Dealing with Households

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As part of its compliance monitoring responsibilities, a state housing agency must conduct on-site physical inspections and review low-income certifications and other documentation. The agency must perform these inspections and certification reviews at least once every three years after the initial on-site inspection.

Have you ever had a resident complain to you about another resident’s harassing or abusive behavior? Maybe the other resident is loudly insulting him or, worse, using racial epithets. You might be tempted to ignore the problem. But your decision could be costly. The resident who’s the target of the harassment might move out of your tax credit site and then sue you for violating your lease obligations or fair housing law.

Your common areas play a major role in your site’s success. They’re the areas that your residents share and prospective renters see first. But your residents may cause problems in your common areas, inadvertently or otherwise. They may leave their garbage out, store personal property there, or act inappropriately. Besides being an eyesore and a nuisance, these things can leave you open to liability. For example, a stroller blocking an exit could violate your local fire code, and a person who trips over it could sue you for injuries.

One way residents may steal electricity is by stealing from the building supply. Residents may tamper with wiring and hook up directly to your building’s metered electricity supply. A resident who does this taps into power that you’re paying for. Another way to steal electricity is directly from other residents. In this case, a resident may tap into a neighboring resident’s metered electricity supply. While this type of tampering may not happen often at your building, it can cause big problems when it does.

If you don’t know when to count—and when not to count—the income of absentees, because of military service or otherwise, during recertification at your mixed-income site, you can miscalculate residents’ rent and jeopardize the owner’ tax credits. Counting the income of an absentee when you shouldn’t might put the household over-income, causing you to apply the next available unit rule unnecessarily.

When dealing with the death of a resident, you must remain sensitive to the family and friends of the deceased but also carefully follow legal procedures. We’ll tell you what steps you must take to deal with the deceased resident’s body and belongings. We’ll explain how you can best assist a relative or close friend of the deceased in fulfilling his duties as the deceased’s representative or estate administrator.

When you hire an attorney to evict a resident from your tax credit site for violating the lease, you want to have the eviction handled as quickly and efficiently as possible. But the process may be unnecessarily hindered if you don’t give the attorney all the documents and information she needs for a speedy eviction.

Sports courts, such as basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts, are a great amenity for your site. But sports courts can also lead to problems. For example, residents may argue with each other over how much time a resident should be allotted on a court, or residents can injure themselves if people leave debris, like bottles and cans, on the courts.

IRS regulations don’t require annual certifications for properties that are 100 percent tax credit. However, for mixed-income sites, recertifications serve an important function. Annual certifications ensure affordable housing units are occupied by income-eligible households, and provide a means to ensure compliance with the Next Available Unit Rule and student status.

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA) eliminated the annual income recertification requirement for 100 percent buildings. Each state agency, however, may opt to tighten the rule and impose its own recertification requirements. For mixed-use tax credit sites, owners are required to meet with low-income households to recertify their incomes and determine whether the site needs to follow the available unit rule because any household went over income.