COMPLIANCE NEVER SLEEPS

Last evening, I got a telephone call from a colleague and friend of many years standing. The conversation included some discussion of compliance, including one point that was so interesting I had to share it here.

During an audit, it was discovered that the property was using a now outdated HUD Form 9887 and 9887A. The current version of the form is readily available via HUDCLIPS.

When given the current version of the form, the response of staff at the property was, "We only use forms sent to us by our corporate office."

There's absolutely nothing wrong with centralizing compliance functions at a high level within a property management firm or PHA. And centralization is certainly the way to go for owner/agent created forms, in my opinion.

But when it comes to HUD forms, compliance never sleeps. Someone at the corporate level responsible for compliance has to ensure that the site staff is getting these forms quickly, along with any appropriate instructions for their their use. The availability of these forms on HUDCLIPS, often announced by RHIIP emails, means corporate is deprived of any "wiggle room" on these points. This leads to negative findings on an MOR.

Is there any finding more miserable on an MOR than the one that says you are not using the current version of a HUD form?

Of course, as I have said ad nauseum, if HUD would only put all this "new stuff" (some of which is no longer that new) in a HUD Handbook change, our industry would be much better off. I am still waiting for Change 4, and if I had held my breath I would have been declared brain dead and removed from life support more than two years ago.

Comments

[Sharon]

As a manager of an ever vigilant, yet very tired and of course understaffed, centralized compliance department I have to say that there indeed is nothing more upsetting than an MOR finding due to in improper form version. However, I can see where this particular form change may have thrown many a weary compliance staff for a loop. The wording on this particular form change seemed to require a change in one breath and negate it in the other. "The revision updates the OMB expiration date to 6/30/2012. As a reminder, no OMB expiration date or OMB approval number is required on Form HUD-9887 – 9887-A." I have to admit, the wording definitely gave me pause. If the OMB number and expiration isn't required, then is it really required to update a form only because the non-required information changed? Maybe it was a post-traumatic flashback to an old logic class that caused a momentary delay or maybe it was as you said the weariness that comes from trying to figure out what HUD really wants amidst their continued lack of clear guidance (or clearer anyway) in the form of a Handbook change. If nothing else we should be entitled to MOR bonus points when we're able to keep up with the endless notices and Rhipp Tips and guess right.