If you have a retirement or other annuity, there’s a good chance it will need to be counted in some way as part of your household income. How a landlord should determine how to treat an annuity that you have (or that you may set up after you sign a lease for a low-income apartment at a tax credit property) depends on whether you have the right to withdraw the balance of the annuity and if you are already receiving payments.

If you’ve already begun getting payments, the landlord will need to ask your broker whether you have the right to withdraw the balance of the annuity. If you do have this right, then the landlord must treat your annuity as an asset.

Also, once you’ve begun receiving annuity payments, you normally can’t convert it to a lump sum of cash. If that’s your situation, then your regular payments will be treated as income by your landlord.

Expect that your landlord will need to verify whether you have the right to withdraw the balance (even if penalties are assessed), what the basis is on which the annuity may be expected to grow in the upcoming year, any surrender or early withdrawal penalty fee, and the tax rate and tax penalty that would apply if you were to withdraw the entire balance of your annuity.