What Is ASTM E2018-24?
Every commercial due diligence package rests on three standards, one per report. The boundary has ALTA/NSPS, the soil has ASTM E1527, and the building has ASTM E2018. It is the least discussed of the three, partly because it is the one you have to buy. This page sets out what the current edition requires, the four things that changed in it, and the gap between a conformant report and the report you probably assumed you were getting.
We describe this standard rather than quoting it, on purpose. ASTM sells E2018. NSPS publishes the survey standard free, which is why our Table A Item 6 page quotes it word for word. Everything below is either from the public abstract on the ASTM store page or attributed to a named practitioner summary. Nothing here is paraphrased paywalled text.
What the Guide Asks For
The full title is Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments: Baseline Property Condition Assessment Process, and the word doing the work is baseline. E2018 is not a specification for the best possible inspection. It describes a floor: the minimum a consultant does so that two reports on two buildings are comparable.
The process it frames has four inputs and one output:
- A walk-through survey of the primary improvements, to identify material physical deficiencies.
- Document review, covering what the owner and manager can hand over.
- Research, into the property and its systems.
- Interviews, to pick up what the documents and the walk-through miss.
- The output is a Property Condition Report, or PCR, carrying the observations plus opinions of probable cost to put the deficiencies right. Those opinions are the part your lender reads.
Note that "opinion of probable cost" is not a quotation from a contractor. It is the consultant's estimate, and its purpose is to size a reserve, not to procure the work.
The Four Changes Worth Knowing About
E2018-24 came into force on 1 January 2024, replacing the August 2015 edition. Bureau Veritas counts more than 140 revisions. Most are editorial. These four are not, and they are the ones practitioners single out:
1What counts as observing
The definition of "observe" widens past looking at something. Auditory and olfactory observation are now in scope, so a consultant noting a failing bearing by sound or damp by smell is working inside the guide rather than beyond it.
2What counts as a primary improvement
Ancillary buildings that only support the main use, maintenance sheds and utility garages among them, are excluded from primary improvements. The walk-through concentrates on the core asset, and if you want the sheds assessed you have to ask for them.
3What counts as an immediate cost
Immediate costs now explicitly cover deficiencies needing prompt action, including life safety items, likely system failure and code violations. That is the number that lands in your closing conversation, so a wider definition means more of the report arrives as immediate rather than as reserve.
4What the guide does not owe you
Section 1.3 states that no out-of-scope consideration is required for conformity, while acknowledging that a given property may warrant more. In practice that means a report can be fully E2018-conformant and still not answer a question you assumed it covered, so agree any extras in the engagement letter.
The four are as described by AEI Consultants, read 2026-09-09. AEI is in our own provider directory, which is why their summary is the one cited: they run this process for a living. Read it as a practitioner's account of the edition, not as the text of it.
Where It Sits Against the Other Two Standards
The three reports are routinely ordered together and routinely confused with each other. Each has its own standard, its own governing body, and its own idea of what "the property" means:
| Report | Standard | Free to read | What it covers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property Condition Assessment | ASTM E2018-24 | No, ASTM sells it | The building: structure, envelope, roof, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, site |
| Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment | ASTM E1527-21 | No, ASTM sells it | The land: recognised environmental conditions, contamination history |
| ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey | 2026 ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements | Yes | The boundary: title lines, easements, encroachments, Table A extras |
The practical consequence of that middle column is that buyers argue about Table A items and almost never argue about E2018 scope, because one standard can be read over lunch and the other cannot. It is also why the scope conversation for a PCA has to happen in the engagement letter rather than by pointing at a clause.
What a Conformant Report Still Will Not Tell You
Section 1.3 of the guide states that no out-of-scope consideration is required for conformity, while acknowledging that a particular property may warrant more. Read that sentence twice before you rely on a report. It means "E2018 conformant" and "answers my question" are different claims.
The exclusion the -24 edition made explicit is a good example: ancillary buildings that merely support the main use, such as maintenance sheds and utility garages, are no longer primary improvements. A conformant report on a distribution centre can therefore say nothing at all about the site's outbuildings, entirely properly.
Contamination is not a near miss either, it is a different report. If you want to know whether the ground is clean you are asking for a Phase 1 ESA under ASTM E1527-21, and if that finds a recognised environmental condition you are into Phase 2 sampling. Order the extras you want by name.
What It Costs to Have One Done
Our published band is $1,250 to $10,000, and it rests on one vendor's rate card, so it is the softest cost figure on this site. The more useful thing to know is the unit: PCA work is quoted per square foot, by building type, so the band describes small-to-mid buildings and stops describing anything larger. The worked numbers, the office-versus-warehouse difference and the age premium are on the PCA cost page.
Common Questions
What is ASTM E2018-24?
It is the Standard Guide for Property Condition Assessments: Baseline Property Condition Assessment Process, published by ASTM under committee E50.02. It sets out a baseline process for assessing the primary improvements on a commercial property through a walk-through survey plus document review, research and interviews, and it defines the report that comes out the other end: a Property Condition Report carrying observations and opinions of probable cost for the deficiencies found. The -24 edition has been in force since 1 January 2024.
What changed between E2018-15 and E2018-24?
Bureau Veritas puts it at more than 140 revisions against the August 2015 edition. The four that practitioners call out are a wider definition of "observe" that now includes hearing and smell, the exclusion of ancillary buildings such as maintenance sheds from "primary improvements", a broader definition of "immediate costs" covering life safety, likely system failure and code violations, and Section 1.3 confirming that nothing out of scope is needed for conformity.
Is ASTM E2018 free to read?
No. ASTM sells it, which is the opposite of the survey standard: ALTA and NSPS publish the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements as a free PDF. That difference is why our pages quote Table A verbatim and describe E2018 instead. If you commission PCAs regularly, buying the 21-page guide is the cheapest way to know what you are actually entitled to.
Does an E2018 conformant report include ADA, seismic or environmental work?
Not by default. E2018 is a baseline, and Section 1.3 says no out-of-scope consideration is required for conformity. Screens of that kind are ordered as additions to the engagement, and contamination is a different report entirely: that is the Phase 1 ESA under ASTM E1527-21. Agree anything beyond the baseline in writing before the consultant mobilises.
What does a PCA cost?
Our published band is $1,250 to $10,000, and it rests on a single vendor's rate card, so treat it as a sanity check rather than a market rate. The more useful fact is the unit: PCA work is quoted per square foot by building type, which means a flat band stops describing anything once the building is large.
Sources
We have not read E2018-24 itself. Two practitioner summaries agree on the substance, which is why this page exists, but a summary is not the standard: if the scope of a specific engagement matters to you, buy the guide. Last reviewed 2026-09-09.