If your subsidy is cancelled: the seven causes and mediation

It is the set of articles in Regulation No. 9622 of the Housing Department, of 21 November 2024, governing what happens when the subsidy is at risk: ineligibility, cancellation for the participant’s cause, the notices the agency must give you, the right to a hearing and conflict mediation. It is the part of the regulation people look for once there is already a problem.

It applies to applicants and participants in the programme subsidising the monthly rent of housing for low-income older adults, and to the participating projects. If you were found ineligible, if you were notified of a cancellation, or if you have a dispute with the project’s administration, these are the articles that apply to you.

• That every determination affecting your enjoyment of the benefits be notified to you in writing, by regular or electronic mail.Verified against the official source
• That the notice contain your name, your address, the determination taken, a clear statement of the law grounding it, information on the reconsideration or review remedies available, and the signature of the head of the agency or an official authorised by law.Verified against the official source
• Going to the alternative conflict-mediation method before activating the formal adjudication mechanism.Verified against the official source
• That the Project exhaust all internal and external administrative remedies before cancelling a contract, requiring eviction or starting a desahucio against a participant.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: If you are found ineligible when applying

   Where the older adult is found ineligible, the project will notify them in writing within the next five days of the application being completed of the reasons why they are not eligible, and a copy of that notice must be kept in the project’s files. And the regulation adds the way out: applicants found ineligible may request an administrative hearing under the provisions of the article on the Right to a Hearing. There is one exclusion with no way back: the project will not include on the waiting list an application containing false information.

2. 2

   Step 2: The seven causes of cancellation

   The subsidy may be cancelled where any of these situations occurs. One: the circumstances under which the participant qualified change. Two: death of the participant; in that case the rent subsidy is suspended immediately unless a member of the household is eligible and qualifies to continue receiving the benefit. Three: breach of the terms and conditions of the subsidy contract or the lease by the participant or a member of their household. Four: where, thirty days after signing the lease, the participant has not occupied the unit without justified cause — and the regulation says what justified cause is: illness of the participant or of a household member, as well as any other force majeure. Five: where through illness they are absent from the dwelling for more than sixty uninterrupted days without presenting evidence justifying the absence. Six: where through a relative’s illness they are absent for more than thirty uninterrupted days without presenting evidence. Seven: that the participant has not corrected the deficiencies noted in the unit within the term in the inspection notice, provided the deficiencies are attributable to them.

3. 3

   Step 3: Absences through illness: the sixty and the thirty days

   It is worth pausing here because it is the cause that most surprises families. If you are absent through your own illness, the limit is sixty uninterrupted days; if you are absent through a relative’s illness, the limit is thirty uninterrupted days. In both cases, what prevents cancellation is presenting evidence justifying the absence. That is, the problem is not the long absence: it is the long absence without evidence. If you are going to be hospitalised, or caring for someone away from the unit, get the documentation and hand it to the project before the terms run out.

4. 4

   Step 4: Divorce, and when payments stop

   Two practical rules at the end of the same article. On divorce, the rent subsidy continues to be offered to the person who remains living in the unit if they qualify under the regulation’s provisions. And on when the money stops: the Department may cancel the participant’s subsidy under the C.A.S.A. in accordance with the eligibility criteria and other requirements of Ley 173-1996 and the applicable regulations, must notify the project in writing of its decision, and in that case subsidy payments under the C.A.S.A. will end at the end of the month following the one in which that cancellation is notified to the participant. That is, there is a month’s margin counted from the notice.

5. 5

   Step 5: Losing the subsidy is not losing the home

   It is a distinction worth being clear about. Article XVI says that if the participant becomes ineligible for the subsidy on income grounds at the Annual Review, they will continue occupying the unit paying the rent set in the C.A.S.A. contract, and the lease may be renewed without the subsidy, using the rent set in the C.A.S.A. Losing the subsidy on income, then, does not by itself mean losing the home. The rent is set by the Secretary and reviewed every five years from the date the C.A.S.A. is signed, at the project’s request, taking into account the "Fair Market Rents" table HUD publishes for the review year.

6. 6

   Step 6: What the letter you receive must say

   Article XXIX is not decorative: every determination by the programme or the project affecting the applicant’s or participant’s enjoyment of the benefits must be notified to them in writing, by regular or electronic mail, and must contain six things. The name of the applicant or participant it is addressed to. Their address. The determination taken. A clear statement of the law grounding the determination — and the regulation clarifies this must include the statutes, regulations or any other source of law it rests on. Information on the reconsideration or review remedies available. And the signature of the head of the agency or any other official authorised by law. If the letter you received does not say which law or regulation it rests on, or does not tell you what remedies you have, it lacks content the regulation requires.

7. 7

   Step 7: Mediation is the first recourse, and the project pays

   This is the chapter’s most useful provision and the least known. Before activating the formal adjudication mechanism under the Housing Department’s regulation on formal dispute adjudication procedures, the alternative conflict-mediation method must be used. Mediation will be the first recourse for resolving disputes between a participant and the project. Mediation will be carried out by a mediator certified by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, or at the Conflict Mediation Centre of the nearest judicial region. And — this is what changes many people’s calculation — the mediator’s cost must be covered by the project’s administration. If the dispute could not be resolved through mediation, the project or the participant will file a complaint with the Department for it to be adjudicated under the formal dispute adjudication regulation.

8. 8

   Step 8: Before evicting you, all remedies must be exhausted

   The same Article XXX sets an explicit brake: every project with a contractual relationship with the programme must exhaust all the internal and external administrative remedies discussed in that article before proceeding to cancel a contract, require eviction or start a desahucio against a programme participant. And it opens the complaint route to anyone: any person or legal entity who considers their rights affected by actions taken by the Department or the project’s administration in implementing the regulation may file a complaint; the content, where it is filed and the adjudicative procedures follow the Housing Department’s regulation in force on formal dispute adjudication procedures, which we did not read for this guide.

9. 9

   Step 9: Sanctions and availability of funds

   Two closing points worth knowing. Article XXVIII: breach of the regulation’s provisions or of the C.A.S.A. carries denial of the application, suspension of the subsidy or the obligation to return any subsidy amount received, as the law provides. And Article XXXI: the subsidy’s availability is subject to the availability of funds; the Department is not obliged to grant subsidies when it lacks sufficient funds, and a subsidy’s amount and duration will depend on that availability. Article XXIII itself repeats that condition at its opening: the subsidy’s validity is subject to the programme’s availability of funds.

The administrative hearing on ineligibility is requested under the regulation’s own Right to a Hearing article. Mediation takes place before a mediator certified by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico or at the Conflict Mediation Centre of the nearest judicial region, and the project’s administration pays for it. If mediation does not resolve matters, the complaint is filed with the Housing Department and adjudicated under its regulation on formal dispute adjudication procedures.

• Being absent more than sixty days through your own illness without giving the project evidence.
• Being absent more than thirty days through a relative’s illness without giving evidence.
• Signing the lease and not occupying the unit within thirty days without documenting justified cause.
• Believing the participant’s death ends the benefit for the whole household.
• Accepting a cancellation letter that states neither the law it rests on nor the available remedies.
• Going straight to a complaint without going through mediation, which is the first recourse.
• Paying for the mediator, when the cost is borne by the project’s administration.
• Accepting an eviction before the project exhausts the internal and external administrative remedies.
• Thinking that losing the subsidy on income means losing the home.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de la Vivienda

  Vivienda

  docs.pr.gov

• Puerto Rico Housing Department

  vivienda

  www.vivienda.pr.gov