June 2003 Owners Update

Owner Update “Question Of The Month”

TMHA has told me they can't consider a unit for a tenant until I complete the RTA. What is this?

The RTA is a form called the "Request for Tenancy Approval" or RTA for short. This form contains all the information about the unit that TMHA needs to correctly calculate the amount of rent paid by the tenant and the amount of HAP TMHA will pay you the owner.

Things you should know about the RTA:

1. We give RTA's to people who have been issued Vouchers for housing. This means that if a prospective tenant has the RTA, we will pay HAP on the unit as soon as we can approve it - not at some point in the future. So if prospective tenant says we will assist them on your unit, ask for the RTA. Without it, there is no assistance.

2. The RTA is easy to identify because it has sections hi-lighted in yellow by us to help you the owner complete the correct sections.

3. The RTA asks for the following info. about the unit:
unit address, number of bedrooms, year constructed, rent amount, security deposit, unit type (detached house, duplex, etc.) when the unit is available for inspection (we canít inspect a unit still occupied by someone else), if unit is "subsidized" - won't apply to most units unless there is subsidy on the unit other than TMHA, for example from Rural Development, utility info. - wants to know type of utility and who it's paid by; if included in the rent itís paid by Owner; if not, itís paid by the Tenant, owner's certification section that asks about the unit rent compared to other units rented by the owner, lead-based paint information section, information on who will execute the lease for the owner, SSN or FID number of owner (if you don't want to provide this info. on the RTA, call TMHA with the information).

4. The RTA can be completed by a management agent, as long as we know that the owner authorizes the agent to do this work.

5. We will only give a tenant one RTA at a time. If a unit becomes unworkable for one reason or another, we void the unit RTA and give the tenant a new one.

6. The TENANT must return the RTA to TMHA - not the owner. You just fill it out for them; they bring it in to us, and we take it from there.

We can't stress enough the importance of the RTA. The information on the form becomes the basis for working up other paperwork for the unit, including the lease and HAP contract. We use the form to plug in the necessary unit information. Then we calculate the amount of income the family can contribute to determine whether assistance can be extended or not. Should you have any questions about completing the RTA, please call. We're glad to help.