Structure & exterior findings
12 findings covering foundations, roofing, cladding and the envelope.
Foundations, roofs, cladding and the building envelope. This is where North Texas differs most sharply from anywhere else in the country, and for two reasons: the soil and the hail.
Dallas–Fort Worth sits on the Blackland Prairie, a belt of dark clay that changes volume with moisture. The dominant soil series cracks between half an inch and four inches wide at a foot of depth during dry weather, and stays cracked for ninety to a hundred and fifty cumulative days in a normal year. Anything built on it moves. That is not a defect; it is the ground.
The mistake almost everyone makes — buyers, agents, and a good deal of the repair industry — is treating movement and damage as the same word. They are not. A slab that has moved is not by that fact damaged, and a house with cracks is not by that fact a house with a foundation problem. What matters is whether the movement has produced distress that impairs the structure, and whether it is still progressing.
Roofs work the same way. In most of the country a composition roof is replaced when it wears out. Here it is usually replaced after a hail event, often years before oxidation would have ended it. That single fact reorders how roof age should be read on a North Texas house, and it is why the honest answer to "how long does a roof last here" is that nobody can tell you — it depends on storms, not on time.
The pages below cover what an inspector can observe, where the licence boundary sits, and which findings genuinely need a structural engineer rather than an opinion from whoever is quoting the repair.
| Finding | Verdict | Era | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Master policy and insurance shortfalls | Blocks financing | In the condo documents | Who insures what, and where the seam leaves an owner exposed |
| Short-term rentals and condotel character | Blocks financing | When the lender reviews the project | What makes underwriting call a condominium a hotel |
| Single-entity ownership concentration | Blocks financing | When the lender reviews the project | One owner, too many units, and the limits that survived 2026 |
| Too little of the budget going to reserves | Blocks financing | In the budget or reserve study | The 10 percent test, and the 15 percent that replaces it |
| Commercial and non-residential floor area | Complicates it | When the lender reviews the project | The 35 percent line, and what counts as floor area |
| Developer control, phasing and turnover | Complicates it | In the condo documents | What declarant control is, when it ends, and what turnover reveals |
| Investor and non-owner-occupancy ratio | Complicates it | When the lender reviews the project | The 50 percent limit Fannie Mae retired in March 2026 |
| No current reserve study | Complicates it | In the budget or reserve study | Why a stale study is a different problem from a missing one |
| Owner delinquency rates | Complicates it | In the budget or reserve study | The 15 percent line, and why some delinquency is normal |
| Pending or threatened litigation | Complicates it | In the condo documents | Which lawsuits matter, and the question the form does not ask |
| Special assessments, pending and past | Complicates it | In the condo documents | Which assessments are financeable, and the one variety that is not |
| Underfunded reserves | Complicates it | In the budget or reserve study | What percent funded measures, and what it does not decide |
In the condo documents
4 findingsWhat the declaration, minutes, budget and disclosures reveal.
In the budget or reserve study
4 findingsWhat the association's own financial reporting shows.
When the lender reviews the project
4 findingsWhat agency project review tests for.