Q I suspect that civil penalties for Fair Housing Act violations have gone up again this year. What are the new amounts and where I can find them?

Q I have a mixed-income site. The last issue of the Insider seemed to indicate that credit may be claimed on vacant units if reasonable attempts are being made to rent the unit and no units are rented to non-qualified households while the unit is vacant (see How to Make Sure Next Available U...

Q We manage a tax credit site that gets funding through the HOME program. A resident with disabilities recently asked us to install a ramp at the entrance to our site's community room so that he can access it using his wheelchair. We want the resident to pay for the ramp, but he's insisting that we're responsible for its cost because the community room is part of our site's common area. Must we pay to...

Q My company has managed federally assisted sites and will soon start managing tax credit sites. Are there any special laws or guidelines we must follow when setting occupancy standards for our tax credit sites?

Q An applicant has an ABLE account. He’s able to provide proof that it’s an ABLE account and document its balance. Both the applicant and his employer put money into the account. ABLE accounts aren’t mentioned in the HUD Handbook. Do we count the money as an asset? And is the money his employer deposits into the account considered income?

Q The last issue of the Insider seemed to indicate that a violation of state or local fair housing law may result in noncompliance reported with IRS Form 8823 (see “Comply with State, Local Fair Housing Laws that Go Beyond Federal Law.”) Will additional types of housing discrim...

Q We calculated the maximum allowable rent for our low-income units. Since we’d like all our rents to be whole numbers, can we round the rents up to the nearest whole number?

Q The tax credit building we manage was placed in service last week. Because it may be difficult to meet the minimum set-aside this year, we’re wondering whether the owner can wait until next year to begin claiming its tax credits if the set-aside isn’t met this year. Can the owner wait, even though the building was placed in service this year?

Q A prospective household wants to rent a two-bedroom unit at our tax credit site on a month-to-month basis. We know that the tax credit program doesn’t allow short-term rentals. But the household doesn’t plan to vacate anytime soon and just wants flexibility. The household is income-eligible and renting to it wouldn’t violate the student rule. Can we rent to this household on a month-to-month basis...

Q We’ve just started to manage our first tax credit site. The site owner told us that we need to keep the site in compliance with the tax credit program for only 10 years because that’s how many years the owner claims its tax credits. But we thought that the compliance period lasts 15 years. Is the owner correct?