Groundwork for the establishment of a national affordable housing trust fund was laid last fall, when the House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 2895) that House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., had introduced, and when Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.,...
At a household's annual recertification, you may discover things that have changed since the prior year. For example, a household's income may have increased, or its members may have become full-time students. Very often, these changes threaten noncompliance and put the owner's...
As a site owner or manager, you probably know that IRS auditors are entitled to look at your resident files to see whether you have obtained asset disposition statements from households at your site.
The IRS requires these statements because households have been known to shrink their...
This article is the first of a three-part series on meeting the federal design and accessibility requirements. The first part outlines what the requirements are and whether your site is among those that must comply with...
As a site owner or manager, you are required by federal Fair Housing law to do what is reasonable in granting requests for accommodations or modifications, so that a visually impaired applicant might consider residing at your site. Furthermore, you are under a legal obligation to ensure that a...
To comply with many key tax credit requirements, it is important to take into account unit size, that is, either a unit's square footage or its number of bedrooms. If you don't take unit size into account where required, your site is likely to fall into noncompliance, which could put the...
Federal Fair Housing law makes it illegal to discriminate against prospects and residents with disabilities. This includes persons who are blind or who suffer from some other visual impairment, ranging from significant to total vision loss.
Combining tax credits from the low income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program with energy tax credits (which are most associated with solar panels) raises a variety of issues for developers of housing projects. With the help of Forrest Milder, an attorney at Nixon Peabody and an expert on tax...
A recent follow-up to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition's study of national housing patterns indicates that in the four-year period from 2001 through 2004, more than 1.2 million housing units ceased to be affordable.
In some cities, such as New York, affordable housing is...
Real estate businesses in New York face sales tax issues; it's a fact of life in the Empire State. And, generally, when a real estate business fails to comply with its tax obligations, the New York State Department of Tax and Finance (DTF) sends it a notice of examination. The notice...
In 2007, HUD's Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), the division devoted to anti-discrimination and Fair Housing concerns, investigated approximately 10,300 cases involving claims of discrimination, according to Kim Kendrick, assistant secretary for FHEO. Based on a pattern...
This month, the manager of an affordable housing site in Texas reported how—as many managers have done—she had brought Internet access into the management office to help run the site and communicate with HUD, prospects, applicants, and residents. She expected site employees to spend...
