Affordable Housing Certifications: Tax Credit and HUD Income Certifications, Limits and Recertifications

Certify LIHTC and HUD Multifamily households in Seayora — Tenant Income Certifications and HUD-50059 worksheets, HUD income limits by area, rent limits, the set-aside test and applicable fraction, recertification reminders and household change requests.

Income certifications for tax-credit and HUD households: who lives in each unit, what they earn, whether they qualify at the unit’s designation, what rent the limits allow, and when each household is next due.

It is for an owner or a property management company with Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, HUD Multifamily (Section 8 project-based, 202, 811) or HOME units. On the website it is under Operations → Income certifications; on the iPhone and Android apps it is in the Tools hub under Income certifications, one screen for each part. A household in one of these homes sees its own side as Income certification.

Seayora keeps the certification and the arithmetic. It does not file with your state agency, it is not HUD-certified TRACS software, and it sends nothing to HUD or a contract administrator.

Seayora never asks for or keeps a Social Security number or a date of birth. Where a form needs them, your agency’s own form collects them.

Setting up a project

A project is the group of units one regulatory agreement covers. Create it, then add its units — each is a unit already in your portfolio, with its lease, rent and residents exactly where they are.

A tax-credit project records the set-aside the owner elected. None of these choices has a default — each is a fact the regulatory agreement states.

• Each unit carries a designation: market rate, 20% of median, 30% of median, 40% of median, 50% of median, 60% of median, 70% of median, 80% of median.
• The building identification number (BIN) groups units into buildings, because the applicable fraction is worked out per building.
• Floor space is needed for the floor-space fraction; a building missing one unit’s floor space shows no floor-space fraction until it is added — never one worked out over the rest.
• The utility allowance and where it came from (your PHA’s schedule, HUD’s Utility Schedule Model or an engineer’s estimate).
• A HUD unit’s contract rent, which the assistance payment is worked out from.

Income limits

Income limits are HUD’s, read for the project’s area and year. A limit entered by hand is never overwritten by the lookup.

• Choose the project’s state and its area — the county, or the town in New England, HUD publishes limits for. Seayora reads HUD’s Multifamily Tax Subsidy Project limits (20% to 80% of the median, one to eight people) for a tax-credit project, and the Section 8 limits (30%, 50% and 80%) for a HUD Multifamily or HOME one.
• HUD’s limits for a fiscal year take effect around April. A certification uses the year in force on its effective date, or a year you choose on it.
• With hold harmless on, a tax-credit project’s limit never falls below a year it has already been under — back to its placed-in-service year (IRC §142(d)(2)(E)). HERA special limits are used for a project placed in service by the end of 2008 where HUD publishes them.
• Above eight people, HUD’s own method adds 8% of the four-person limit per person.
• You can enter limits by hand, with their source. A limit you enter is yours alone and is never overwritten by HUD’s.

Certifying a household

• List everybody who will live in the unit and how each is related to the head of household. Age and disability are recorded only where HUD’s deductions read them — 62 or older, a disability, under 18 — and a full-time student is marked for the tax-credit student rule.
• Add each source of income — wages and salary, self-employment, social security, supplemental security income, pension or annuity, unemployment benefits, tanf or public assistance, child support, alimony, military pay, regular contributions or gifts, other regular income — as anticipated over the next twelve months, at whatever frequency it is paid; Seayora annualizes it. A live-in aide’s income is never counted.
• Add assets with their cash value and the income they earn. Leave the income blank when it is not known.
• For a HUD certification, add the annual childcare, unreimbursed medical and disability assistance expenses.
• Beside the form, Seayora works the result out again as you type — household size, annual income, the limit, whether the household qualifies, the rent the limits allow and, for HUD, the Total Tenant Payment. Nothing is saved until you save it.
• An annual or interim recertification starts as a copy of the last completed one — change only what changed.

A completed certification is never edited. To correct one, void it with a reason and complete a new one.

Completing freezes the result with the figures it used, files a worksheet in your Documents, and schedules the reminders for the next anniversary. A move-in or initial certification is refused until the area’s income limits are held — it is never decided without them.

How the qualification is decided

• At move-in, the household’s annual income must be at or below the limit for the unit’s designation and its size (a live-in aide is never counted; under HUD’s rules foster members are not either).
• At a recertification, a higher income never takes the unit out of low-income use. Above 140% of the limit — your workspace can set the line — the unit still counts, and the next available comparable or smaller unit in the building must go to a qualified household (IRC §42(g)(2)(D)(ii)).
• A household made up entirely of full-time students does not qualify unless an exception applies (IRC §42(i)(3)(D)): a member receives tanf assistance; a member is in a job training program; a single parent and children who are not anybody else’s dependents; married and entitled to file a joint return; a member was in foster care.
• With no income limit held for the area and year, the answer is “Not decided” — never a pass.

Rent limits and the HUD rent

The rent limit is 30% of the income limit for 1.5 people per bedroom (1 person in a studio), less the utility allowance (IRC §42(g)(2)). Section 8 payments are not counted toward it.

For a HUD certification the Total Tenant Payment is the greatest of 30% of monthly adjusted income, 10% of monthly income and the minimum rent (24 CFR 5.628). The resident rent is the TTP less the utility allowance — below zero it is a utility reimbursement — and the assistance payment is the contract rent plus the allowance, less the TTP. Welfare rent (in as-paid states) is not worked out here.

Applying the new resident rent changes the lease’s monthly rent through the lease terms — recorded in its history and told to the resident — on or after the certification’s effective date, never before.

The figures, and why some say “verify”

Every figure below is cited. A figure marked “verify” was read from a secondary source — check it against HUD’s notice before you rely on it.

HOTMA’s dollar figures are adjusted for inflation every calendar year, and a certification uses the figures for the year it takes effect. HUD Multifamily moves to the HOTMA rules on 2027-01-01 (Notice H 2025-07), on that year’s figures. Override any figure with the one your agency publishes, with its citation; an override applies to certifications completed from then on, and a completed certification keeps the figures it was computed with.

The set-aside test and the applicable fraction

• Each project’s set-aside test is worked out from its units today. A unit counts while its household’s completed certification qualifies (over income still counts), while it is vacant after a qualified household, and while its recertification is overdue; an uncertified or non-qualifying unit does not.
• The applicable fraction is worked out per building — the lesser of the unit fraction and the floor-space fraction (IRC §42(c)(1)(B)) — and a building below the project’s target is flagged.

Recertification reminders

• Completing a certification schedules the reminders before the next anniversary — by default 120, 90 and 60 days before it, HUD’s first, second and third reminders.
• Seayora can email each one to the household on its day. A reminder is recorded as sent only once the email has left; if it fails, it is tried again the next morning.
• A reminder given by hand, by post or in the resident portal is recorded with its method and date — HUD expects the file to show when each went out.
• You are told when a recertification is coming due and when one is overdue, and you can have a weekly list every Monday.
• Starting a recertification can open the household’s document checklist under Compliance → Housing programs, when the unit is enrolled there.

When a household’s circumstances change

A household reports a change from its own Income certification — income went down or up, somebody moved in or out, or something on its certification is wrong. You are told at once, answer it (the household is emailed your answer), and can start the interim recertification it calls for in one step.

Agency forms and TRACS

Submitting a HUD-50059 to TRACS needs HUD-certified software or your contract administrator. The export is for them — it never includes a Social Security number or a date of birth.

• Export your completed certifications as a spreadsheet with HUD’s TRACS action codes, for the software or contract administrator that files them.
• Your state agency’s own Tenant Income Certification form can be filled from the certification under Compliance → Housing programs — the household size, the income, the limit, the rent limit and the dates are merge fields there. Income figures fill only for the owner acting on their own property.

What the household sees

Your household’s income certification: when it is next due, what it recorded, and a way to tell your property manager about a change.

They see when they are next due, what to bring, the reminders they were given and whether a new certification is being prepared. Whether they see the household and the income recorded on their certification is your setting. They never see your notes, other households, the figures or the limits.

Settings

Your team

On a management company’s team, income certifications follow the Compliance permission, and somebody who manages only some buildings sees only those. A household’s own Income certification is theirs whatever their employer sets.

Asking your assistant

Seayora’s connector for Claude and ChatGPT can tell an owner whether each project meets its set-aside, its buildings’ applicable fractions, how many units are qualified, over income or overdue, and which recertifications are coming due — counts and addresses only, never a household’s name or income. A household can ask when its next recertification is due. The connector cannot complete or void a certification or apply its rent: each is a named person’s act.

Program rules come from IRC §42, 24 CFR Part 5 and HUD Handbook 4350.3, and your regulatory agreement and state agency add their own. Seayora is not a compliance agent or a lawyer.

Related features and guides

• The Tax Center: Year-End Prep, Sales-Tax Returns, 1099s — Documentation. A Schedule C view of your year from the books, an estimate of what to set aside, sales-tax worksheets and returns by state, 1099 preparation, a knowledge base of federal, state and city rules, and an assistant grounded on all of it.
• Housing programs — Documentation. Section 8, tax credits, exemptions and rent regulation — what each one requires, when it is due, and what it costs to be in it.
• Streamline Property Maintenance with Smart Dispatch — Guide. How a structured maintenance workflow — requests, routing, approval limits, and a trusted contractor network — cuts response times and keeps tenants happy.
• Cars, Parking Permits, Pets and Assistance Animals — Documentation. Keep one register of the cars and animals that live at each building: plates, parking spaces and permits, pet requests you approve or decline, and assistance-animal accommodations handled the way the Fair Housing Act requires.
• Tenant Screening: What Landlords Need to Know — Guide. How to screen rental applicants fairly and legally — credit and background checks, what you can and can’t consider, and staying compliant with the FCRA and Fair Housing.
• Maintenance Requests & Work Orders — Feature. Tenants submit work orders with photos and video from their phone. Landlords triage, dispatch, and track every request to completion in one place.

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