Dallas Housing Authority Timeframe

[James H.]

Hello Everyone,

At a meetup group about a year ago, the speaker mentioned that Dallas Housing Authority is slow about inspecting homes for Section 8 applicants.

It is a slow time of year and we agreed to accept an application from someone with a DHA voucher with the understanding that we will rent to someone else if another applicant meets our rental criteria before DHA finishes their process.  Nobody else has come along yet (as expected with the property we have this time of year.)  But, there has been increased interest over the past week.  And DHA has not called for an inspection.

The application packet from DHA states that DHA will call to schedule an inspection within 7 to 10 business days.  It has not been 16 business days.  No call.  We called them, though.  And our perspective tenant called them on Friday too.  DHA was not able to tell either of us what the status was.  All they would tell the perspective tenant is "keep paying your current landlord this month and you'll pay the new landlord next month."

Is this normal?  This is not what we expected when we heard "slow" at the meetup group.  

Does anyone else have experience with DHA or any insight about how much longer to expect the process to take?  We have had only one other Section 8 experience and the other housing authority was prompt and professional...

Jim