As a tax credit owner or manager, you must stay on top of your site’s painting needs. The tax credit law requires sites to be suitable for occupancy and free from health, safety, and building code violations. If your state utilizes HUD’s uniform physical condition standards for your...
If your site utilizes heating oil as a fuel for furnaces or boilers at its buildings, you should take steps to ensure that you aren’t paying for more oil than is being delivered to your site. Unscrupulous oil companies can trick owners about the amount of fuel that’s delivered to a...
You and your maintenance staff have different issues to tackle during each season of the year. In the fall, most sites need to prepare for winter. But because some of the things that should be on your “to do” list for fall haven’t been done in an entire year, it’s easy to...
Residents’ maintenance needs can vary greatly, from changing a hard-to-reach light bulb to fixing an overflowing toilet that’s flooding a bathroom. Some of your residents’ maintenance requests, while important, may not be emergencies. But other residents’ requests may...
One of the most important things you can do before winter settles in at your site is to inspect your roof. That’s because most roof damage occurs during winter. Harsh weather conditions—such as heavy rain or snow, strong winds, and extreme temperatures—can cause substantial...
With the approach of the fall heating season, it’s a good time to consider the steps that need to be taken to get your heating system online for the upcoming cold weather. Increasing oil prices have alerted many owners to the basic fact that an inefficient boiler will waste unnecessary...
Reports of water leaking from a bathroom ceiling or other types of water intrusion in a unit are serious complaints that deserve your immediate attention. Sometimes a pipe may break, in which case a household is not at fault. Other times, a resident’s child may have thrown toys down the...
Preventive maintenance is a thankless task. Occurring behind the scenes, preventive maintenance usually doesn’t get noticed unless something disastrous happens. Owners and managers often give landscaping and cleaning services priority because the benefits associated with those activities...
Most residents are good about reporting maintenance problems. Some owners and managers may say that they’re too good. But there are residents who don’t report maintenance problems. Perhaps these residents are too busy or don’t want members of your maintenance staff in their...
With the beginning of spring, now is the optimal time to think about lease-ups and how you may turn over recently vacated units faster. That’s because spring and summer are the times when most sites experience their busiest leasing months. When a resident moves out, you shouldn’t let...
On February 28, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued Notice PIH-2012-17, which contained guidelines on bedbug control and prevention in public housing. This notice included the same guidelines as the ones in HUD Notice 2011-20, issued in August 2011.
Last year, the IRS sent out numerous notices granting certain low-income housing tax credit properties relief from specified Section 42 requirements to provide emergency housing relief needed as a result of devastation caused by some sort of natural disaster.
