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Congress and HUD have established various types of preferences in an effort to provide housing to those most in need. HUD rules currently include four different kinds of preferences that apply to various programs [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 4-6(B)]. Of these four preferences, three of them apply only to certain applicants and are mandatory. These preferences are:

Sloppy resident files are a headache you can do without during your annual audit or management and occupancy review. Auditors routinely review resident files to see how well your company complies with HUD rules. If a file is missing important documents, it may act as a signal to an auditor that your staff may be cutting corners on rule compliance. But often a document is simply missing because your staff doesn’t know which documents belong in the resident files.

HUD requires many owners of nonprofit and limited-dividend sites with HUD-insured and HUD-held mortgages, including Section 202 program sites, to set up residual receipts accounts. Generally, all sites owned by nonprofit mortgagors and all Section 236 and 221(d)(3) projects owned by limited distribution (LD) mortgagors as well as Section 8 New Construction/Substantial Rehabilitation projects subject to the 1979/80 revised Section 8 regulations are required to establish ...

If you own or manage an assisted site, you must have a written resident selection plan that incorporates the policies and procedures covering each step of the selection process. It’s important to have a well-written resident selection plan because it can show HUD you’re complying with its rules. Among the first things HUD staffers look for when conducting a management review of your site is that you have a written resident selection plan. Not having a writte...

Everyone agrees that federal fair housing law covers intentional discrimination, but there were lingering questions about whether it also applies to what’s known as “disparate impact” discrimination—housing practices that appear to be neutral, but have an unfair effect on members of protected classes. In late June, the Supreme Court resolved the question once and for all by ruling that the law does indeed cover such claims.

Are you dealing with unusual long-term management problems or extra administrative burdens at your site? For instance, do you have unusually high maintenance and security costs because you’re managing a site in a deteriorated area with a high incidence of crime and vandalism? Or are you managing a site with a complicated structure of financing and subsidies, which requires sophisticated—and expensive—oversight?

HUD requires you to offer to meet with applicants and residents in specific circumstances. These meetings let applicants and residents dispute important decisions that you’ve made about their housing assistance. We’ll describe three situations you’ll most likely deal with in which you must offer to meet with applicants and residents.

HUD’s noncitizen rule says that only households made up entirely of U.S. citizens and/or certain eligible noncitizens (such as a permanent resident alien) can benefit from federal rental assistance [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 3-12 (A)]. To ensure that an ineligible noncitizen doesn’t get assistance, HUD requires you to verify the immigration status of most applicants who declare that they’re eligible noncitizens.

A household may report to you that its members include children who are part of a joint custody arrangement. That is, the children live part of the time with the household and part of the time with their other parent, who doesn’t live in the unit. For example, a household head may report that she has two sons who will be living in the unit during the week and with their father on weekends. When certifying or recertifying these households, you need to know whether ...

Occasionally, you may need to perform an interim recertification for a household. This means that you must recalculate the household’s income and assistance before the household’s scheduled recertification date based on a change in the household’s situation. For example, when a household tells you that its income has increased you may need to initiate an interim recertification. But not every change warrants an interim recertification. HUD requires you...