Can I Tattle to Section 8 if my Tenant is Bad? Know Your Role!
/Yes, you can tattle to Section 8, but you need to know why it works sometimes and why it doesn’t. And you need to know HOW to tattle on your tenants. It can bite you in the rear though!
Know Your Role: PHA to TENANT to LANDLORD
The Section 8 voucher holder and the Section 8 office (PHA) have a relationship once the tenant is granted a voucher. Landlords then have a relationship with the tenant just as we do any other tenant. That means we have to use the courts. Then the landlord also has a relationship with the PHA — and in that relationship we can tattle. The other part of our relationship with the PHA is much like a bank. They are not the court, but they are the bank who pays us the money.
Lease Violations and Notices of Eviction
First, you need to use all your legal resources. If your tenant is violating her lease, you need to send the tenant a lease violation. If the tenant is breaking her lease and you want to end the contract, then you need to file for an eviction.
For more details see my video and blog on How to Get Rid of Your Section 8 Tenant
In the process though, it is a WONDERFUL THING that the tenant knows that if she is given any lease violations, that the lease violation is also sent to her Section 8 caseworker.
Notice I said you can send a lease violation to the caseworker. That does not mean a big nasty email about how much you despise your tenant — that you prescreened! They don’t take random complaints. They take lease violations. They disregard the landlords who obviously don’t know how to get along.
It is also very impactful if you send a police report to the caseworker. If there is no reply, be sure to forward that along to the PHA’s director.
An Alternative to Tattling
Instead of actually tattling, I have warned tenants before that I could send in a lease violation, but I really don’t want them to lose their voucher. This is a lovely motivation!
Depending on which PHA you are working with, turning in a lease violation may help and it may not. I know our biggest PHA in Detroit, Detroit Housing Commission, seems to struggle to back up the landlords. I was told they will put the email with the lease violation in a file to refer to someday if they need it. It made me wonder if anyone has ever lost a voucher?
For more information on how tenants lose their vouchers, watch my video and blog about that. It’s good to know so you can be prepared if it happens while you are the landlord.
Another PHA I spoke with, Taylor Housing Commission, said they take lease violations very seriously. They will send a “Nasty Gram” to the tenant warning them that if this doesn’t get straightened out or if they do this again, they are at risk of losing their voucher. Then if there is still another lease violation or two, the tenant is given a letter stating she has now lost her voucher.
I wondered why Taylor Housing Commission bothers to follow up so well. I realize all the PHAs are slammed with paperwork. This seems to be an item that could easily be pushed aside. The director told me though he wants landlords to WANT to work with Taylor Housing Commission because it’s really hard to find good landlords for the voucher holders.
The Catch with Tattling to Section 8
But here’s the problem. If your voucher holder loses her voucher and she’s still in your house, that means you won’t be getting any rent from Section 8 next month! But the tenant does have the right to appeal the decision. In that situation, a third party hears the case. I would have to guess the tenants do not win these cases very often. There are so many deserving people waiting to get a voucher and the PHAs really want to help the most people.
For me, just knowing I can tattle on a tenant is wonderful. With tenants without Section 8, a lease violation only goes so far. Good luck enforcing it! The courts are only interested in really egregious damages a tenant causes. I have never had success removing a tenant through the courts based on what’s called the Damage and Health Safety notice.
What we really need to focus on is screening our tenants so we are never in a position to need to tattle!
For more information on screening a Section 8 tenant, see my video and blog….