Potential tenant Section 8 from a different county

[Mal K.]

I have a potential tenant from another county currently receiving section 8. What are the procedures when someone moves? She wants to move in December 1st, but she didn’t give 30 days notice to her current landlord . The tenant passed the screening and I want to rent to her as of 12/1. Assuming the apartment passes the inspection, is section 8 going to pay rent to the current landlord or me for December?

[Patti Robertson]

This is a bit of a long conversation.  When we get a tenant lead like this I make them call because the process is a lot to type, but I’ll do that here for your sake.  They never want to believe what we are telling them, so we usually have to repeat the same conversation a few times while on the phone with them.  

A housing voucher can only be used to submit a request to live in a property that is located within the geographic authority of the housing office who issued the voucher.  That doesn’t mean a tenant can’t move.  They can, but there is a process. If they have not even given notice to their landlord it is way to early in the process for them to identify a property they want to move to.  I always tell potential tenants at this state that the property they are calling about will very likly be already rented by the time they can get approval to move, but we would be happy to assist them with housing once they are further along if we have something they will quailfy for.

The first thing is that she has not yet given notice.  This could be different in your housing authority, but the 7 I work with all require notice be given at least 30 days prior to moving, and notice does not go into effect until the first of the month following the time they submit to the landlord. This required lead time could be longer if it is dictated by their lease with the landlord.  (Mine is 60 days for example.) This means that if she gives notice to the landlord today, her current lease will not terminate until Dec 31 at the earliest.     

She needs to submit a request to her case worker to “port her voucher” at the same time as she submits a copy of the notice of lease termination she gave the landlord. This request needs to identify the housing authority she wants to port to.  There is no guarantee at this point in the process that this port will be approved.  It depends on the resources available in your housing authority.  She also has to be in full compliance in her current area and with her current landlord.  In my area even if a housing authority doesn’t have enough budget to “absorbe” the recipient holder, they usually agree to all them to port and administer their process, as long as the housing authority they port from will carry the budget and reimburse the new HA. The time it takes to get approval for the port depends on the efficiencies in both the HAs involved in the process.  Remember, HAs are government workers and most have vacation time they are using up at the end of the calendar year.  In our area, when a HA worker is out, no one steps in to do their job, no matter what it is.  All work waits for them to return, which means everything takes a little longer this time of year.  I would warn the tenant at this point that it will likely take 3-4 weeks for the port to be approved.  Because of this, I always advise tenants that unless they have family they can stay with on a temporary basis, they are safer to give their landlord 60 day notice than 30 days.  This is true even for a local move.

Once the receiving HA approves the port, she will get a call giving her case worker assignment and telling her she needs to set up an appointment to come to their office for an orientation meeting.  At this meeting she will be issued her paperwork.  Until she has an appointment date set up, it is too early to be even looking for property, unless the published availability date is 60 days or more in the future. I advise tenants to start looking at this point and schedule several showings when they are in town for their appointment, so they can find something and get their paperwork submitted all in one trip.

The absolute fastest amount of time between the point the recipient holder selects a property until the time they are approved to sign a lease is 20 days in our market, and that’s only if the rent amount is easily approved and if the property passes inspection the first time. If any one of the people who have to touch the file have vacation scheduled, there will be a delay.  Most of the time this process takes 30 days, and sometimes it can take even longer, at no fault of you or the tenant.

Another really important point to consider is income. In order to get approved for the rent amount you are asking for two things need to be true. 1) The rent you are asking for needs to be "reasonible" when compared to like kind property in the same city, within a 5 mile radius. I always meet this standard. 2) The rent needs to be "affordable" for the tenant. I want strong rents and I am unwilling to compromise much. Most people porting into our market are leaving jobs and have to find a new job once they get settled. Someone with no income will not get approved for the rent amount I want. They never want to hear this, but it is true. They won't be given a target rent range until they get all through the process and get assigned a case worker. That range at this point will be generic and just based on the HUD allowance for their bedroom size. If you have a single family home, they will already need to be on the lower end of that range, because a single family has 5 exposed surfaces, as compared to a townhome or apartment with shared walls. The more exposed walls, the higher the utility cost projection, the lower the allowable rent. If the tenant has no income, my experience has been that they end up getting approved for a single family rent amount under the range they were given, because they cannot afford more with zero income. The affordability standard is set based on their income at the time you submit the paperwork. Their portion of the rent amount will be adjusted once they secure employment, but your rent amount will be locked for a full 12 months.

My requirement is that a SEC 8 recipient holder have at least one times the rent amount. If they have that, they generally get approved for my rent amount. Recipient holders never believe me and eventually you get exhausted having the conversation.  I explain at that point that if they decide to apply for our property their paperwork will be tied up for at least 3 weeks, maybe more.  If we get all the way to the end and SEC 8 says they will only pay us $100 less than what we want, we are going to say no.   At that point they will have to have their paperwork reissued and start all over. I don’t stop advertising our property if the tenant does not meet our one times income requirement, but we will submit their application if they insist.  

I know this was long.  The bottom line is if your house is vacant, keep searching for a tenant and tell this one that once she gets approved and gets her appointment with the local HA to call and you will let her know at that time if the property is still available at that time. The reality is she will not be moving for somewhere between 60-90 days from now.