Section 8 tenant is breaking lease and housing is helping her

[Account Closed]

I am hoping someone will have some experience with HAP contracts and Section 8. I have a tenant who is currently in a lease with me for 3 more months. She advised me that she is leaving at the end of this month and Housing has moved her voucher to a new place.  How in the world can they do that without my agreement to an early termination.  We have a contract with housing and with the tenant for three more months. I have already sent this one to my real estate attorney, just hoping someone else will have had some experience in this matter.

A word of advice for anyone thinking about Section 8 landlording: RUN!

[Victor N.]

@Account Closed,  I know every housing authority handling section vouchers is different and it is sometimes very frustrating to work with them. I have a few section 8 tenants and my experience with section 8 so far has been generally positive so dont give up yet!

For example, regarding a tenant wanting to move out early, I had that situation a few months ago. The initial 12 month lease had expired and I had not signed a new lease with the tenant. So per my own lease we were  automatically defaulted to a month to month lease with 30 days notice by either party to stop the contract ( I had incorrectly assumed that the section 8 docs represented a new lease). This was my fault for not paying attention.

Tenant gave me 27 days notice. When I called the Housing Authority about it, they agreed with me and did not allow tenant to move until tenant had provided me with a minimum of 30 days notice. Not exactly a similar situation to yours but it shows that it is possible to have contracts enforced with section 8. That was plenty of time for me to find a new tenant at a higher rent. Also, when the annual inspection was done, I failed due to some floor damages caused by the tenant. The inspector noted on his report that the tenant was responsible for those damages, so the tenant needed to make the repairs within 30 days or lose their voucher.

If you fail the annual inspection, you usually only have 30 days to make the repairs and it doesnt matter what the tenant says. But if you fail the re-inspection then they will give a new voucher to the tenant to move! is that what happened in your case?

The key is to know how section 8 works, and have a great working relationship with the case managers.