Once all these steps are completed, you are ready to sign the contract with the Section 8 office. You'll also need to sign a lease agreement with the tenant. After the tenant moves in, the Section 8 office will send you a check monthly for its share of the rental payment. You will be responsible for collecting the remaining amount from the tenant directly.

Your property must be re-inspected each year to stay in the program. If the property does not meet Section 8 office criteria at the time of the re-inspection, repairs must be made in the allotted time frame. Otherwise you will be dropped from program and your Section 8 payments will stop.

Other Important Things You Must Know about Being a Section 8 Landlord

As a Section 8 landlord, there are some things you can decide at your discretion, just like how you will handle any other non Section 8 tenant.

For example, you are not required to accept pets on the property, unless the pet is a service animal for a disabled person. If a Section 8 tenant fails to pay his/her portion of the rent or causes other problems, you can have the tenant evicted just like any other tenant.

However, there are some restrictions on things you can do as a Section 8 landlord. For example, you cannot rent month-to-month to a Section 8 tenant because your initial lease has to be a fixed term tenancy of 1 year.

You may also collect a security deposit, but it cannot exceed the cost of 1 month's rent. Finally you can increase the rent after 1 year, but it may not rise above what the Section 8 office considers to be fair and reasonable for properties similar to yours in the surrounding area. Teo Zhenjie