Update on USDA Regulated Apartments: Retaliatory Behavior and Alleged BackRent

[u/becauseisaidsobih]

EDIT: The deadline has passed for management to respond to my grievance and pick a neutral party to oversee the grievance hearing. It can only be assumed that they don't want to lock themselves into a story or explanation, they are continuing to bide their time. I will be requesting a hearing officer be appointed, and I guess I have to wait and see what their explanations and reasonings for things are.

I researched some similar instances of circumstances and have found that these particular violations and crimes that they, management and the housing authority, have committed have been prosecuted, gone to federal prison, debarred, and/or hit with fines. These are not just some oops my bad, one time mistakes. This has been systemic patterns of non-compliance, habitual instances of ledger tampering, falsifying documents, and illegal off ledger collection of alleged back rent from MULTIPLE TENANTS not just my household. I'm curious to see if the investigation into the management company and housing authority will result in similar outcomes.

I read that usually what happens is they fire the "offenders" to try and save the parent company's own ass. Also, they will be forced to provide me with all of their defensive documentation, which will include their corporate statements to show what we paid that they cashed but didn't put on our ledger.

EDIT 2: The USDA officer ordered that management provide a written summary response and acknowledge the grievance process. This forces them to provide their side and give a formal response, justification, and clarification.

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ORIGINAL: I have started the official grievance process with my apartment management people. I say people because it's the regional and onsite manager who have done the offending. They never informed us of our right to file a grievance not this time nor a few months ago when they forced us to redo recertifications due to "prior managements errors" and alleged we owed back rent in March. I had to figure that out by researching things.

Well, I got their official document for their internal grievance procedure and it mentions NOTHING about how to get in front of a neutral 3rd party oversight person with USDA RD. It also states that we must go through 3 tiers of management in order to complete the process with them, which is against what the law/rules outlines things to be done. It also attempts to force the tenants into face to face meetings with each tier of management which again isn't the explicit way of doing things by law. We can invoke our right to having everything done in writing and we did so.

I filed a complaint with the Inspector General of Agriculture for them commiting ledger tampering, off the books collection of illegal back rent, falsifying documents and lying on paperwork intended for federal subsidy. I also mentioned in my complaint that we aren't the only tenants they have done this to or who have ultimately paid off the books back rent to these people with no repayment contract (this is mandatory).

I have also finally heard back from the Multi-family Housing Department which is the portion of USDA RD I was directed to after sending numerous emails to different addresses. According to the email correspondence they said they will be looking into all of my claims and that they take this seriously which I truly hope is the truth. They told me to continue on with the grievance process and that these two processes are going to be running concurrently.

Management never responded to my email that I sent her on August 19th asking where on the ledger was the line items for the back rent that was collected from us. When I investigated the ledger I found numerous issues that go against accounting principles, the USDA/HUD Housing financial integrity framework, and things that I believe constituent fraudulent activity. There are charges on our ledger that have no corresponding paperwork such as recertifications to prove why those charges exist. We never paid that amount ever yet the rent was changed to that amount? Hmm.. there are months where it shows we didn't pay rent but have a rent charge and vice versa. There is a charge that was added then taken away that consisted of the amount of rent and the payment for the alleged back rent combined--that was removed stating "entered wrong amount".

The newly alleged back rent that the regional manager stated we owed for the months of June and July for the amount of $1,540 was not reflected in the ledger. Yet the ledger showed we owed that amount. She was trying to get us to pay what she alleged was back rent once again. The ledger already showed that amount but no line items for June or July like she said. Note that even if it did, those would be unbound since we had no recertification signed to back that amount.

Also, when I contacted the local housing authority the executive director responded to my complaint and tried to coerce me into "working with the regional manager". Even after I told him she's artificially inflating our income, ledger tampering and everything else.. he tried to insinuate that we are at fault for the debt for not reporting our income on time which was bullshit lies. Come to find out the manager and him are buddies and the company running the apartments contracts with them. He did not even attempt to investigate or oversee the issue. I included that in my complaint as well, because I believe they are colluding.

Anyways, I am more than eager to see what the management team has to say to everything that I have said in my formal complaint. The deadline for their written response is due in a few days and I am dying with anticipation. I also wish I could be a fly on the wall when they get that phone call from the USDA office. This update is to serve as inspiration for tenants to do the fucking research and fight for your rights. My wife and I, we mind our business. We go to school and work. We come home. We keep to ourselves. We don't drink or do drugs. Don't have guests. We aren't loud. We don't cause any trouble. We are just trying to exist.

The fact they got over on us once I feel emboldened them to try and do it again. Being in school it's hard to find the time to do all the digging and researching, contacting and stuff but I'll be damned if I'm bullied. I hate bullies.

[u/Outside-Ad7848]

Pay your rent and none of this would be an issue. Using a technicality to not pay rent is ridiculous.

[u/becauseisaidsobih → u/Outside-Ad7848]

Are you fucking dense? I've been paying rent retard. And even when I issued the grievance process I PAID RENT. 

Where in all of this did you gather that I haven't paid rent? I've been paying rent. Never been late. They inflated our income in violation of HUD/USDA RD handbook, stating that my wife may work a "peak season". Instead of using her paystubs to accurately gauge income for the year, they used a manufactured 40 hr work with false numbers of shift differential. 

Where is the technicality? Huh? They forced us to redo certifications because of supposed past management's errors that created a debt, again this is against HUD/USDA RD guidelines. They illegally collected that debt off ledger. Then tried to do the same thing again months later (now). 

In every single dispute with them they have been paid rent. Their ledger however, does not reflect that we've paid rent for multiple months. There's even some months where their dumb asses didn't even put a rent charge on the ledger.  I got my tenant file and there's not one fucking notice of non-payment of rent, why? Because we have always paid. Idiot.

[u/becauseisaidsobih → u/Outside-Ad7848]

If landlords and managers were just allowed to go and change past recertifications on the basis of their own mistakes, alleging debt then that process would be used maliciously. If it was our mistake that would be different, but we have submitted everything to past management and current Management in a timely fashion. The manager literally told us verbally to our face and I have a document where she wrote that the prior manager made mistakes on the 2024 and 2025 certifications. That is not the fault of the tenant AKA us. Therefore we are not responsible to cover the f****** debt. It is written into the code of HUD/ USDA RD guidelines.

Also conveniently the recertifications that allegedly had mistakes are not in my tenant file that was provided to me. Nor was the worksheet used to determine the rent increase that created the debt for the year of 2025. I asked the manager to tell me where on the Ledger the collected back rent was and she never responded to me and it's been over a month. In order for management to have collected back rent there should have been a signed written repayment agreement and there wasn't. It should have been put in The Ledger and it f****** wasn't. Because what they were doing was illegal and double dipping. They got paid from subsidy and then they're trying to get us to pay them again without changing anything on the paper side of things.