The purpose of this memorandum is to alert the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to an issue that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), has identified that affects the timeliness with which public housing agencies (PHA) with units that have lead-based paint are performing required lead-based paint visual assessments.

HUD OIG audited, among other issues, whether three of the nation’s largest PHAs conducted timely lead-based paint visual assessments as required by the Lead Safe Housing Rule (LSHR).  In each of these audits, we discovered that the PHAs did not always meet the requirement to conduct lead-based paint visual assessments within 12 months as required by the LSHR.  A common issue HUD OIG found was that the PHAs incorrectly interpreted the LSHR timing requirement that lead-based paint visual assessments must occur every 12 months to be consistent with HUD’s timing requirement that physical unit inspections occur annually.  PHAs either combined the visual assessments with the annual physical condition inspections required by 42 U.S.C. (United States Code) 1437d(f), or improperly relied on the “annual” requirement instead of the LSHR 12-month requirement for the timing of lead-based paint visual assessments.

We recommend that HUD Issue guidance to PHAs clarifying the timing of unit inspections and lead-based paint visual assessments to address the misinterpretation caused by the terms “annual” and “every 12 months.”