Tax credit sites tend to operate on tight margins because of the competition to obtain these credits initially and the allocating agencies’ obligation to provide the minimum amount of credit necessary to make a deal feasible. Given these constraints, it’s no surprise that some sites...
If applicants fail to meet your tax credit site’s eligibility requirements or if they can’t pass your site’s screening criteria, you don’t want them arguing with you over the rejection, or worse, filing a fair housing complaint. But that can happen if you leave it to your...
As we wind down 2013 and prepare for a new year, the Insider looks back and reviews the major events and changes that affected the low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) industry:
It’s not unusual for tax credit sites to be mixed-income, consisting of both low-income and market-rate units. Market-rate units aren’t rent-restricted and may be rented to households of any income. Even so, certain provisions of the tax credit law apply to those units. If you don...
Sometimes tax credit site owners aren’t entitled to claim all the credits they were allocated for a building. This happens when owners don’t lease up as many units to qualified low-income households as they must in the first year of the building’s compliance period. As a result...
Before you rent any unit at your tax credit site to a new household, it’s important to confirm that the rental will comply with the tax credit law. If your rental of a unit won’t comply, the owner’s credits for that unit may be at risk. And if the unit is one you must count to...
As a tax credit manager, you probably know that you can violate the “transient unit rule” if you rent units to low-income households on a transient basis. The IRS presumes that you’re complying with the rule if your initial leases with households are for a term of at least six...
To calculate household income at tax credit sites, you’re required to follow the rules set out in HUD Handbook 4350.3 (Occupancy Requirements of Subsidized Multifamily Housing Programs). But because the Handbook was written for assisted sites, applying it to a tax credit site...
When you take over a site, there’s a good chance you’ll find paperwork mistakes made by prior managers. Missing income certifications, spotty income documentation, and utility allowance errors are common. Even though you didn’t make them, you mustn’t ignore these...
In the past few years the Justice Department has brought increased scrutiny to the issue of accessibility. For example, in September 2010, the Justice Department published revised regulations for Titles II and III of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) in the Federal Register...
As site owners and managers increasingly direct more of their marketing focus online in an effort to attract new prospects, engage current residents to encourage renewals and generate referrals, and recruit potential employees, there are fair housing considerations they need to be mindful of....
According to U.S. Census data released in June 2011, more than half—51.6 percent—of all the country's businesses that responded to the 2007 Survey of Business Owners were operated primarily within homes or other noncommercial spaces. And because the data was compiled before the...
