All Forum Posts by: Bradley Bogdan

A few thoughts: 

-Make sure your tenant understands that she needs to utilize the police if she feels threatened or feels that she has been assaulted. I'm sure someone who is a lawyer here can provide some better pointers on this end, but you don't ever want to be the primary mediator when something is bigger than the most mundane issues between tenants. 

-Figure out a way to not share a backyard when there is a pet involved. I've worked with tenants in 4 different situations where there has been a shared backyard and at least one tenant has a dog. It has never not been an issue. Either someone leaves the gate open, or feels that the dog is encroaching on their free use of the common space, or someone doesn't pick up the poop, the dog is too loud, etc. It may be worth it to just block off access for one unit, or split it awkwardly and have it primarily as a "dog run" or garden type area than a true backyard for either tenant, but definitely do away with the common space as soon as finances allow. It probably wont be all that expensive and will save you numerous headaches. 

-See if your male tenant works with any social workers to receive services. This isn't really something you can ask too directly, you don't want to seem like you're setting him up to be discriminated against, but if you're observant, you'll notice pretty quickly if he uses home health services, has a social worker, etc. Many home based services will include a social worker who is probably your best shot at helping him to be a better tenant. If there's a language barrier and hearing barrier, plus the "old and I don't give a damn" barrier, a social worker or family member in the home are usually the only people that can resolve such issues without an excess of emotion. If he is receiving some services, pull them aside or give them a call and inform them about the situation and let them know he could use help in resolving it, as it is "jeopardizing his housing" (magic words). They won't be able to tell you much as they don't have a release for you, but you can tell them as much as you want. 

-Worse comes to worse, you can always not renew his lease. I would make an honest effort to avoid that, however, not just because of financial and time costs to you to turnover the unit, but because if he's elderly and hard of hearing, plus on Section 8, he's going to have a rough time finding housing. Obviously, you're not his social worker yourself, nor are you running a charity, but it would definitely be the decent thing to do to make sure you don't end up putting him homeless just because its easy. 

Hope you find a good resolution!

Nope, it shouldn't. The only thing that you should take care to do is update the PHA of the sale once you near closing to ensure they have payment information for you and can begin issuing you the check.

 Not to pick on you Sky, but this year's funding levels for Section 8 were higher than last fiscal year. That seems to indicate the opposite of what you're asserting. Your opinions on the program are your opinions, but funding levels aren't.

Funding for Section 8 has remained relatively constant as a proportion of HUD funding over the last 15-20 years, obviously there is always a risk that that will not continue, as there is a risk the gov't will no longer back mortgages, etc. The most accurate pictorial representation I can find is here: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=3544

 Payment standards were reduced for new lease ups, if you read your linked newsletter closely. Existing contracts were honored as written. As I stated before, Raleigh is the only one I'm aware of that has reduced payments to landlords with current contracts, and I have looked extensively for others as its very relevant to my day job. Adjusting the payment standards happens on an at least yearly basis, and if market rents go down or the government no longer chooses to fund the program/chooses not to pass a budget, then yes, obviously rents can go down, but the first risk is universal no matter who you rent to, and the others are seriously problematic even if you don't have anyone on a voucher, provided funding is cut, reduced, not passed, for something related to your tenants. There is risk in every form of investment.  

As for staff reductions, voucher reductions, etc. section 8 was funded at a noticeably higher level this year than years previous. While your particular PHA is, I agree, a pretty sorry one, the program as a whole isn't at all in a place of doom and gloom in most places. 

@Kyle D. While I don't know where in particular your units are located, I doubt a strategy of rolling many into Section 8 is an option. In almost all areas, the program is pretty impacted, with long waitlists and, in many cases, closed waitlists. While it may work in individual tenant circumstances, on the whole aiming for large amount of public assistance to rescue a complex isn't a sound strategy. 

@Bill Gulley 's example is exactly what I'm talking about, localities seem to differ on what the "tradition" or local laws, or interpretations thereof are about occupancy, which I find silly. 

@Marcus Curtis While California as a state does have an income discrimination law, you are correct that it was ruled in court to not cover Section 8 as part of it. Interestingly enough, you can thank Donald Sterling, the racist former owner of the Clippers, for winning that case. A current tenant of one of his properties got a Section 8 voucher a while after moving in and paying rent per usual. She attempted to use the voucher on the unit, without any other modifications to the rental agreement or total rent paid and, allegedly, after some very unkind words about her worth as an individual receiving a subsidy from the gov't, was told no. Long story short, Don Sterling eventually won in court and gave notice to the woman to move out. 

While I'm not aware of any other state that has a blanket income discrimination law, a substantial number of municipalities do and most municipalities that have one do intend for them to cover Section 8 participation as well, and some explicitly say so (such as NYC and Buffalo, NY). The idea being that the tenant's portion of rent (roughly 35% of income) on the program is the industry standard for an appropriate proportion of income to spent on rent, so any discrimination based on their ability to pay is just discrimination against them for being poor, rather than actual ability to pay. There is obviously some lively debate surrounding that concept. 

As for terms such as "bachelor pad", "not suitable for children", "perfect for older couple" etc. while usually harmlessly intended, are pretty obviously not kosher with fair housing laws. I've personally witnessed quite a few folks be denied apartments for obviously discriminatory reasons with virtually no recourse available, so setting the bar for advertisements at "not discriminatory" seems a reasonable level. 

As for apartment size v. occupancy #, I don't understand why this hasn't been made more clear in law. Many here on the forum tend to go by the Section 8/HUD guidelines for their own programs, which is (overly simplified) 1 bedroom per 2 people, which seems safe, but no one has been able to produce, nor have I been able to find, maximum occupancy rules for localities. It doesn't seem like it should be too debatable that a 4 person family is not going to fit in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV :-)

@Colleen F. For the large majority of areas, @David P. 's experience is spot on. They'll just pass on the additional rent to the tenant if the unit is already at the maximum subsidy, and the tenant obviously has an option to move if they feel the unit is no longer affordable, but almost no one does, especially when the increases are small and logical. 

I would caution that that process isn't universal, some PHAs (almost entirely big cities) will have either a yearly process/offer to increase rents by a fixed amount, and/or will reserve the option to deny your rent increase. The first option is so paperwork for existing tenants is kept to a minimum and processed quickly, the second is so landlords don't just eat a few months of lower rents and then jack up rates to take advantage of the tenant not having money to move, and placing the family well above the 40% of income on housing cap the PHA uses at move-in. 

A word about using FMRs as an indication of rents for your area, they are designed to give you the 40%ile of rents+out of pocket utilities for a family in an area, so if you're attracting a top 1/3rd or even middle 1/3rd tenant, they may be skewed lower than what you could actually command. They're also calculated on a three year rolling average of data for the area, so if you've had a big swing in market rents, the formula is slow to react, giving you areas like NYC and SF where the continued escalation of rents leaves the FMR formula lagging the market.

@Ceril S. Once you pull together numbers for what market rents and your local utility allowances are from the local PHA, I'm happy to help you crunch the numbers on the Sec 8 end and see what you'd be able to get renting through the program. The official calculator is here on BP in the file share, but its not at all intuitive. Just shoot me a PM sometime and we can set up a time to chat in detail. 

@Ceril S. FMR equals the amount your local PHA believes is the 40%ile for rents+UTILITIES in your local market, so it isn't necessarily what you could expect for your rental.

That said, depending on how much your tenant makes for income, and what utilities you include as part of the rent, you can match or sometimes exceed that FMR rate when everything is factored in.

In short, yes, but its not a given depending on your unit and tenant's circumstances.