Reply to What makes a basement rental legal?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Realistically, a big portion (most?) of basement rentals in DC are not actually certified legal units. At least that's how it looks to me in my neighborhood.

Practically speaking, I think as long as they are safe and livable this is probably not that big of a deal - as long as people know what they're getting into. Going through all of the DC requirements would cost a lot of money and as a result, rents would go up. I think that's why the city doesn't really go out of their way to enforce this although that's just me speculating.

Legally speaking, I think the way to get around this is to rent out the basement as a room in your house and then just "mutually agree" that some spaces are not common. I mean I am no tenants' rights lawyer and I'm sure that wouldn't hold up in court, but it's worth considering.

I just think it's worth weighing the risks and costs associated with NOT making it legal. It's still totally possible to rent it out, it just means you charge less and you take on some legal risk.

Some requirements seem more important than others to me. Points of egress, smoke detectors etc. are all pretty important; 7' ceilings feels like a matter of aesthetics.

I will probably get attacked for this reply but, shrug. OP I would make sure to consider all the angles. [/quote]

I agree that DC definitely looks the other way on these.   And I won't reveal how I know this but they will only inspect a basement units legality if they get a complaint from the tenant about a safety issue.  And if you aren't a commercial landlord they don't worry about the C of A though you are supposed to have one.  But that could also be DCRA incompetency.

The ceiling height was what kept us from legalizing our unit - apparently it is an old fire code thing.

The big hitch to your suggestion about doing it as a room rental and doing it off lease is you might have trouble evicting someone.  When I had a tenant I had very specific language about what the lease covered - the exact parameters of the unit, what shared things they had access to, where they could store stuff, use of the yard etc in case I ever had to do an eviction which fortunately I did not.[/quote]

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