The transcript for the video "Tuesday Tip: Life on an Inspector" is provided below:

0:00 I'm going to call this session life of an inspector.
0:06 [Music] 0:09 Hi, and welcome to today's Tuesday tip. 0:12 Ebony, it's so good to be back with you again.
0:16 Yeah, you've been out on the road quite a bit, right?
0:19 I have been on the road and you'd be surprised at the things that I have seen and that's what our tips are going to be on today. Today I'm going to tell you about some of the things that I've seen while I've been out helping the RMS do their work. And some I was a little bit amazed at, some I wasn't. Some we have new managers. And we're going to do a session on new managers and what they should expect and what the owner agents or the present regional needs to do to help them cope with this busy busy world of ours. But we know that a lot of things are changing. We know that we have more changes coming down the line 1:00 January 1, 2026 called HOTMA. And so I'm going to tell you about some of the things that kind of I guess bothered me or that I want you guys to be on top of out there because there are a lot of people who I'm sure you all were familiar with at HUD that are no longer there. We might have people to come out in the field that might be from a different department of hood like Freddy Mack or Jenny May or just regular public housing. And our industry is a little bit different. I was told by someone at Hood that they have an excellent training program for the new people who are going to be taking these seats for the pe from the people who've already left. So let's just see what they would have seen if they had come out. First of all, we ran into some properties and the files were horrible, guys. They had no order to them. They had they were just they were just horrible. I could not believe it. Organize your files. It doesn't take anything to put them in order. And especially if you use the five or the six section folders, an organized file helps the reviewer so much. And the reviewer doesn't become frustrated and go to digging through papers and, you know, trying to cuz you made them mad. They're having to work that hard and dig that hard. So, they got to find something, you know. So help them out by organizing your files. Make sure that you put the move in information in a file with something that covers it in case you have a new manager that starts. The old manager knew the new manager start and he or she's not familiar with the fact that they're not to purge the movein information. The moving information needs to stay in the file always. You can have 10 files that are purged, but that current file that's in the cabinet needs to contain the movein information. So, that was the first thing, the files not being in order and the movein documentation not being there, which includes the movein 59, the movein lease, all of the movein documents. Now, if you add a person to the family and you have to you have to HUD says you must provide a social security card, a birth certificate or something to identify the age of the person and the citizenship form and the race and ethnicity form. all of those. Even though this head of household moved in in 2000 and it's now 2004 that you move some additional people into the household, you need to keep those documents, those one-time documents in with your movein information. So, make sure you put them in the movein information. The next thing was signatures. can't tell you enough. If there's a line and it has it says resident or it says owner and it's a signature line, it appears that it needs a signature, right?
4:25 Why put a signature on a document? A signature line on a document and you're not going to have it signed. So, be careful about your signatures. EIV. EIV. You guys know EIV, but you're not keeping up with EIV. And what I mean by that is some of the files didn't have the existing tenant search which you know is a finding. Some of the files did not have the summary and the income report for EIV should be in there right now 120 days after the move insert was submitted to HUD. But you know, on some of the files I saw, it's been 3 years and that documentation is not in there. So, make sure that you keep up with your files. The EIV documents are are really, really important. Some of you have them in your EIV binder, which is a good place to keep them. Remember that your finding on an EIV document is going to be based on what your EIV policies and procedures say. If you said that you're going to pull this document, there's some documents that HUD requires you to pull annually and there are some that you could pull monthly if you want. If you want to pull these annual monthly, then you can. Whatever your rules, your EIV policies and procedures says, your company EIV policies and procedures say, that's what we're expecting you to do. So, if you say you're going to pull them monthly, then we're looking for all those reports monthly. If you're going to pull some quarterly, then we will look for them quarterly. And I found out that a lot of times the manager, you have someone in home office that writes the rules, but the manager didn't read the rules evidently because they're not pulling them according to the policy. So that's something you might want to keep in mind. The existing tenant search should be there for everyone in the household. Even if it's an infant, could be a one-year-old toddler, it needs to be in there. the disability. I noticed that some people are giving the $400 for the disability and some of the properties we went on were not. If the person is 62 years, if a head of household, spouse or co-head, if they are 62 years of age or older and or disabled, they receive the $400 elderly deduction. In a couple of cases, they had moveins that were 62 and over. The deduction wasn't given. It's not only for the fact that they are disabled. It's also a age restriction on it. So if the head of household spouse cohead is at least 62 years of age and older, you need to give them the $400 elderly deduction. So don't forget that.
7:31 Yes.
7:31 Quick question. So let's say you you go through the files, they haven't given the deduction. Do they owe the resident after that or they just have to correct it? they have to correct it and they might owe the resident.
7:44 Okay.
7:45 What they have to do is they have to go back many certifications are in that particular file and usually we keep them we tell them that they have to go back five years since they came out with the new instructions on the 9887 and the 9878. But yes, you are correct. And that's a good point that if I moved in in 2004 and the auditor comes through or the reviewer comes through in 2024, that's 20 years. And I moved in at age 62 or older and you didn't give me that $400 deduction, you'd have to at least go back five years to make sure that I get the deduction. and it will give the resident a credit. Now, this is a catch, y'all. Listen, cuz a lot of y'all tried this. You tell the resident, "We made the mistake, and we're going to give you credit for the mistake we made, but we're going to put it on your account." That's not your decision. HUD says it's the resident's decision as to whether or not they want a credit for it or if they want their money. So don't forget that. Another thing is that on disability, you have to have a third-party verification of disability in your file. You won't necessarily know what the disability is, just something from the third party saying that the resident is disabled. And we found a lot of files were giving a disability allowance, but there was no verification in the file. So, make sure you note that and put those third party verifications without the type of disability into your files. Make sure that you look at your summary reports to make sure that you have verified all of the social security numbers cuz that's really important, too. Now, the thing that threw me for a loop on three properties. On three properties. Wow. We asked for files that weren't on the property. Now, I don't know where those files are, but they're supposed to be in that office. Do a self M. Do your own M. Go through your files. And we're going to talk about next week responsibilities of your staff. Whose responsibility is it to go through the files and make sure that they are in order? Whose responsibility is it for intake of the information? But that's next week. Right now, I want you to know that we had a property in Connecticut that had a theft. The property was broken into prior to two days prior to the M. Hut told us to conduct the M. Anyway, the part that I'm trying to mention is that because the files were missing, the owner agent had to notify the tenants that their personal information was no longer in the office in the lockable file cabinet. So, when we went to these properties and the three properties that had missing files, I asked them, did you notify the residents that their information is missing? and they said no. Anytime there might be a breach of security which would give the resident's identity to anyone else, you need to notify them. So if we come on the property and you don't have a file, we are going to give you a finding because the file should be there. But not only that, we're going to look for some type of notification that the management sent to the resident that, hey, your stuff is missing.
11:34 Yeah. you know, so that they will be aware of checking their bank accounts and checking to make sure no one opened a new account in their name since they have all of their personal identifiers. One of the big things that the young lady that I went out with that bothered her was the waiting list. We're going to have a whole different section on maintaining the waiting list. I can't tell you often enough how important the waiting list is. Her thing is that and she's new so she's checking everything. Her thing is that the movein file that she was looking at, she could not find that name anywhere on management's waiting list. She couldn't see where they had a date and a time that they put these people on the waiting list. And that's really important and really, really scary. That can cross so many different lines, especially a fair housing line. And you really don't want fair housing down your back. You really don't. So, I want you all to be aware of that. Sometimes we just get busy. We might take an application and forget to log it onto the waiting list. But if you'll read the handbook about waiting list management, you will find out exactly what you need to do and how often you need to do it. So, make sure you take care of the waiting list. Now, we send you guys when we do the MR, we send you a letter telling you what day we'll be out and we send you what's called an addendum C. This is a HUD addendum C. The addendum C says that we're going to look for these items when we come out to do the MR. Now, some of you are real gracious. you get your addendum C and you send the stuff on in so we can review it before we get there. If we have any questions, we can ask you before we get there. Some of you are so so busy that you might not have time to pull the documents for us ahead of time and it's not required that you do, but it is required that you have them available when we get to the property. So on the addendum C items, one of the managers was talking about her last M and said that she got a finding for something that she knew nothing about. The home office wrote the policy. Well, we would have been able to discuss it with her had we been able to review it before getting there. So, I just want you to know that on your addendum C items that we review or we obtain once we get there, we can't sit there and read your lease, your housing, your house rules, your policies and procedures on the IV. So, we have to take them back to the office and do that. So, you might get a finding that's not on the exit review sheet. And sometimes when I have appeals to the rating, I have to remind the owners or the agent that those are items that were reviewed once we got back at the office or back to the office and it is on the exit interview sheet. Just know that if you send them a little ahead of time, we appreciate it. We can't make you, we can't ask you, we can't require you, but I just want you to know that sometimes it will default into a finding that's not on the exit review sheet. The next thing was the owner and agents file rules. Um, some people have a list. This is behind this tab. This is behind that tab. This is behind that tab. Some people just have a block of paper and a manila folder. no reference as to what it is. And when I'm teaching new RMS, I tell them touch every piece of paper that's in that file because once you leave, it might be said it was there, but they didn't see it. The other thing that I advise our new RMS to do is if you can't find something, ask management to find it for you. So if it's don't write it on the exit interview until you give them the opportunity to find it before you leave. So when the manager, the regional, the owner, whomever signs the exit interview, when you sign that missing document is missing, you make sure that you have looked for it. If you find an RM that doesn't let you look for a document that's on RX review, can't talk for all contract administrators, but can speak for Navigate. You let N navigate that you were not given the opportunity to look for the document. The next thing that we'll talk about is acknowledgements not in the file. You know, HUD has these acknowledgements that you have to give to people. the EIV brochure, the EIV and U brochure, all of those little acknowledgements. Some of you have an acknowledgement sheet, which really helps your files. Some of you have them to acknowledge on the document itself, which makes your files a little thicker. Remember, you're going to always keep the movie in information. And we ask plus three years. So that would be the current year and the two years prior to the current year, the prior two years. So make sure that you look at those and make sure you have the acknowledgements in the file. Some of these notes I got from our RMS cuz I asked them, "What are you having the most trouble with?" Out of 15, I would say 10 have trouble with management not having a annual inspection. You don't have to do them quarterly. You have to do them at move in. You have to do them at move out. And you have to do them annually at least once a year. You can file it in the tenants file or you may have it in a file folder in your desk wherever your maintenance man might have them in his office. Whatever that annual inspection form is, you need to be able to produce it on the day of the review. If there if you are in receiverhip of a new property, you know, your company bought the property, they took it over from another company, and this is what I always hear, that other company did nothing. They left us with a mess. Well, sometimes that happens. anything that you're missing. I had a a owner once and he said, "Well, that stuff was gone when we got the files." Well, did you do your due diligence? Did you look through the files for it? And if you did, did you make a note to the file? This is missing. This is missing. This is missing. Now, don't just tell a tale and say it's missing. And then we look at the missing form and it's dated 2 years after your takeover. Wow. Cuz you can't blame that on the other company. So if you need to make a note to the file, make a note to the file to explain to the reviewer what happened to the document or what's going on, the reason you got extra documents in your file. Okay? So that's a note to the file. It should give an explanation as to why you're not directly in compliance with HUD and we will review those. The other thing is that a lot of you have started using HOTMA and that's okay but we need to know that you're using HOTMA. So you have to make you might not be using everything in HOTMA because you can't we don't have any leases to support some of the HOTMA uh documents but if you are using one bank statement if you're using pulling EIV at 90 days opposed to 120 days that's fine that document can be in the file with a note to the file as to what hot things you are implementing. Ramos warned and they were doing real real good with it. They said the use of any awards letter for the entire year and they point out in the HOTMA file exactly where it is in the HOTMA agenda and addendum and it lets us know that you can. So in red is where it is in the hotma notice and black is what they're doing or what parts of it they decided to adopt a single bank statement to verify the checking account. I mean that was one of the best things I think HOTMA could bring to us because sometimes you have to get six month statements for checking. Now, we have some management companies that the manager wants to see everything. So, they have a document that might be this thick, okay, in one month. Now, imagine having six of these. It's going to really build. Number one, you don't need that because HUD didn't tell us to go through each purchase or each check or each deposit that's in that checking account. But we have some managers that are very aggressive and they do. You could have the statement with the resident's name on it, the beginning balance and the ending balance. At the most, that's three pieces of paper for 6 months. 3 * 6 is 18. You have 18 sheets of paper instead of a half a ream of paper. That helps a lot. So know that with H Hotma, if you want to use a single bank statement, cuz that's what HOTMA is doing. It's letting us get rid of six months for the checking account and you can use one statement. Then we need to see this letter in that file. Another thing they were doing was uh two paycheck stubs for employment. Great. Streamlining the verification of assets. Great. but they excluded some of their departments. Exclusion of retirement accounts. All of these things are justifiable with HOTMA. So if you want to implement any of HOTMA, that is fine. There's only two ways you can get a finding for doing that. Number one, not having that sheet of your implementation intent in each file that you're doing it in. Number two, it's not written in your HOTMA tenant selection plan. Now, Ebony, we're looking at the RMS are looking at two tenant selection plans. They're looking at the what we call the old one or the current one because some people have not done any H Hotma conversions. They're waiting to see what the bottom line with Hotma is going to be. But those who like this company thought it would make it easier on their people to start doing this now. They have to have it written in their Hopma tenant selection plan. So the only way you get a finding for these two items is not to have the letter of intent of what you're using in the file and what you're doing is not in your HOTMA tenant selection plan. The RMS have to review them both. So, make sure that you have your tenant selection plans available if you did not send them ahead of time. Now, for the HOTMA tenant selection plan, wasn't that due already?
23:46 It wasn't necessarily due, but it is supposed to be written already.
23:52 Okay. Okay. Okay.
23:55 They didn't have to do anything with it or send it anywhere other than to us when we request or the addendum C. when we look at the property for the MR but you are correct it's a finding. The deadline was March the 31st 2024 so they should have had it a long time ago but a lot of people still have not and a lot of people are using parts of HOTMA that are not mentioned in a HOTMA tenant selection plan and those are big findings big things that you don't want to do so those are tips tips that I wanted to bring to you today. As I said, next time we'll talk about the roles of the staff. The staff roles are very important and it's important for them to know who does what.
24:45 Yes.
24:46 But I won't give you next week's stuff this week. We love to have comments from you. We love to have ideas from you. You can email Pam with ideas. You can email me with ideas. You can email either one of us with questions. The last Tuesday tip of August, we're going to look at some of the questions that you guys have had. Thank you so much for tuning in. We appreciate you guys and the great job you do. We appreciate you for wanting to do a good job. See you next time on another Tuesday tip.