I approved a section 8 voucher holder to be a tenant in one of my apartments with the understanding that he would coordinate the requirements with HUD. We signed a lease effective 12/1, but I have never participated in HUD Section 8 before and have not completed any inspections or paperwork with HUD yet.

Today the prospective tenant said his case worker said there would be a 4-8 week back up on the process.

My question is, assuming I pass the required inspections, will HUD make retroactive payments to the lease effective date of 12/01?

I found something online that said retroactive rent can be paid by section 8 tot he later of the unit passing inspection or keys being provided. This sounds to me like I could be out for two months till they have time to conduct the inspection. Any insights?

Thanks,

Eric

I would not expect they to pay rent for anything before the unit is approved.

I'd say you made a bad mistake, and if the resident doesn't have any copies of the lease...shred it and move on. No money exchanged = no valid contract.

In my area, from the day a Sec 8 tenant says they want to rent there is roughly a 6 week "process" to schedule and complete the inspection. If no violations are found, you can sign the lease and start getting rent in about 2 weeks. If there are violations, you have to get it fixed and they schedule a re-inspection that may take 1-2 additional weeks. So would I end up eating 2 months of vacancy, basically. No retroactive rent.

They are not even allowed by Hud to pay you until it pass inspection and the tenant moves in.

That is just another one of the cons.

You wait and see if they will approve the unit and the rent amount you are asking.

When we did do sec 8. I used to ask for a holding fee. So at least we had that to keep for the wasted time.

Eric, why on God's good earth would you do something like take a Sec-8 tenant, especially since you obviously haven't researched enough to know the Sec-8 rules? Unless your unit is in a bad 'hood, or in disrepair, or any such condition that you cannot find any other tenant? Don't do that. You will be in a world of hurt. Delaying your inspection and approved will be the LEAST of your problems with that agency.

NO, you will not get any 'retroactive' money. You will be stonewalled, have your paperwork lost, and end up keeping your unit off the market for months till they get around to you in their sweet time. You will be given the dregs of society as tenants--because once everything is settled, the applicants you approved will morph into dif people and become tenants from h e 1 1.

They will complain about something and your money will get cancelled without anyone checking if the complaint is true. You will be guilty unless you can prove yourself innocent. After a year of either problem with the tenants or problem with the Program (or both) you will have to evict the tenants at your cost, repair all the damage at your cost--and the Program will give the tenants a new place to destroy and a new LL to harm.

UPDATE: I got lucky. The section 8 tenant agreed to meet me to void the lease and receive his security deposit back. Tomorrow I will be signing a new lease with a new prospect for the same effective date as the original section 8 prospect/tenant.

I have learned my lesson and won't try to work with section 8 in the future. Shame is he actually seemed like a very good prospective tenant and even has a better credit score than anyone I have ever had in that apartment.