Puerto Rico Public Property and Housing Preference for Veterans

Article 4A of Ley 203-2007 gives a qualifying veteran, and a qualifying surviving spouse, preference in equality of conditions in every distribution, sale, transfer, donation or lease of property of the Government of Puerto Rico, its agencies and instrumentalities and municipalities. The scope is written out: it includes residential projects under the Departamento de la Vivienda and any other social-interest housing programme, and any subsidy for the purchase or acquisition of housing administered by the Government or its dependencies. Preference in equality of conditions is not a guarantee of a unit or a parcel. The veteran still has to qualify under the programme's own rules. What it does is decide who gets the award when two qualified applicants are otherwise equal. The part of this article that a veteran can actually enforce is the notice requirement, which is unusual enough to be worth quoting. Every agency, instrumentality and municipality must include, in every notice, announcement, publication, edict or call related to a process of distribution, sale, transfer, donation or lease of property, to social-interest housing programmes, or to subsidies for acquiring or renting housing, a reference to the preference. And the statute prescribes the text: "AVISO IMPORTANTE: Todo(a) veterano(a), así como sus viudos(as), tendrá preferencia, en igualdad de condiciones, para cualquier modalidad de vivienda gestionada por el Gobierno de Puerto Rico, sus agencias, instrumentalidades y municipios, así como los programas de vivienda de interés social y aquellos que otorguen subsidios para la adquisición o alquiler de viviendas, siempre que cualifiquen bajos los parámetros reglamentarios aplicables. Artículo 4A, Carta de Derechos del Veterano Puertorriqueño." If a housing call or a property auction notice does not carry that text, the issuing body is out of compliance, and Article 9 gives the Procurador del Veterano power to impose an administrative fine of up to five thousand dollars per violation on a government body or municipality. For violations of Article 4A specifically, the statute directs those fines to the General Fund, to be assigned annually in the Procurador's budget for educational campaigns about the rights in the Carta. That is the practical use of this entry: check the notice. A missing AVISO is visible evidence, it is cheap to raise, and the Procurador has a specific remedy for it. More generally, Article 3 requires every governmental body and instrumentality of the Government of Puerto Rico, including public and quasi-public corporations and municipal governments, to report annually within sixty days of the end of the fiscal year to the Oficina del Procurador del Veterano and to the Oficina de Gerencia y Presupuesto on the benefits and services they offer veterans, and requires the Procurador to publish that information on its website. If you want to know what a particular agency thinks it offers veterans, that report is where it should be.