Require the transaction specialist contractor to change its application review process to prevent incomplete applications from being considered during vacant loan sales and that recommendations to approve applications are supported by written analysis.

Implement improved verification checks to prevent participation of restricted entities.

Implement an improved process to review and update program controls before each sale to achieve its mission objectives.

Develop and implement adequate procedures and controls to ensure that (1) staff issues notices of violation and default within 15 calendar days of the inspection report release date and (2) the Office of Multifamily Asset Management and Portfolio Oversight is made aware when notices are not issued within 15 calendar days after the inspection report release date and takes action as appropriate to ensure that future notices are issued in a timely manner. 

Corrective Action

HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing created procedures to identify failed inspections and notify the appropriate field office that a property in their portfolio had recently failed inspection. The procedures included a timeline for issuing a Notice of Violation/Notice of Default to the owner of the property. Implementation of the recommendation ensures that multifamily property owners are notified of deficiencies in a timely manner to take corrective actions.

Include language in future notices of violation and default clearly stating that owners are required to inspect all units (including vacant units), common areas, grounds, building systems, and sites as part of the owner survey and require owners to include sufficient detail in the surveys to show (1) when the survey was conducted and (2) that the survey was a complete survey of the project.

Corrective Action

HUD’s Office of Multifamily Housing updated the language in the template document to be used in future notices of violation and default, clearly stating that owners are required to inspect all units (including vacant units), common areas, grounds, building systems, and sites as part of the owner survey and require owners to include sufficient detail in the surveys to show (1) when the survey was conducted and (2) that the survey was a complete survey of the project. Specifically, HUD notified all Asset Management Division Directors informing them of the updates to the templates and instructed them to use the templates. The implementation of this recommendation has the potential to positively and directly impact the health and safety of families.

Develop and implement adequate policies, procedures, and controls to ensure that owner certifications and surveys and other relevant documents related to properties that fail inspections or are noted as having EHS deficiencies are maintained and retrievable from an easily accessible location.

Develop and implement adequate controls to ensure that HUD staff with the appropriate level of authority approves extensions to the notices of violation and default cure periods in writing and that documentation is maintained to support such approvals.

Modify the queries used to generate the schedules of properties that accompany the reports to Congress to consider a larger range of dates to ensure that properties that failed consecutive inspections are appropriately identified on all applicable schedules.

Assess and streamline the processes for preparing, reviewing, and approving the reports as appropriate to ensure that the reports are submitted to Congress on or before the required due date.

Implement adequate procedures and controls to ensure that documentation is maintained to support that the reports were submitted to Congress.

Develop and execute a detailed plan and timeline for both testing and reporting estimates of improper payments in the PIH-TBRA and PBRA programs in compliance with Federal law and OMB guidance.

Status

In response to the Management Alert, the Deputy Secretary stated that she would provide a plan in 30 days. On April 10, 2024, the Chief Financial Officer, Assistant Secretary for Housing, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public and Indian Housing (PIH) stated their respective executives had been working together to develop a plan to accelerate HUD’s ability to produce statistically valid estimates. With respect to PBRA, HUD planned to use ongoing data collection for fiscal year (FY) 2023 tier 1 and tier 2 payments to develop a statistical estimate in FY 2024.

However, our recent Payment Integrity Information Act audit determined that neither program produced a compliant estimate in fiscal year 2024. For multifamily-PBRA, HUD made some progress and reported an estimate that captured part of the payment cycle; however, the estimate did not include testing to ensure that housing assistance payments from contract administrators to owners were calculated correctly and supported by tenant-level documentation. The PIH-TBRA program did not produce an estimate at all, noting that IT system modernization must occur first. However, PIH has not yet provided a plan that indicates how the system upgrades will address this issue or a timeline for implementation. As of July 2025, HUD indicated that under its new leadership team it was making progress, but could not provide specifics about the progress made, a detailed plan or timeline, or a management decision detailing its corrective action plan. It remains unclear how HUD will produce a complete estimate of the PBRA programs in future years, and when it will be able to produce an estimate for PIH-TBRA.

Analysis

For HUD to close this recommendation, it must finish testing the full life cycle of payments in these programs and publicly report estimates of the improper payments in them. Merely producing a plan with future action target dates is not sufficient to meet the spirit of this recommendation.

PBRA and PIH-TBRA are the two largest program expenditures in HUD's portfolio, totaling $50 billion in FY 24, or 62.4 percent of HUD's total expenditures. HUD has been challenged with developing a compliant sampling methodology that can test the full payment cycle and that can be executed within the required timeframes. To fully address this recommendation, the sampling methodology should test the full payment cycle, and the associated sample testing and statistical estimation must be completed in time to be included in the Annual Financial Report.

Implementation of this recommendation will result in HUD better-safeguarding taxpayer dollars and decrease improper payments.

We recommend that HUD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing update policies and procedures regarding discrimination complaints to ensure consistency among customer service representatives in rerouting these complaints to FHEO.

We recommend that HUD’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Single Family Housing ensure that the FHA Resource Center updates its training program to ensure that refresher training on housing discrimination is regularly provided to staff (such as monthly, quarterly, semiannually, etc.).

Develop a plan and a timeline that ensures all due and payable partial claims are transferred to the FOC, and subsequently processed by the FOC.

Develop and implement procedures to i) monitor the transfer of due and payable partial claims from NSC to the FOC for collection, ii) determine the financial statement impact of not referring due and payable partial claims to the FOC, and iii) decide when FHA will record a reclassification entry to accounts receivable for those due and payable partial claims that are not transferred to the FOC timely.

Consider accounting implications to the gross HECM loans receivable balance for the $20 million lost in security interests.

Record an adjusting entry to remove the duplicate $44 million from the gross HECM loans receivable balance as of September 30, 2023.

Identify and remove all duplicate transactions from the accounting module and prevent future occurrences.

Develop and enhance training for servicing the HECM portfolio.

Develop corrective procedures to bring the HECM portfolio servicing current, initiate collection proceedings for due and payable loans, redeem the tax certificates for properties for which FHA lost its security interest, and implement a solution to monitor tax payments to prevent tax delinquencies and avoid FHA’s risk of loss in loan security interest.