By Ed Gramlich, NLIHC Senior Advisor
HUD posted joint Notice PIH 2025-27/H 2925-05 on September 30, postponing until October 1, 2026, the scoring of the new “Affirmative Requirements” under the National Standards for the Physical Inspection of Real Estate (NSPIRE). The new scoring date applies to Public Housing and all private housing assisted with HUD’s Multifamily programs (Project-Based Rental Assistance, Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly, and Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities). The joint Notice applies to six categories of affirmative requirements. NSPIRE’s affirmative requirements are property features or requirements that must be met. Failing to meet one of these requirements is considered a defect, resulting in point deductions from the property’s overall NSPIRE score. HUD explains that it is postponing scoring because property owners are having difficulty complying. A previous joint Notice PIH 2024-39/H 2024-11 extended the date to October 1, 2025.
HUD’s Real Estate Assessment Center (REAC) Affirmative Requirement deficiencies found during NSPIRE inspections must be mitigated within a timeframe depending on the NSPIRE Standards severity category (Life-Threatening, Severe, Moderate, and Low). NSPIRE physical inspections focus on three areas: the housing units where HUD-assisted residents live, elements of their building’s non-residential interiors, and the outside of buildings, ensuring that components of these three areas are “functionally adequate, operable, and free of health and safety hazards.” Each of the three inspection areas have “Affirmative Requirements.” Details about the Affirmative Requirements are provided in the NSPIRE Standards Notice and the NSPIRE Administrative Procedures Notice.
The new joint Notice PIH 2025-27/H 2025-05 lists six areas of “non-scored defects,” including fire-labeled doors, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), interior lighting, minimal electrical outlets, and guardrails. Under HVAC, for example, scoring is postponed even if a heating source is not working even though the inside temperature is less than 64 degrees Fahrenheit, or if a heating source is damaged, inoperable, missing, or not installed. For electrical outlets, the failure to have at least two working outlets in each habitable room will not be scored during the compliance extension.
Read Notice PIH 2025-27/H 2025-05 here.
HUD no longer has a NSPIRE-specific website with many resources; however, basic NSPIRE material is available on HUD’s “HUD Partners” web page, at “Inspections for HUD Housing.”
More information about NSPIRE is available on page 4-120 of NLIHC’s 2025 Advocates’ Guide and a “Summary of Key Provisions of the Final National Standards for Physical Inspection Regulation (NSPIRE)” (May 2023) is on NLIHC’s Public Housing webpage.