Going to court with a resident can be an expensive proposition—even if you win. You may win $1,000 in back rent, but that's not a meaningful victory if you have to pay your attorney a few thousand dollars to win it for you. And without a lease clause requiring residents who violate their leases to pay your attorney's fees, you won't be able to convince many courts to order residents to do so.
Keeping your residents cool and comfortable in the summer will do much to keep your residents happy, reduce resident complaints, and avoid HUD scrutiny. If your site's air-conditioning system breaks down this summer, some residents may even try to deduct money from their rent for the time the air-conditioning system was broken.
Security deposits provide owners with some degree of financial protection when a resident moves out of a unit and fails to fulfill obligations under the lease. Security deposits can be used toward reimbursing unpaid rent or repairing any damage the outgoing resident may have left behind.
As manager of an assisted site, one of your most important jobs is to keep the owner updated on how well you're managing the site. The owner wants to know on a monthly or quarterly basis how well the site is doing financially and that there's no major occupancy or other problems affecting the site. To convey this information most effectively, you should prepare a written management report giving the owner the kind of information that he or she needs to make informed decisions about the site.
You may have some assisted residents who don't pay their utility bills for electricity, gas, or water. This can create a dangerous situation at your site. If the utility company shuts off service to the resident's unit, the resident may try to make do with candles, use the oven for heat, or cobble together some other quick remedy that could cause a fire.
The stock market has been incredibly volatile this past year. As a result, some of your residents may have experienced significant reductions in the value of their stock portfolio and may be asking for interim recertifications. Others may have had the benefit of a positive swing in their portfolio's value or are enjoying more household income from dividends that cash-rich companies have increased as they've become more confident in the economy.
Suppose a household member is injured on the job and tells you that he'll be getting workers' compensation benefits for a number of weeks. Like many managers, you may have little experience with income from employee benefits. But with the increasing popularity of welfare-to-work programs, managers at assisted sites are certifying more and more residents who've received employee benefit income such as workers' compensation.
On July 29, HUD posted Notice PIH 2011-44 entitled “Guidance on EPA's Lead-Based Paint Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) Rule, HUD's Lead Safe Housing Rule, and the EPA-HUD Lead Disclosure Rule.” The notice provides guidance to public housing authorities (PHAs) and Housing Choice Voucher site owners on complying with the various lead paint regulations that apply to federally assisted housing.
If you think your local tax assessor may have overvalued your site, it may be a good idea to hire a company that specializes in appealing real estate tax assessments. While you can take basic steps on your own to check the fairness of a tax assessment, you'll need a tax appeal specialist to challenge an assessment successfully. Appealing an assessment helps you comply with HUD rules, and if you win, you can save your site a considerable amount of money [Handbook 4350.1, par. 23-5].
Most apartment residents are not home during the day to accept packages sent to them. That's why many sites accept packages for their residents and hold them until the residents come to pick them up. But if you do not control package deliveries and pickups, you could run into trouble, says manager Doug Chasick. People may take packages that are not theirs; packages may go unclaimed because their recipients do not know that they have arrived; or disputes may arise over when, or if, a package actually arrived and whether the resident ever picked it up.
