Twenty days to Carryover, then a federal clock GHURA can only partly stop for a typhoon — Guam

GHURA's own post-award clock: twenty days, then it becomes a federal filing

GHURA reserves a separate, later-stage mechanism for projects that would otherwise miss the standard round entirely: a discretionary "Year-End Round" for applicants whose "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," who have no deficient Application items, and who have submitted all exhibits. The QAP is explicit that this substitutes a different, more conditional instrument for the usual reservation: "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," processed "on a first-come-first-served basis" when GHURA determines the round is warranted by available credits and the risk of losing them to the national pool (2025 LIHTC QAP, Section IV).

The federal shot clock: the 10% test, then two years to placed-in-service

Typhoon season overlaps the readiness clock — and the QAP itself says nothing about it

Guam's typhoon season is commonly described as running roughly from late June or July through December, with the most active stretch typically cited as August through December — which means GHURA's own Carryover Allocation Submission deadline (December 31 in both the 2024 and 2025 cycles) and the Evaluation Panel Review/Award Decision work that precedes it fall inside or at the tail of that active window in most years. This research found nothing in either the 2024 or 2025 QAP text addressing what happens if a typhoon disrupts document execution, recordation, or site work during that period — no force-majeure clause, no stated extension mechanism for the Carryover deadline, and no Guam-specific reference to typhoon risk anywhere in either document.

The one real safety valve available sits in federal disaster-relief guidance rather than the QAP. IRS Revenue Procedure 2014-49 lets the allocating Agency itself — GHURA, for a Guam project — grant relief without separate IRS pre-approval, once a Major Disaster covering the area has been declared by the President: "If an Owner has a carryover allocation for a building located in a Major Disaster Area and the incident period for the Major Disaster began prior to the deadline in § 42(h)(1)(E), the Agency may grant the Owner an extension." The extension periods are capped, not open-ended: "An extension under section 6.02 must not extend beyond six months after the date the Owner would otherwise be required to meet the 10-percent requirement... An extension under section 6.03 must not extend beyond December 31 of the year following the end of the two-year period described in § 42(h)(1)(E)(i)." GHURA must act before a specific federal filing deadline of its own: "An Agency that chooses to approve the relief... must do so before filing the Form 8610, Annual Low-Income Housing Credit Agencies Report, that covers the preceding calendar year," which is itself due by February 28.

This relief is not automatic and is not guaranteed. It requires a Presidential Major Disaster declaration covering Guam, and it requires GHURA to affirmatively decide to grant it — the revenue procedure gives the Agency "discretion to provide shorter periods of relief than the maximum periods allowed... or no relief at all." Guam has had federally declared major disasters directly on point — the IRS has announced tax relief for Guam taxpayers following Typhoon Mawar and Tropical Storm Bolaven — but this research found no confirmed instance of GHURA having actually invoked Rev. Proc. 2014-49 relief for a specific LIHTC project's 10% test or placed-in-service deadline. A developer should treat this mechanism as available in principle, not as something GHURA has a track record of using, and should not assume any deadline will move without confirming directly with GHURA that it has made that determination for the specific disaster and the specific project.

Separately from any storm event, Guam's ordinary construction logistics carry their own schedule risk against the placed-in-service clock. Multiple independent sources — including a Government of Guam-commissioned cost study and federal GAO analysis — attribute a meaningful share of Guam's elevated construction-material costs to Jones Act cabotage requirements on ocean shipping between U.S. ports, and secondary building-code compilations describe Guam's wind-design standards as requiring reinforced, high-wind-rated construction consistent with its typhoon exposure. This research did not locate a study quantifying the schedule or cost impact specifically on a LIHTC project's placed-in-service timeline, so these figures should be treated as general context for contingency planning — material lead times and freight scheduling into Guam are a real, distinct project-scheduling risk that a mainland-based construction lender or general contractor may not price in by default, not a QAP-quantified requirement.

What keeps running after placed-in-service: Annual Reports and the compliance fee clock

Placed-in-service is not the finish line — it starts a new, recurring clock. The LIHTC Annual Report, including the Owner's Certificate of Continuing Program Compliance, "shall be submitted by February 1 of each year throughout the compliance/extended-use period" (2025 LIHTC QAP, Section VI). A compliance monitoring fee attaches on the same schedule: "up to $50 per unit for all units (for the 1st year full inspection) and $25 per unit for all units (once every 3 years after 1st year full inspection)... effective as of the Placed-in-Service date for the first building."

Non-compliance findings carry their own short clock: GHURA gives an owner 30 days to correct a discovered violation, extendable "up to a total of six (6) months, if it is determined by GHURA that good cause exists." GHURA must separately notify the IRS within 45 days after the end of the 30-day correction period regardless of whether the violation was corrected. Read together with the readiness-clock deadlines above, a Guam LIHTC award is better modeled as a chain of recurring federal and GHURA deadlines that starts, but does not end, at the Award Decision.