On the Files tab, the Required here rail down the left lists the forms and disclosures LetterScript finds for this address — and matches them to the documents in the table beside it. The counter (e.g. 9/13 collected) shows at a glance how much of the file is in place.
How items get checked off
You don't normally tick boxes by hand. When you upload a document, LetterScript classifies it; if it satisfies a required item, that item is marked collected automatically. Each row carries a small status chip:
- Collected — a matching document is on the transaction.
- Missing or To collect — still outstanding; obtain it and upload it. Outstanding rows carry their own Upload button.
- Attestation — an action to perform or confirm rather than a document to collect.
- Due at close — a transfer tax that's paid when the deed records. Its evidence (the recorded deed or the transfer-tax declaration) can't exist before closing, so it isn't counted as missing mid-escrow, or in the counter. If the close date passes and it still isn't on file, it reads Missing again. The closing-summary email still lists it, marked due at close.
- Deal ended — the transaction was cancelled or withdrawn, so the item is no longer owed and isn't counted as missing; the rail drops its counter. Anything already collected stays Collected. An offer withdrawn from the seller's side of a transaction, or from one that holds the property's listing agreement, doesn't end the list, because the seller's disclosures are still owed to the next buyer.
Some disclosures share a document type with dozens of other forms, so the row is matched on the form itself: the Megan's Law row is collected by the C.A.R. Megan's Law Database Disclosure (DBD), not by any other advisory. A document LetterScript has flagged as not belonging to this transaction (for example, a purchase agreement for a different kind of property) doesn't check anything off.
One packet can satisfy several rows
A single PDF often carries several C.A.R. forms. When a row is satisfied by a form bundled inside a packet rather than by the file's own type, its document tag reads SCO · in packet — the form code, then the tag — so you can see which of the packet's forms did the work. Hover the tag for the detail.
You always have the last word
Every row has an Override control beside it: mark a requirement satisfied, waived, or not applicable when you know something the documents don't show. An overridden row goes struck through with a badge naming the verdict — Marked satisfied, Waived, Not applicable — and hovering it says who set it and when ("you" only if it was you). Waived is for something a party is allowed to give up. The Transfer Disclosure Statement, the natural hazard disclosure, and the notices that state law puts beside the TDS (the plumbing-fixture, supplemental tax, Mello-Roos and special-assessment, fire-hardening and defensible-space, carbon monoxide, flip, electrical, gas-appliance and smoking disclosures) can't be waived on a sale they cover, even an as-is sale (Civil Code §§1102(c), 1103(d)), so their Override doesn't offer Waived: it says Can't be waived by law. Mark Satisfied when delivered, or Not applicable if the sale is exempt or the rule doesn't reach it. On the wildfire compliance rows, Satisfied also fits when the buyer has signed the Civil Code §1102.19 agreement to get the documentation after close. When the sale is exempt, mark the row Not applicable. A Waived the law doesn't allow is not counted as collected. A row someone marked Waived before the option was removed keeps that verdict, with a warning beside it saying to change it. A city, county or district ordinance's own row still offers Waived. Reset to auto in the same control hands the row back to the documents, including a satisfied whose matched document has since been removed from the transaction. Collaborators with view-only access see neither the upload nor the override control.
When the seller may be exempt
Some sellers don't owe the Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS) — for example when every seller signs as an estate's executor, a conservator, a trustee outside the revocable-trust exception, or a lender reselling a home it took by foreclosure, or when a builder's first sale is under a Department of Real Estate public report or is a completed home in a city subdivision that needs no report. The TDS row, and the supplemental property tax notice that goes with it, then carry a May not apply note saying why. The rows an exempt seller still owes — the hazard-zone disclosures, the Megan's Law notice, a death on the property in the past three years, lead paint and the property-condition items — carry a Still required note, each with its own reason. (The death row says on every transaction, exempt or not, that an occupant's HIV status is never a disclosure item: don't volunteer it or answer questions about it. A direct question about a death, by contrast, must never get a false answer.) A flip, or an investor reselling a home it bought at a foreclosure sale or from a lender, isn't exempt: the foreclosure exemption covers only the foreclosure sale itself, a deed in lieu of foreclosure, and the foreclosing lender's own resale, so a transaction whose sale type says so is told the full set still applies. When an answer says the seller does owe the TDS after all, such as a trustee who once owned or lived in the home, or a builder whose sale is neither under a public report nor exempt from one (for example, a builder of four or fewer homes), the TDS row says Still required instead.
The smoke-alarm row is always Still required, because a dwelling must have working smoke alarms whoever sells (Health & Safety Code §13113.7; manufactured homes and mobilehomes follow their own rules). Its note says whether this seller also owes the written statement that the home complies, which covers a single-family dwelling or factory-built housing, not a manufactured home or mobilehome (so when your answers say three or more units, or a manufactured home, the note says it doesn't apply; for a duplex, whether it applies is unsettled), and has its own list of exemptions in the smoke-alarm law (Health & Safety Code §13113.8), not the TDS's: an executor, conservator or trustee, a court-ordered or bankruptcy sale, a foreclosure sale and a sale under a public report don't owe the statement, while a lender reselling a home it took by foreclosure, a government seller other than the State Controller or a tax sale, and a builder selling without a public report still do. That law has no living-trust exception like the TDS's, but whether a trustee who once owned or lived in the home counts as a trustee there is unsettled, so for that trustee the note says to give the statement — the same advice the form set gives at closing.
The state's fire-hardening and defensible-space rows follow the TDS: those disclosures are in the same law, so when the answers make the sale TDS-exempt, a statewide fire row carries a May not apply note, the same answer the Timeline's fire-hardening step gives (a revocable-trust trustee who once owned the home, or lived in it within the past year, still owes them). A city, county or fire-district inspection row says Still required, because a local ordinance applies whoever sells.
When the purchase agreement on file is a commercial, business or vacant-land contract, the TDS row carries a May not apply note: the TDS covers homes of one to four units, and on a mixed-use property it still covers the homes on it. Mark the row Not applicable only if the property has no homes, or five or more; on a sale the TDS covers, it can't be waived.
The checklist reads the same answers as the form set on the Workflow tab: who is signing and in what capacity, and, under About this property, whether a trustee once owned or lived in the home and whether a public report covers a new home. So the checklist never calls a seller exempt while the form set lists the TDS as owed, and until you answer, the note names the question that settles it. (While the revocable-trust question is open, a trustee's TDS row here says May not apply; the form set keeps the TDS listed until the answer comes in.) A note never removes a row or checks it off: confirm the exemption, then use Override to mark the row Not applicable.
When the transaction's sale type says it's a bankruptcy sale, the TDS row's May not apply note names the form set answer that records it: Bankruptcy trustee or other court-ordered seller to the seller-capacity question, in the Listing or the Offer stage. Once it's given, the row reads like any other court-ordered sale. The water-heater bracing row is Still required for every seller, exempt or not: the law that requires the seller's written certification has no exemption.
The sections
- Required items — what this property's jurisdiction and hazards demand. When the transaction itself settles a fact the parcel record can't — the Transaction record shows the property as tenant-occupied, read from the purchase agreement or a lease — the local rent-control and just-cause ordinance row moves up here, with a note saying why: the buyer takes the tenancy subject to the city's ordinance, so review its eviction, relocation and buyout rules, serve any notice it requires for a buyout or a termination, and file any registration update after close. Your own answer to the tenancy question under the form set's About this property outranks the record, either way, just as it does on the Workflow tab. The statewide Tenant Protection Act notice moves up here too, with a note saying why, when a tenant lives there by your answer, the form set's questionnaire or the Transaction record; an answer says no exemption takes the tenancy out of both the rent cap and just cause (None of these, or not sure to the form set's exemption question, or Rent cap or just cause applies in its questionnaire); you haven't answered that a city or county rent ordinance covers the rental; and the building is 15 or more years old by your answer or county records, its age is unknown, or it's a mobilehome. Otherwise the row stays under May also apply, and its note says why: with the exemption question unanswered, it says the notice is owed unless an exemption applies — most often a separately sellable house or condominium whose lease carries the exemption statement — and asks you to answer it; with your answer that a local ordinance covers the rental, that a local just-cause ordinance can take the place of the state's rules and this notice; with no tenant, an exemption, or a building under 15 years old, which one. Confirm it, then collect the notice or, if an exemption applies, use Override to mark the row Not applicable. (See the form set for the exemption and local-ordinance questions.)
- May also apply — depends on facts we can't see from the address — items whose obligation hinges on something the parcel record doesn't say: whether the property is tenant-occupied (local rent-control and just-cause ordinances), whether it's on a private well rather than public water, whether it sits in a Mello-Roos district, or how many dwelling units it has. A transfer tax charged only above a price — Santa Cruz's Measure C, on the part of a sale above $1.8 million — also sits here when this transaction's price is under that line, since nothing is due unless the price changes. Each one says what would settle it. They are not counted in the collected total, because we can't confirm they apply — review them yourself and act on the ones that do.
- Other POS documents on this transaction — disclosure documents you uploaded that aren't tied to a required item. A city's or county's own form only counts toward that place's requirement when the place has a form of its own: a San Francisco energy certificate uploaded to a Berkeley transaction lands here, flagged as unexpected, rather than ticking Berkeley's row. Where a city has no form type of its own — a Santa Monica records report, say — the closest type still counts.
Where the requirements come from
The checklist is driven by the same property-level data as the full Point-of-sale requirements card beneath it — jurisdiction ordinances plus hazard overlays for the exact address. Informational only — not legal advice. Rules change and the list may be incomplete. Confirm local requirements with the city or county, and state disclosure duties with your broker or a California real estate attorney, before close.