Construction through placed-in-service — Guam

The federal placed-in-service clock governs directly -- GHURA's QAP doesn't add its own

GHURA's QAP references Internal Revenue Code Section 42(h)(1)(E) exactly once, and only in the context of a discretionary "Year-End Round": GHURA "may, at its sole discretion, conduct a special round after the final scheduled round for a year for projects (i) where the applicant's tax counsel has attested to an itemization of how the ten percent test prescribed by Internal Revenue Code Section 42(h)(1)(E) will be met; (ii) which have no deficient Application items; and (iii) for which all exhibits have been submitted ('Year-End Round'). Year-End Round projects will receive a Carryover Allocation, not a reservation of LIHTCs, which may contain certain conditions and time periods for satisfying them." That same statutory subparagraph is also where the federal placed-in-service deadline for a carryover-allocated building lives -- the building must be placed in service by the close of the second calendar year following the year of allocation -- but GHURA's QAP never restates that half of the rule in its own prose. A developer has to go to the Internal Revenue Code itself, not GHURA's QAP, to find the actual placed-in-service deadline that applies to a Guam carryover allocation.

Don't confuse that federal, building-level deadline with a different "two-year" reference that does appear in GHURA's own QAP text: Section I.C explains that GHURA ran an abbreviated 2025 Application Process because CY2024 credits went unawarded, and that "credits are available to allocate over two years. The two-year timeline for CY2024 credits to be allocated is December 31, 2025." That sentence is about the separate national-pool rule governing how long a state has to allocate (not build) its annual credit ceiling before unused credits revert -- a program-level administrative deadline, not the building-level placed-in-service deadline under Section 42(h)(1)(E). The two clocks answer different questions and run on different triggers.

What GHURA's QAP doesn't publish: a construction inspection cadence or a cost-certification standard

A full-text search of both the 2024 and 2025 QAP found no section describing periodic construction-progress inspections, draw inspections, or any pre-placed-in-service site-visit requirement, and no mention anywhere of a certified public accountant, an audit opinion, or a defined cost-certification standard of the kind several state agencies borrow from HUD's HOME program or write independently. The only inspection regime either QAP describes lives in the Compliance Monitoring Plan's "Audits" section, and it is explicitly a post-occupancy, tenant-file-driven review: GHURA "may perform an audit annually but at a minimum, once every three years," and that audit's stated purpose is "to conduct a physical inspection of the building and/or project, and, for at least 20 percent of the project's low-income units, to inspect the units and review the low-income certifications." Nothing in that section, or anywhere else in either QAP, describes a distinct pre-placed-in-service construction-monitoring regime.

The closest thing GHURA's QAP has to a cost-verification tool is a single sentence in its "Rights of GHURA" section: GHURA "may, at the time of issuance of the IRS Form(s) 8609 for the project, decrease the amount of tax credits allocated to a project based on the actual cost and financing of the project." That gives the agency broad discretion to true-up a final allocation against actual costs, but the QAP does not say what documentation -- a sworn cost statement, a CPA-audited cost certification, or something else -- GHURA will require to determine what "actual cost" is. Treat this as an unresolved gap rather than an oversight you can safely assume away: confirm directly with GHURA's LIHTC office what final cost documentation it will actually ask for before your Final Allocation submission.

Form 8609: a Board-level, cost-contingent event -- and the QAP contradicts itself on when Part II is due

GHURA ties real money to the 8609 milestone well before any cost-certification question arises. A Good Faith Deposit -- "ten percent (10%) of the first year's federal tax credits reserved" -- is payable when the executed binding agreement is submitted, and "upon allocation and issuance of the IRS Form 8609, eighty percent (80%) of the good faith deposit shall be retained by GHURA as an administrative fee." The remainder is refundable only "in the sole discretion of GHURA," and the QAP separately warns that "failure to meet any of the elections made in the scoring criteria, participation elements, or requests for additional credits at the time of application or after may result in the retention of the entire good faith deposit by GHURA" -- a risk that runs independently of construction performance.

On the mechanics of actually filing Form 8609 Part II, the QAP's own text is not internally consistent. Its Compliance section states plainly that "Owner shall complete Part II of IRS Form 8609 and submit with subsequent Annual Reports," while its Reporting Requirements list -- a few pages later in the same document -- says "Part II of the IRS Form 8609 must be completed by the owner and submitted with initial Annual Report." "Subsequent" and "initial" are not the same filing, and this research could not reconcile the two clauses from the QAP text alone. Confirm directly with GHURA which Annual Report submission it actually expects Part II attached to before you rely on either phrasing.

Form 8609 execution also functions as a hard cutoff elsewhere in the QAP: Appendix 1's income-averaging guidance states that "proposals will only be considered for Developments that have not yet executed Form 8609" -- meaning any request to add or adjust an income-averaging election has to land before 8609 execution, not after.

What GHURA's own materials don't address: typhoon season and import logistics

Neither the 2024 nor the 2025 QAP mentions typhoon season, shipping schedules, port capacity, or import lead times for construction materials as a factor in its timelines, deadlines, or scoring criteria -- despite Guam being a small Pacific island territory where all of those are well-known general realities of building there. This is a genuine gap in GHURA's own published materials, not a confirmed allowance: there is no QAP-recognized schedule buffer, force-majeure clause, or extension mechanism tied to any of these factors that this research could locate. A development team should build its own schedule contingency for them as a matter of ordinary project management, but should not expect GHURA to formally recognize or extend a deadline because of them absent some other, unpublished accommodation the agency makes case by case.