The 30-point unit cap, explained in plain words

Here is the cap the way HUD's scoring model actually applies it: add up all the point deductions inside the inspected units and divide by the number of units inspected. If that average reaches 30 points or more per unit, a score that would have been 60 or higher is brought down to 59. It is the average across units that matters — not one bad unit by itself. Questions and examples welcome in this thread.

This is the single most misunderstood number in NSPIRE, so it is worth saying the quiet part again: the cap looks at the average deductions across all inspected units, which means a property full of medium-bad units can trip it without any single disaster unit on the report. And to keep the board's language clean — scores here are discussed the way HUD publishes them. Scored with HUD's published NSPIRE model — kept current whenever HUD updates it. Only HUD's own inspection sets the official score. Has the cap ever decided one of your inspections — where the average across units, not one bad unit, was the whole story?