A title agent slides the resale certificate across the table. Everyone in the room, buyer, seller, both agents, has seen this document before. It lists the association's dues, its reserve balance, whether the seller has any open violations. Everyone nods. The folder gets initialed and moved to the next stack.
Then someone, usually the lender's processor, asks a question that stops the room: what's the current balance on the CDA? Silence. The resale certificate doesn't say. It was never supposed to. In Magnolia Green, that gap between what people assume the paperwork covers and what it actually covers is the single most common friction point at closing, and it comes down to a fact most agents outside this specific neighborhood have never had a reason to learn: a Magnolia Green closing runs on two separate legal systems, not one.
Two Paperwork Trails, One Closing Date
The document everyone recognizes is the resale certificate, required under Virginia's Property Owners' Association Act. The seller's agent requests it in writing from the homeowners association, and the association has 14 days to deliver it. Since July 2023, every association in the state has had to use the same standardized form built by Virginia's Common Interest Community Board, which is why the packet looks familiar no matter which subdivision you're buying into. It covers the things a homeowners association actually controls: current dues, any special assessments the association itself has levied, the state of its reserve fund, and whether the property has any outstanding rule violations. Once a buyer receives it, the clock starts on a short cancellation window, typically three days, sometimes up to seven if the contract specifies it.
That's the packet everyone in the transaction is trained to look for. It's also, by design, only about the association. It has nothing to say about a completely different entity sitting on top of the same parcel.
The Assessment That Lives in a Different Office
The Lower Magnolia Green Community Development Authority isn't a homeowners association and never has been. It's a public financing authority, created in 2007 under the Virginia Water and Waste Authorities Act, built for one purpose: to issue bonds and pay for the roads and infrastructure that made the rest of the subdivision buildable. The CDA issued $28,070,000 in bonds back in 2015, and the annual special assessments levied against every parcel in the district are what pay that debt down over time. There's no separate CDA tax rate on the county's books. Instead, the assessment shows up as its own line, calculated off the width of each lot, and it rides alongside the regular county real estate tax bill.
A resale certificate can be complete, accurate, and still say nothing about the one balance that follows the property.
Here's the part that catches people off guard. Because the CDA is a political subdivision and not a homeowners association, Virginia's Resale Disclosure Act doesn't reach it. The statute tells associations what has to go in a resale certificate. It has nothing to say about community development authorities, because a CDA isn't the kind of entity that statute was written to regulate. The CDA's own paperwork, filed with Chesterfield County, identifies a third-party firm, MuniCap, Inc., as the administrator handling the bond accounting. If you want a current balance or a payoff figure, that request goes to the county's own contact for the CDA Administrator, not to the homeowners association, and not automatically to anyone unless somebody remembers to ask.
Why the Gap Is Legal, Not Sloppy
It's tempting to read this as an oversight somewhere in the transaction, a form that should have included one more line. It isn't. The Resale Disclosure Act was built around the relationship between an owner and their association: dues, rules, reserves, violations. A CDA doesn't fit that relationship. It's closer to a small government than a homeowners group, with its own board, its own bond covenants, and its own recording in the Chesterfield County Circuit Court land records rather than in the association's files. The county even notes the CDA district directly on the land records for every affected parcel, which is exactly why the obligation follows the property regardless of who owns it, the same way real estate tax does. The resale certificate was never going to capture that, because legally, it isn't supposed to.
That distinction matters for anyone comparing Magnolia Green to a newer subdivision nearby that doesn't carry a CDA. The two neighborhoods can show similar HOA dues on paper and still carry very different total annual obligations once the CDA line is added in. On the 2026 Chesterfield County tax rate of $0.89 per $100 of assessed value, the general real estate tax is only part of what a Magnolia Green owner actually pays each year.
What Skipping the Second Request Actually Costs
Nobody wants to slow down a closing over paperwork, but the two most common outcomes of skipping the CDA request aren't paperwork problems, they're money problems. A lender's underwriter who spots an unconfirmed special assessment late in the process can delay funding while everyone scrambles for a payoff letter. Or worse, the closing proceeds, the parties prorate the wrong number because nobody had a current figure, and a dispute over who owes what surfaces weeks after everyone has moved on. Either version is avoidable, and both start the same way: assuming the resale certificate was the whole story.
Before You Ratify a Magnolia Green Contract
- Confirm in writing whether the property sits inside the Lower Magnolia Green CDA district. Chesterfield County maintains a map of the boundary alongside the ordinance that created it.
- Request the standard HOA resale certificate the same week you request the CDA balance, not after. Both have their own timelines, and running them in parallel keeps the closing date realistic.
- Ask the CDA Administrator for a current payoff or balance figure, not last year's annual assessment report. Bond balances get paid down every year, and the number on an older report won't match what's owed today.
- Have your title company or closing attorney confirm how the current-year assessment will be prorated between seller and buyer, since it isn't handled the same way as ordinary HOA dues.
- If anything is unclear, ask before the contract is ratified rather than after. Once the standard cancellation windows expire, options narrow.
A Short FAQ
Does the CDA assessment ever go away once the bonds are paid off? The assessment funds a fixed bond issuance, so once that debt is retired, the obligation tied to it ends. Until then, it continues as an annual charge against the parcel.
Can a seller just choose not to mention the CDA? Not really. It's recorded directly on the land records for the parcel, which means anyone doing a proper title search will find it regardless of what does or doesn't appear in the HOA packet.
Is the CDA balance the same for every home in Magnolia Green? No. The assessment methodology is based on lot width at the building line, so it varies by land use class and parcel, which is another reason a generic estimate isn't a substitute for a current payoff figure.
Who do I actually call? Chesterfield County's Real Estate Assessments office lists a direct contact for the CDA Administrator, separate from the county's general tax office and separate from the homeowners association.
Two offices, two documents, one closing date. Most Magnolia Green transactions go smoothly precisely because someone on the team already knew to ask the second question. If you're preparing to list, buy, or simply want a clearer picture of what a specific Magnolia Green address actually carries once every obligation is accounted for, Mike Lonski can walk through both sides of the paperwork before you're staring at a folder across a closing table. Get your free home valuation to start with the full picture, not just the half everyone assumes is the whole thing.
