Legislative Updates

AHMA-PSW’s Affordable Housing News 04/04/19


  • Based on Industry comments, HUD has provided guidance on when REAC inspections may be delayed past the 14 days scheduling guideline without adverse scoring. These situations include: Major Rehab; HUD approved repair plan; Presidentially declared disaster; other emergency such as fire or flood that effects over 30% of the units on a property. Guidance may be found at “Approving the Delay of a Physical Inspection Beyond the New REAC Inspection Notification Timelines.”
  • HUD Multifamily West Region, Asset Management Division, has released a memorandum that provides clarifications to current guidance for Reserve for Replacement requests. The memo provides information on: Proper submission procedures through central mailboxes; Required deposit & minimum level to the reserves account; Eligible  & ineligible uses; Tenant-caused damages; Advance requests for major rehabilitation and/or capital repair projects; Record keeping & monitoring procedures. Please click here to access the Reserve for Replacement memo guidance.
  • HUD REAC has launched a new website introducing NSPIRE. The website announces “Through its Physical Inspections Line of Business, HUD’s Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) improves housing quality by performing accurate, credible, and reliable assessments of HUD’s real estate portfolio; helps ensure safe, healthy, decent affordable housing; and promotes sound property management practices.  Starting in 2017, HUD launched a “wholesale reexamination” of REAC’s inspection process and is now in the process of modernizing its physical housing inspection model.  THE BUILDING OF A NEW INSPECTION MODEL – National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE) Supports HUD’s strategic goals: “Rethink American Communities: …Protect the health of residents by addressing lead-based paint and other health and safety hazards in housing”; “Reimagine the Way HUD Works:….Rethink how we deliver services directly to our customers to increase consistency and accountability.” Prioritizes health, safety, and functional defects over those about appearance. NSPIRE’s focus is on the areas that impact residents. This model includes more objective standards, value-added inspection protocols, and scoring elements that are more defensible and less complex. Inspectors will spend more time in units and the overall results will better identify substandard properties. The website may be viewed at https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/public_indian_housing/reac/nspire

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