House basement for rent

[Anonymous]

If we wanted to rent out our basement of our home, in Montgomery county, do we need a permit or what is the paperwork required for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If we wanted to rent out our basement of our home, in Montgomery county, do we need a permit or what is the paperwork required for it.

Technically, you do need a license: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/dhca/housing/licensing/accessory.html

There are a lot of homes that are not properly licensed though.

[Anonymous]

Are you a legal two family house?

[Anonymous]

Where would one complain if they know their neighbors are not properly licensed and renting to someone in their basement?

[Anonymous]

look up address https://apps.montgomerycountymd.gov/dhca-eproperty

file compliant here https://www3.montgomerycountymd.gov/311/SolutionView.aspx?SolutionId=1-Y3KNW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where would one complain if they know their neighbors are not properly licensed and renting to someone in their basement?

^^^ OP, that is the only thing you have to worry about. I'm not sure that complaining will do much as they would likely need a warrant to enter the house anyway.

In most counties there is no way to do it legally if the basement were to be configured in a way that would make the house a multi family unit. If you are getting work done like putting in a basement kitchen, I would not get anything inspected so that you stay off the counties radar. Tons of people do it, so you should be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where would one complain if they know their neighbors are not properly licensed and renting to someone in their basement?

^^^ OP, that is the only thing you have to worry about. I'm not sure that complaining will do much as they would likely need a warrant to enter the house anyway.

In most counties there is no way to do it legally if the basement were to be configured in a way that would make the house a multi family unit. If you are getting work done like putting in a basement kitchen, I would not get anything inspected so that you stay off the counties radar. Tons of people do it, so you should be fine.

What are you talking about? Someone literally shared the link on how to do it legally in Montgomery County, where the OP is located.

[Anonymous]

We’re in the process of doing it legally right now. Things were shut down for a while as they paused inspections due to covid but should be restarting too. There’s a bunch of hoops and we had to pay $$ to upgrade everything to be to code but worth it to not have to worry about being reported...

The application itself is $600 or something and then whatever it costs to make sure your egress windows are big enough, kitchen is legal and permitted, etc.

[Anonymous]

^PP

Also that only applies if you are doing it as a full accessory dwelling unit (separate kitchen and fully separate from the main home). You are allowed, without a permit, to rent your basement as a “room in the house.” If it has a kitchen though you need to be permitted.

[Anonymous]

I am surprised MoCo would let you build a kitchen in the basement which would convert a SFH into multi-family dwelling. I tried this in Fairfax County and got rejected right away so it's a surprise to me.

[Anonymous]

I’m the PP above. My house had one when we bought it and then we had to reverse engineer the permits. Luckily everything was built to code and us getting the permit for accessory apartment was all we needed to do for that. We did have to replace the windows though as they weren’t egress...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am surprised MoCo would let you build a kitchen in the basement which would convert a SFH into multi-family dwelling. I tried this in Fairfax County and got rejected right away so it's a surprise to me.

+1 Ditto for Prince William County. In most counties it is basically impossible to do it legally, which is why nobody follows the rules. A lot of these regulations are also somewhat subjective, and allowing an inspector to dictate how you modify your house is not something that I am a fan of. Some rural counties and places like NYC are a different animal though. Even if you had a nosey neighbor, I doubt there is much they could do.

[Anonymous]

My old town went to far as to make kitchens and showers/baths in basement against rules. Too many illegal basement rentals.

My other town did a one year amnesty program I thought was pure genius. You come forward pay a $20 fee and you rental becomes legal, illegal apartments, illegal rooming houses, basements rented. One time fee good forever. After one year period program shut and huge fine if caught.

The next year they reclassified every house as a commercial property and tripled their property taxes and lowered property taxes for actual single family homes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^PP

Also that only applies if you are doing it as a full accessory dwelling unit (separate kitchen and fully separate from the main home). You are allowed, without a permit, to rent your basement as a “room in the house.” If it has a kitchen though you need to be permitted.

So is this correct, you can rent out a room in your basement without any license/permit in Montgomery county, md?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^PP

Also that only applies if you are doing it as a full accessory dwelling unit (separate kitchen and fully separate from the main home). You are allowed, without a permit, to rent your basement as a “room in the house.” If it has a kitchen though you need to be permitted.

So is this correct, you can rent out a room in your basement without any license/permit in Montgomery county, md?

https://www3.montgomerycountymd.gov/311/Solutions.aspx?SolutionId=1-4F8TZS