No Response to Requests for Income Verification

My Section 8/PRAC 811 tenant has a state legal guardian, who will not respond to requests for income verification notices or award letters. The tenant has a $40,000 amount in a Special Needs Trust fund that can be accessed as needed. I have not been able to find out where this money came from and I can’t get the guardian to answer emails or phone calls. The tenant’s recert is due March 1, 2014, and I am at a loss of how to handle this.

Property managers are faced with these kinds of scenarios all of the time. The first resource I will always grab is the HUD Handbook 4350.3 Change 4 and the lease.

One of the important tenets of affordable housing is that a tenant must provide verifiable information. Typically failure to provide documentation is ground for termination of subsidy as seen in Figure 5-4: Privacy Act Notice, and the signed lease.

If this was PRAC subsidy type, PRAC properties do not have Market Rent and subsidies cannot be terminated. However, PRAC has an Operating Rent instead of a Market Rent. The rent the tenant pays can be above the Operating Rent—it is 30% of the household’s income. It may create a negative balance on your voucher, but your net will still be the same.

And just to add to that, according to Chapter 8, 8-4 Applicability
A. Termination of assistance is not applicable to Section 202 PRAC and Section 811 PRAC properties.

However according to the lease for a PRAC (Page 3 of 10 form HUD-90105-c/d) In conjunction with #1 on the same page:

(d) The term “material noncompliance with this Agreement” shall, in the case of the TENANT, include (1) one or more substantial violations of this Agreement, (2) repeated minor violations of this Agreement which disrupt the livability of the project, adversely affect the health or safety of any person or the right of any tenant to the quiet enjoyment of the leased premises and related project facilities, interfere with the management of the project or have an adverse financial effect on the project, (3) failure of the TENANT to timely supply all required information on the income and composition, or eligibility factors of the TENANT household (including failure to meet the disclosure and verification requirements for Social Security

My interpretation is that you can in effect not renew the lease.

A word of caution though, – there are very special considerations and accommodations made for residents who are mentally disabled and who need the assistance of a guardian. No one wants to evict a resident with disabilities because a guardian fails to respond.

I would suggest that you call (not mail, not email) the guardian and explain the federal requirements to comply with the certification requirements. Be sure to document the correspondence in the tenant file.

This kind of thing happens a lot with residents in the 811 PRAC and 202 PAC programs and there are lots of ways to handle the situation without attempting eviction. It is OK for the AR to be late. HUD provides the 90 day “grace period” for situations just like this one.