The form set: which forms this deal needs

Answer a short questionnaire about the deal and get the exact forms it needs — the C.A.R. forms, the government forms that ride along, and the county, city and district forms the property's address calls for — each with the reason it's on the list.

Every transaction's Workflow tab opens on Forms this deal needs: a short questionnaire about the deal, what LetterScript knows about the property's address, and the one list of forms both call for. Answer what you know and the list builds as you go — the California Association of REALTORS® (C.A.R.) forms, the federal and state government forms that ride along with them, and the county, city and district forms the property's location requires. Every form says why it's on the list.

LetterScript names the forms a deal needs and counts the copies. It doesn't fill them in or hand them out.

Answer the questionnaire

Under Build a form set, the questions are grouped by stage: Engagement, Listing, Offer, Escrow, Closing, Post-Close and Tenancy. Open a stage and answer what fits — which purchase agreement, how the buyer is paying, who is signing and in what capacity, what the property has to disclose. Some questions take one answer; others take every answer that applies. A question marked once per signer is answered separately for each person signing — the button beneath it adds another. A question marked during escrow is about something that happens after acceptance.

Many questions say why they're asked, and some list the common mistakes: open the count beneath the question, such as 3 ways this goes wrong, to read them. Some answers rule each other out. Pick one and LetterScript clears the other, with a note saying why.

The list under Your forms builds as you answer. Answers in the questionnaire aren't saved until you click Save form set, and Discard throws away answers you haven't saved. While you have unsaved answers, the count beside Your forms is marked preview. LetterScript asks before you move to another section of the Workflow tab, or reload or close the page. Switching to another tab of the transaction, such as Files, doesn't ask, and your unsaved answers are lost, so save first.

The next question, at the top

The next question you haven't answered is also lifted out on its own at the top of the section, with its answers as buttons and the number of forms each one adds, such as +2. Unlike the questionnaire, an answer given there is saved straight away: a question that takes one answer saves on the click, and for one that takes several, pick every one that applies, then click Save. Skip for now moves on to the next question until you leave the section. Questions answered once per signer are asked only in the questionnaire.

The property's address

A line above the questionnaire says where the property is: the street, the city or community ("City of Oakland", "Castro Valley (unincorporated Alameda County)"), its APN, and a chip for each local program — a sewer lateral program, say — that puts a form on this deal's list. Details adds the county and the full program names.

The address decides which local forms apply. A form from another city, county or district is never listed, so an Oakland sale doesn't show Berkeley's forms, and a sale in Kern County doesn't show Los Angeles County's.

From Details you can:

Change address — re-point the transaction at the right property. Its forms are worked out again for the new address.
Sale includes another lot? Add its APN — when one sale conveys more than one lot in the same county, add each extra lot by the APN on its tax bill. The local forms of every lot count. On the free plan, each lot you add uses one property lookup. Remove one with the × on its APN. The Files and Timeline tabs still use the main address only.

When LetterScript can't fully place the address, a note under the line says so and what that means for the list:

The address couldn't be placed at all — only statewide forms are listed. Fix the address to see the city, county and district forms.
The county is known but the city or service districts aren't — county forms are listed, and the note counts the city and district forms held back; check those with the city. Fix the address if it's wrong.
Your plan's property lookups are used up — only statewide forms are listed until the address is unlocked. See plans.
The property data is refreshing — only statewide forms are listed for now, and your saved local forms stay exactly as they are.

About this property: the questions that decide the forms

Some forms apply only in some cases — only when a tenant lives there, only in an HOA, only if the city adopted a local disclosure. About this property asks only the questions whose answer changes a form on this deal's list, and says how many forms each one decides. Up to five show at a time; the rest are under More questions. Your answer saves the moment you click it — there's no separate save — and the list moves with it.

A question the questionnaire already asks, like how the buyer is paying or whether the seller is a foreign person, isn't asked twice. It reads Answer in Offer → (or the stage it's in) and takes you to that question, with the answers that would change the list marked.

Facts we used lists what the list already rests on and where each fact came from: county records ("built 1925"), the state fire map, the address itself ("The whole county is inside the Bay Area Air District" — so that question is never asked there), the contract price, your questionnaire answers, the documents on the transaction, or your own answer. An answer marked Likely comes from the property data and isn't settled until you Confirm it. Change corrects a fact; Clear takes back an answer you gave. When nothing is left to ask, the card shrinks to one line.

A fact says only what its own source shows. The fire fact, for instance, is read from the state fire map — the state's layer, not what your city or county adopted, and the two differ. A local agency may have adopted a more severe zone than the state map shows, so treat "no High or Very High zone" as the state map's answer, not the last word, and confirm a hazard-driven form with the local agency. The same goes for any fact drawn from a map rather than from a document you uploaded.

Once the address is placed, the questionnaire stops asking Is the property in one of the places whose local forms this set includes? — the address answers it. A saved answer to it stays, marked as superseded by the property's location; clear it unless you mean the forms it adds. When you answer that no tenant lives there, or that the property isn't in an HOA, the questionnaire's tenancy or HOA question is set aside too.

Your forms

Your forms is one list, grouped by when each form comes up: Listing, Offer, Escrow, Closing, After closing and Any time (plus Engagement and Tenancy for the questionnaire's own forms). The C.A.R. forms and the government forms sit side by side.

A government form shows the number its issuer prints (for example Form 593 or BOE-502-A) — or its name alone when it prints no number — with a Federal, State, County, City or District tag. The line beneath names the issuer and who prepares it: Your side, Seller's side, Buyer's side, Escrow or title, Lender or The agency. Which side is yours comes from the side set on the Purchase timeline, or else the transaction's type; on a dual-agency deal each side is named. Details gives the issuer, the form number, the current edition, why the form is on the list, when it's due, and the links: Official form (Official text when the form is a statute or notice rather than a printed form), Open the portal for a form that's filed online (tick it when you have the confirmation), and Blank on file when a blank copy is stored.

Most rows are simply needed. A few carry a label:

Depends on an answer — a dashed row with no checkbox. It isn't in your set yet; Depends on: names the question that decides it and takes you there.
Choose one — the agency accepts more than one form for the same thing. Answer the question on the row to pick; until you do, the set carries the usual one.
Added by you — a form you added from Browse all.
No longer needed — the property or your answers changed after you ticked it collected. It stays because it's ticked; untick it and the next update drops it.

A row can also carry On file — beside one of those labels, never instead of one — when a document you've already uploaded looks like that form. See Forms already in your files, below.

When a government form is the same form as a C.A.R.-questionnaire row — the county's printing of the Preliminary Change of Ownership Report behind BOE-502-A, say — it isn't listed twice. The row gets a link to the county's printing instead.

If a form really doesn't apply to this deal, open its Details and click Doesn't apply to this deal. For a needed form you pick a reason — Exempt, Handled outside this set or Other (with a note) — so the file shows why it's missing. A form you added yourself just comes off with Remove from this set. A form the questionnaire itself names, such as Form 593, can't be marked this way: it follows the questionnaire's answers.

Beneath the list, four groups stay closed until you open them:

Escrow, title & lender prepare these — collect a copy — forms someone else prepares, like the 1099-S. They aren't counted in the number beside Your forms.
Only in unusual cases — forms that turn on something most deals never involve, such as a transfer that's exempt from transfer tax. Answer right there if yours does.
Optional for this address — guides, claims and alternatives that apply at this address but that no deal is required to use. Add puts one in your set.
Doesn't apply here — forms ruled out by an answer or covered by a more specific form, each with the reason, and any form someone marked Doesn't apply to this deal, with who did it, why, and Restore.

A form that has to be ordered ahead — due before listing, or with an issuing lead time — is also named in an Order early note at the top of the list.

Forms already in your files

A row shows On file when a document already uploaded to this transaction looks like that form. It works the same way on a C.A.R. form and on a government one.

On file is a note about what's in your files, not a verdict on the document. LetterScript matched what the document is, not what it says: it hasn't checked that the copy is the current edition, filled in, signed, or the right one for this deal. So nothing is ticked for you — that stays your call.

To see which document it found, open Details on a government form; a C.A.R. form names it on the row itself. Either way you get the document's name and the day it was uploaded, and clicking the name opens the document.

Beside Your forms, Government forms: 3 on file · 11 to gather counts the government forms in your saved set. On file is how many already have a document on this transaction that looks like them. To gather is what's left to do: the ones you haven't ticked collected and nothing in the files looks like — so ticking a form takes it off that number even when nothing on file matches it. A Still to gather line above the list repeats it, and goes away once there's nothing left. Neither number changes the count beside them, which is the size of the list.

Browse all government forms

Browse all opens every federal, state, county, city and district form LetterScript knows. Search by name, form number, issuer, city or district — searching "Oakland" finds the East Bay sewer lateral forms, which belong to the district rather than the city — and narrow by level. It opens on the property's county and statewide forms; untick the box to see every county. Forms that apply at this address come first.

Each form says where it stands: In your set, Applies at this address, Doesn't apply here (with the reason), For another place, or Other county. Add puts a form in your set, marked Added by you; adding one the address or your answers ruled out asks you to confirm first. Anyone who can view the transaction can browse; only people who can edit it can add.

When the address needs forms your set doesn't have

A set saved before LetterScript knew the property's local forms — or a transaction with no set yet — shows This address needs N forms that aren't in your set yet, naming them. Add them puts them in. A transaction with no set yet shows that number beside Forms this deal needs in the rail, flagged as forms to add.

If the property data changes after the set is saved (a corrected address, an added lot), the note reads The property data changed since this set was saved, with what would be added and dropped. Update applies it; Keep as saved leaves the set alone for now. A form you've ticked collected is never dropped — it stays, marked No longer needed. Answering any property question brings the set up to date as well.

The government forms the questionnaire names

Some government forms come from the questionnaire itself, whatever the address:

Federal

Form 8288 and Form 8288-A, from the IRS — withholding under the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA), when the seller is a foreign person and no exemption applies. The buyer's withholding agent — usually escrow — files them.
Closing Disclosure — the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) model form H-25, on a purchase with a conventional, Federal Housing Administration (FHA) or Veterans Affairs (VA) loan, or when the buyer assumes the seller's loan. The lender delivers it.
Protect Your Family From Lead in Your Home — the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lead pamphlet, for a home built before 1978. It's also listed when the seller stays on 30 days or more after close, because that's a lease; there too, it applies only if the home was built before 1978.

State

Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement (NHD) — ordered by the listing side from an NHD vendor.
Form 593, the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) Real Estate Withholding Statement — escrow submits it on every sale, exempt or not, one for each seller.
Preliminary Change of Ownership Report (PCOR), form BOE-502-A — completed by the buyer and filed with the deed. When the county prints its own version, the row links to it.
The deed conveying title — drafted by escrow or title, signed by the seller, recorded at close. No government issues a deed form, so its Official source is Civil Code §1092, the statute that sets out the grant deed's form.
Homeowner's Guide to Earthquake Safety — required for a home built before 1960 with one to four units of light-frame construction; for any other home, delivering it gives the seller and the agents a safe harbor under state law.
Residential Environmental Hazards booklet — not required, but delivering it gives the same kind of safe harbor.

Every set with a purchase agreement includes Form 593, the PCOR and the deed — their reason reads base package. Most of these are prepared by someone else — escrow, title, the lender, an NHD vendor or the buyer. They're on the list so you can confirm each one is in the file.

When LetterScript can't place the address, the questionnaire still asks Is the property in one of the places whose local forms this set includes?, which adds San Francisco's Report of Residential Building Record (3R) and Transfer Tax Affidavit, San Mateo County's Transfer Tax Affidavit (DTT Affidavit) (form REC-SMC-012011), or Berkeley's Building Emissions Saving Ordinance (BESO) application for a building of three or four units; for any other property, answer Somewhere else — or a Berkeley single-family home, duplex or condominium. A Berkeley BESO filing is due before listing, and San Francisco's 3R takes the Department of Building Inspection about 7–10 business days to issue — order it at listing.

Forms, and the rules behind them

The form set is the paper you collect. Required here on the Files tab is the rules behind it — every point-of-sale rule for the property, with its law and its deadline — checked against the documents you upload. See Point-of-sale requirements.

Marking forms collected

Tick a form in Your forms once you have it; the tick saves straight away. A questionnaire form can only be ticked after the set is saved; a government form, once it's in your set. Only a person ever ticks a form: nothing marks it collected automatically, even when a matching document is uploaded — that document is marked On file beside the form and left for you to tick. (The point-of-sale (POS) disclosure checklist on the Files tab works the other way — it ticks itself as documents arrive.) So a form can be On file and unticked, or ticked with nothing on file, and both are right: On file says what's in this transaction's files, and collected is your word that you have what you need. Ticks are saved on the transaction, so everyone who can open it sees them, and anyone with edit access can change them. A form that needs more than one copy shows the count, such as ×2, with the reason beneath.

Export as CSV, in the section header, downloads the saved set as a spreadsheet: each form's code (for a government form, the number it prints, if any), name, stage, copies, whether it's collected and why it's on the list, then its status, level, issuer, who prepares it and its official link. Forms that still depend on an answer are listed last, marked To confirm. It's the summary to hand a broker at file review.

When the form model changes

The questions and forms behind the form set are updated from time to time — adding the government forms was one such update. A set saved before an update keeps showing exactly what you saved. Anyone who can edit the transaction sees a note that it was built against a different version of the form model. See what changed lists the forms the update would add or drop, including the local forms For this address (or says that only the wording behind them changed), and any answers you'd need to give again. When every saved answer still fits, Update this set adopts the update. When some need giving again, answer those questions in the questionnaire and click Save form set instead. Keep it as saved leaves the set alone.

If the transaction is shared with you as view-only, you see the questionnaire, the questions about the property and the list, but you can't answer anything, tick a form or add one: the answers and ticks are greyed out.

Informational only — not legal advice. Which forms a deal needs depends on facts only you can confirm, and local rules change; confirm local requirements with the city, county or district before close.

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