Question on receiving Section 8 rent even after tenant move out

[David Chen]

Hi, this is my first post on the forum, really appreciate some advice on this:

We don't normally rent to Section 8 tenant (so we are inexperienced in this). We had a Section 8 tenant break the lease (3 month before their 1 year lease term was up). We continued to receive their Section 8 rent portion for the following 3 month and now we are in the 4th month and we still got another check. Here are a few questions:

1) Is this just a glitch in their system/or it takes them some time to update their system?

2) Does this happen often or anyone else experience this?

3) If we deposit this check could the State ask for it back?

4) What is the normal procedure for this, do we need to contact the State or will correct itself?

5) The tenant did not pay for their portion of the rent after they broke the lease so we had thought about using this extra check to reduce some of the outstanding amount for them, not sure if this is a good idea (there is zero communication from the tenant for the past 2 month).

Thank you,

~David

[Account Closed]

You'll have to reimburse the housing authority for any overpayment, so you might as well contact them and get that over with.

Section 8 money is federal.  The housing authority you have a contract with is either a city or county authority.  The state doesn't have anything to do with it, though, really, as Section 8 is federally funded, and deals with the housing authorities to figure out payment standards and to administer the federal funds.

You won't be able to get the tenant's portion of the rent owed - from the housing authority, though.  For the tenant's portion, you'll have to sue the tenant.