REAC now allows no more than 14 days advanced notice for REAC inspections. REAC has decided that Properties are not keeping up with repairs thus putting residents' health and safety in jeopardy. This policy is a kneejerk reaction to several recent HUD Office of Inspector General’s reports that REAC is a failing program.
Click
here
to see one such
OIG
report.
REAC’s 14-day solution forces properties to conduct ongoing maintenance. According to REAC this forces properties to stop "prepping for the inspection." So, gone are the days when the inspector allows up to 4 months to schedule an inspection.
Properties with Servicing Mortgage loans are exempt from this requirement. Not only that but it seems the new rule is not being applied to all non-exempt properties. We can only guess HUD has received so much pushback that it backed off.
The Naional Apartment Association
for one did voice concern.
Whatever the reason for not applying the 14-day rule consistently, a 14-day notice should be taken seriously because REAC has granted itself the right to fail you with a big fat zero if you can’t comply with the ultimatum. Forget about that MRI appointment you’ve had schedules for months, or other legit reasons.
Until someone challenges the legality of the rule or pushes back hard enough to back REAC off the unfair policy properties will have to keep up with nitpicking maintenance year round. What REAC doesn't fully appreciate is the wide inconsistency in the application of the REAC Inspection Standards. One inspector can give out a 50 and another a 99 for the same property the same day.
The 14-day rule does not account for the elephant in the room – an inspection program that is unworkable at all levels, as OIG and GAO elucidated in many REAC audits.
More changes are coming! Can you say NSPIRE? The 14-day rule is just the tip of the iceberg.
The REAC Impossible Newsletter will bring you another exciting chapter next month about an ever changing REAC Impossible Inspection Program. Next month we talk about why the Director of the Appeals Office Sam Tuffour is denying your appeals at such an alarming rate.
