If a building at your site is infested with cockroaches or other such pests, getting all residents to cooperate with your efforts to control the problem is essential to your building’s well-being. Cockroaches are among the most widespread and persistent of all pest problems. In fact, in a list of the most cited deficiencies in public housing, insect or roach infestations ranked 17 out of 25.
As a site owner or manager, you must keep files containing required documents for each household. But it’s easy to make mistakes. And these mistakes can cause you to lose points on a management and occupancy review (MOR).
If your site was inspected recently, you may have lost points for a condition that violates HUD inspection standards, but that a local law permits or even requires. For example, you may have lost points for having window guards on your site’s windows, even though your local law requires window guards. Fortunately, HUD gives you a way to challenge a Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) inspection score that was lowered because of circumstances that are out of the ordinary, reflect an inconsistency with ownership, or are allowed by local codes.
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 a residual receipts account.
Like most sites, you communicate in writing with the public, applicants, and residents nearly every day. For example, you probably send out applications, leases, 50059 certification forms, letters, notices, brochures, and flyers. But did you know that HUD requires each of these written communications to contain specific language saying that your site doesn’t discriminate against individuals with disabilities [HUD Handbook 4350.3, par. 2-29(C)(3)]?
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.
During summer months, household members often like to use a site’s roof for recreational purposes, such as sunbathing, barbecuing, watching fireworks, or catching a breath of fresh air. But letting residents and guests use your roof could lead to liability for your site. For example, if a resident gets seriously injured or causes costly property damage, a court may rule that you’re liable for the injuries or damage because you let residents and guests use the roof.
To discourage residents from damaging their units and to make it easier to get current residents to reimburse you for the cost of repairing damage they’ve caused, you should have available a list of repairs your maintenance staff perform most often and how much those repairs cost. The list should be given to residents to let them know that they’ll be responsible for reimbursing you if you incur these costs because of damage they caused. If a resident knows how much a repair will cost her, she might think twice before damaging her unit.
