It is a well-established fact that anyone who is not in compliance with the UPCS penalties is bound to get penalized 
for the same. At the same time, many people usually know little about the REAC UPCS guidelines and always seek for some help with the same. Real Estate Assessment Centre (or REAC) is a division of HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) that is responsible to improve the quality of HUD housing through a number of tools, such as:
- Physical Inspection of all of HUD housing units
- Proper analysis of financial condition of public as well as multifamily assisted housing
- Management Operations Certification Assessment
- Enterprise Income Verification System (transitioned the Tenant Assessment Subsystem)
- Report of Customer Satisfaction Survey
REAC is the entity that is responsible for taking care of HUD’s Physical Inspection Program and doing an assessment of all those properties that come under the purview of HUD housing. In other words, these properties are the ones for which HUD:
- Provides grant for development and operation
- Forecloses on a mortgage
- Insures Mortgages
- Has a remaining statutory obligation
- Owns the property
- Provides subsidized rental payments
UPCS (Uniform Physical Condition Standards) is what can be termed as the foundation of this physical inspection program. The UPCS:
- Is responsible for identifying the inspectable areas as well as tricky health & safety standards
- Forms the basis inspections electronically via UPCS software
- Creates the foundation for all the training inspectors
- Works as per a uniform, mission protocol for conducting inspection of all the properties
- Establishes common definitions for all the inspectable items
As per the plan, the designated inspector has to examine the 5 inspectable regions, which include:
- The entire site
- Building systems
- Building exteriors
- Common regions
- All the units
Once the inspectable areas have been determined, the inspectable items in these regions examined for any possible deficiency. In other words, any observable defect can be termed as a deficiency. The rating that the inspector gives in report for such deficiencies include:
- No Observed Deficiency
- Observed Deficiency
- Not Applicable
An observed deficiency also has to be rated as Level 1, Level 2 or Level 3, as per the definition listed in UPCS Dictionary of Deficiency Definitions. The process then continues and goes on into a UPCS software, which further has 3 components, namely PASS (Physical Assessment Subsystem), Internet and DCD (Data Collection Device). PASS is responsible for making the schedules, the internet is the phase where the checks are conducted, and DCD is what uploads or downloads the data files.
The UPCS Process is itself divided into 3 stages:
Pre-Inspection: The plan for inspection is agreed upon, and software entry is created subsequently.
Inspection: The inspector arrives on the site, and meets the representative of the entity to be inspected. Details and verified and the inspection process goes underway.
Post-inspection: The details are collected and uploaded collectively on PASS.
To gain more insight about the UPCS Inspection Rules and Protocols, to get join expert speaker Hank Vanderbeek in a webinar, titled “Demystifying REAC UPCS Inspection Rules & Protocol: Q&A Session with an Expert”. You can use this session to get answers to all your queries regarding the UPCS inspection rules and protocols.
