Spectrum Enterprises

Spectrum Enterprises is a compliance firm for the Section 42 Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program and related affordable housing programs. Its core services are file pre-approval reviews, tenant file reviews, state and investor audit preparation, physical site inspections, compliance monitoring and LIHTC training.

The firm works both sides of the program, which is unusual: it monitors for state housing agencies and consults for private investors, owners and managers. It became one of the first Authorized Delegates in the country in 1992 under a contract with the State of Massachusetts that has been repeatedly renewed, has performed the same role for nine additional states, and reviews files in states where it is not the Authorized Delegate. Its state monitoring pages cover American Samoa, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Training is delivered through courses including Introduction to LIHTC Compliance and Keeping In Compliance: LIHTC Tenant Files, plus personalized training, an eLearning portal and webinars.

The firm has been involved with the LIHTC program since 1987. It says it reviews over 85,000 files and inspects more than 3,000 units each year in all 50 states and several US territories. Its office is on John Roberts Road in South Portland, Maine, and staff include CPAs and analysts carrying compliance designations. It publishes HUD income limit releases, inflation-adjusted value tables and COLA announcements as they come out.

Fees are not published. What the firm can do for a given property depends partly on whether your state agency uses it as its Authorized Delegate, so start by asking which role it would be playing on your deal and what turnaround it commits to on file reviews.