Windstorm program
Windstorm Certificates in a Coastal Closing
Certificates attach to the structure and stay on file, which means a coastal property carries its windstorm history into every transaction whether or not anyone looks at it before the closing date.
What transfers
The certificate follows the building
It records an improvement to a structure, not a relationship with an owner.
A certificate attaches to the structure and to the improvement it certified rather than to whoever owned the property at the time, and it remains on file. A buyer inherits the windstorm record along with the building, in whatever condition that record is in.
That is favorable when the record is complete. It is the entire problem when it is not, because the gap in the record is now the buyer's gap and the seller has moved on.
The check
Certificate history is searchable before anyone is committed
This costs nothing and is the single highest value fifteen minutes in a coastal transaction.
Certificates issued for a property can be searched, so the windstorm record can be examined during the option period rather than discovered during underwriting. What is being looked for is not simply whether a certificate exists but whether the certificates present account for the improvements visible on the building.
A roof that is obviously newer than the house, with no corresponding certificate, is the classic finding. So is an enclosed patio, a replaced garage door, or a window package that postdates the original construction.
For work completed between January 1, 2017 and May 31, 2020, the certificate came from the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association as a WPI-8-C rather than from the department. A search of departmental records alone will not surface it, and its absence there is not proof that the work was uncertified.
The consequence
An uncertified improvement is an insurability question
The certificate supports eligibility for wind and hail coverage through the association. Where a coastal buyer's financing requires that coverage, an uncertified improvement stops being a paperwork question and becomes a question about whether the transaction can close on schedule.
The remedy is the completed construction route, which runs on a sealed post-construction report and takes as long as it takes. Discovering the need for it two weeks before closing is how coastal deals slip, and the discovery is entirely avoidable earlier.
Sellers
The record is worth assembling before listing
A clean windstorm record is a marketing asset on the coast and a discount on a disclosure otherwise.
A seller who assembles the certificate history before listing controls the timing of any problem it reveals. A seller who does not will meet the same problem later, with less leverage and a contract in place.
Where an improvement was made without certification, addressing it before listing converts an unquantified risk that a buyer will price defensively into a known cost the seller chose when to incur.
Questions
What people ask about this
- Does the seller have to provide a windstorm certificate?
- The certificate attaches to the structure and remains on file rather than being a document a seller issues. What matters in practice is whether the record accounts for the improvements on the building, which either side can check before the contract rather than after.
- We found a roof with no certificate two weeks before closing. What are the options?
- The route for work already completed is the completed construction path, which requires a sealed post-construction inspection report and runs on the department's timeline rather than the transaction's. That is why the check belongs in the option period.
Elsewhere in the program
The rest of the windstorm system
Each part of this program is decided by a different party, which is why they are separate pages.
The designated catastrophe area
Does this address fall inside the program at all?
WPI-1 and the inspection sequence
What has to happen before the first nail, and in what order?
Certificates for completed construction
The work is already finished and nobody inspected it. Now what?
The program overview sets out who decides what, and the windstorm capability page covers what this firm is built to deliver once it opens for work.
Start a job
Tell us what the letter is for and we will tell you yes or no
Send the address, what the document is for, and the date it has to be in hand. Some jobs this firm cannot take, and you will hear that in the first conversation rather than after you have paid and waited.