The DC condo conversion process, with the parts everyone skips
The pages that rank for this question are lender explainers that never mention TOPA, the tenant election, the vacancy exemption, or CASD by name. Those are the process. Here is the whole machine, in the order it actually runs.
First, the legal frame in two sentences
DC regulates conversions under the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act, administered by DHCD’s Conversion and Sale Division, CASD; the law’s core idea is that rental housing cannot quietly become condos out from under tenants. Everything in the process, elections, exemptions, notices, the 5 percent fee, flows from that idea, and the statute itself is short enough to skim before you buy anything.
The fork in the road: occupied or vacant
Every conversion starts by answering one question honestly: is this rental housing with tenants, or a vacant building? The occupied path runs through TOPA on your purchase and the tenant election before conversion. The vacant path runs through a CASD vacancy exemption. The paths differ by months and sometimes by feasibility, and the facts, who lives there, who used to, how tenancies ended, decide which one you are on. No amount of preference changes the facts, which is why due diligence on tenancy history is the most valuable hour in the whole project.
The occupied path: TOPA and the tenant election
- TOPA at purchase. Selling rental housing triggers tenant notice and an opportunity to purchase. Timelines are statutory and scale with building size; single-family properties are largely exempt since 2018, with protections retained for elderly and disabled tenants.
- The election to convert. Converting occupied rental housing requires tenant approval in an election run under the Act: a majority of qualified voting tenants, with heightened protections for elderly and disabled tenants. Notice, eligibility, and procedure are all specified, and defects mean doing it again.
- Negotiated outcomes. Many real projects resolve tenancy by lawful agreement before conversion ever starts: buyouts, relocation deals, purchase participation. Done right these are legitimate; done clumsily they create Act violations that follow the building.
- The calendar truth. The occupied path is measured in quarters. Underwrite it that way or buy vacant.
The vacant path: the exemption, step by step
- Assemble the vacancy story. Prior leases, license history, how each tenancy ended, utility records. Clean documentation is the application.
- Apply to CASD. The vacancy exemption replaces the election requirement for genuinely vacant buildings. Processing is measured in weeks when the file is clean, longer when it is not.
- Never-rented buildings. A building with no rental history at all, an owner-occupied house, new construction, has the simplest posture of the Act, though the filings still run.
- The trap to avoid. Emptying a building the wrong way to reach this path creates exactly the violations the Act polices. The exemption rewards clean history, not clever history.
The registration machine: what CASD actually needs
- Structural engineer’s report. A licensed engineer’s letter on the building’s condition, $2,500 to $5,000 and one of the first things to commission.
- Survey and condominium plats. The legal geometry of your units, prepared for recording; $3,000 to $6,000 and often the schedule’s long pole.
- Condominium documents. Declaration, bylaws, and the public offering statement buyers receive; attorney work, $10,000 to $20,000, and the thing to draft during construction rather than after.
- Registration and recording. CASD registration, document recording, and the administrative tail that turns a building into a legal condominium whose units can settle.
- The 5 percent fee. Paid on conversion unit sales as they close; the biggest line in the stack and the one the calculator will not let you forget.
The timeline, honestly
A well-sequenced vacant-building conversion runs its paperwork in four to eight months, overlapped with construction so the tail past substantial completion is one to three months. A badly sequenced one, documents started after the punch list, survey ordered late, exemption filed with gaps, adds a quarter or two of pure carrying cost, which at $3,000 to $8,000 a month is real money spent on nothing. The occupied path adds the election machinery on top and belongs in the acquisition price, not the hope column. The whole project, purchase to final unit settlement, typically spans 12 to 24 months.
Sanity-check your path
Describe the building and its tenancy facts, and get a straight read on which path you are on and what it costs, from Condo Conversion DC, not a loan desk.
Process questions, answered straight
What is the process to convert a rowhouse to condos in DC?
The DC conversion runs on two parallel tracks. The construction track is ordinary permitting through DOB: renovate the building into its units. The conversion track runs through DHCD’s Conversion and Sale Division under the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act: establish your eligibility to convert (tenant election for occupied rental housing, or a vacancy exemption for vacant buildings), commission the structural engineer report and condo plats, draft and record the condominium documents, register the condominium, and pay the 5 percent conversion fee as units sell. Run well, the paperwork track takes four to eight months and overlaps construction; run as an afterthought, it adds two to four months of pure carrying after the punch list.
How does the tenant election work in a DC condo conversion?
Occupied rental housing cannot be converted unless the tenants approve it in an election administered under the Conversion Act: a majority of the qualified voting tenants must consent, with additional statutory protections for elderly and disabled tenants. The election has notice requirements and procedural formalities that are easy to get wrong and expensive to redo. In practice, most small-building converters either negotiate departures lawfully before purchase, buy buildings that are already vacant, or price the election path with professional help from the start.
What is the vacancy exemption and how do I qualify?
A building that is genuinely vacant can be exempted from the tenant-election requirement by applying to CASD with documentation of the vacancy: how the building emptied, prior rental history, and supporting records. It is an application, not an entitlement; murky facts, informal tenancies, or evictions that cut corners slow or sink it. Buildings that were never rented at all have the cleanest path. Assemble the paper trail during due diligence and the exemption is usually the routine step in the stack.
Does TOPA still apply to single-family rowhouse conversions?
TOPA attaches to the sale of rental housing, giving tenants notice and an opportunity to purchase before the owner sells. Since the 2018 amendments, single-family properties are largely exempt from the full TOPA process, with carve-outs protecting elderly and disabled tenants who had rights in place. Small multi-unit buildings still get the full machinery. The practical rule: know exactly who lives in the building and on what terms before you go under contract, because the answer picks your legal path and your timeline.
The numbers behind every step live on the cost page; the Hill’s basement variant on the basement condo page; the neighborhood math on pages like Petworth and Columbia Heights.