prior Reports
- Roof warranties — manufacturer and contractor, with the transfer provisions
- Equipment warranties still within term
- Prior condition reports, engineering studies and specialist surveys, with their dates
- Prior environmental assessments, requested so they are not duplicated rather than relied on
Site Access and Logistics
- Roof access — state the means needed, and ask what is actually on site
- Mechanical, electrical, service and roof hatch access, with who holds the keys
- Resident notification — who issues it, when, and in what form
- Lift, scaffold or drone arrangements where they are expected to be needed, and who approves them
Non-Provision and Its Consequences
Download this template
Free Word download, no email required. Or open it in Professional Drafter — it lands in your template library, ready to draft against.
Sources
- Fannie Mae — Frequently Asked Questions: Property Condition Assessment Reports (2024-05-01)
- Fannie Mae Form 4099 — Instructions for Performing a Multifamily Property Condition Assessment
- Fannie Mae Form 4099.G — Appendix G: Known Problematic Building Materials (January 2026), via Guide Update 26-04
- Freddie Mac Multifamily Seller/Servicer Guide, Chapter 62 — Property Condition Report Requirements
- ASTM E2018-24 — Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments: Baseline Property Condition Assessment Process
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This page is a documentation aid — not engineering advice, not legal advice, and not a substitute for the standard or client scope your engagement runs under. A template cannot tell you what your assessment requires. The worked example describes a fictional property, and its costs, quantities and service lives are illustrative only.