Academy/Working With Professionals
Choosing a reserve specialist
What to check before you hire someone to tell you when your roof, pool, and pavement will need replacing, and what that will cost.
A reserve specialist studies your association's major components, roofs, pavement, pools, and estimates when each will need replacement and what that will cost. Look for the CAI Reserve Specialist (RS) or APRA's PRA credential, confirm whether the study includes a site visit, and get the exact scope in writing before signing.
What a rigorous reserve study covers
A reserve study is a physical and financial checkup of everything your association owns and will eventually have to fix or replace: roofs, roads, pools, elevators, siding. A good one does two things. It inspects the actual condition of those components, and it turns that inspection into numbers your board can budget around.
California's reserve study statute spells out what a rigorous study includes at minimum:
"identification of the major components that the association is obligated to repair, replace, restore, or maintain that... have a remaining useful life of less than 30 years," "identification of the probable remaining useful life," "an estimate of the cost of repair, replacement, restoration, or maintenance," "an estimate of the total annual contribution necessary," and "a reserve funding plan."
Source: Cal. Civ. Code Section 5550, Reserve Study Requirements, California Legislative Information
Exact required contents, whether a site inspection is required, and whether a reserve study is legally mandatory at all vary by state. Treat this list as a description of what thorough work looks like, not as your own state's checklist. Check your governing documents and state statute for what actually applies to you.
The credentials worth asking about
Two credentials mark someone as specialized in this work: the Reserve Specialist (RS) designation from the Community Associations Institute, and the PRA designation from the Association of Professional Reserve Analysts. Ask any candidate directly whether they hold one.
Requirements for each credential change, so don't take a candidate's summary of them at face value. Confirm current requirements directly at caionline.org or apra-usa.com before deciding how much weight to put on the credential itself. A candidate with years of unlicensed experience and no credential isn't automatically disqualified, but the board should know that going in, not discover it later.
Pin down the scope before you sign
Ask whether the proposal is a full study, which includes a site visit and physical inspection of your components, or an update, which relies on the prior study's data and a shorter review. The two cost differently and tell you different things. A quote that doesn't say which one you're getting isn't comparable to a quote that does.
Get the answer in writing. A short engagement letter that states full or update, what's inspected, and when the funding plan and reserve study report is due protects both sides if there's a dispute later. See professional scopes of work for how to write one.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
Your reserve specialist's report lists your roof, pavement, and pool with each one's replacement cost, but it never states how much the association should contribute to reserves each year. What is missing?
A candidate has done reserve studies for fifteen years but holds no CAI or APRA credential. What should the board do before hiring them?
Two reserve specialists bid on your project. One quote is much lower than the other, and the proposal does not say whether it includes a site visit. What should the board confirm before signing?
Sources
- Cal. Civ. Code Section 5550, Reserve Study Requirements, California Legislative Information
Related elsewhere in the Academy
Working With Professionals
Next, learn how to turn any professional's proposal into a scope of work you can actually hold them to.
Whether a reserve study is required at all, what it must cover, and how often it must be updated vary by state. Current RS and PRA credential requirements are set by CAI and APRA and change over time; confirm them directly with those organizations.