The owner of a unit is bound by the warranty of habitability and other landlord-tenant laws concerning maintenance and repairs, including a tenant’s right to perform a “repair and deduct.”1 In addition to these obligations, the owner must comply with the Housing Quality Standards (HQS) of the HCVP program. If the owner fails to maintain the dwelling unit in accordance with HQS, the PHA must take prompt and vigorous action to enforce the owner obligations. PHA remedies for such breach of the HQS include termination, suspension, or reduction of housing assistance payments and termination of the HAP contract.2 The owner is not responsible for a breach of the HQS that is not caused by the owner and for which the family is responsible.3
Either you or your client should promptly notify the PHA of any damage or fault in the unit. Although the PHA will make at least annual HQS inspections, a report of damage or fault with the unit should trigger the PHA to perform a special inspection.4 If the unit fails to meet the HQS, the PHA will grant the owner a period of time to remedy the issue. This period is usually 30 days, but federal law allows only 24 hours if the defect is life threatening.5 If the owner fails to make the required repairs in the required time, the PHA will “abate” the HAP contract and not pay its housing assistance portion to the landlord; during this time, the tenant is still responsible for the tenant share, if any. The tenant cannot be evicted for nonpayment of the HAP.6 Once the property has entered abatement, the tenant can request a program move to a new residence.
Note that HUD is implementing new standards to replace HQS starting in 2023 across all HUD programs.7
- 1For further discussion of this remedy, see Section 11.3 of this manual's chapter on landlord-tenant law.
- 224 C.F.R. § 982.404(a)(2).
- 324 C.F.R. §§ 982.404(b), .551(c).
- 4See 24 C.F.R. § 982.405.
- 5See 24 C.F.R. § 982.404(a)(3).
- 624 C.F.R. § 982.310(b).
- 7For more information about NSPIRE standards, see Nat’l Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE), U.S. Dep’t of Hous. & Urb. Dev. (last visited Oct. 8, 2023).