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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here’s a summary of the “draconian laws”: privacy, safety, dignity, at minimum levels.

https://realestateinthedistrict.com/dc-rental-basement-guidelines/[/quote]

Yea, I get that.  But the devil is in the details and in who you get as an inspector.

I’ll give you a very good example, using our place as an illustration.  When we bought it it had tenants in the basement but no certificate of occupancy.  The basement is so nice that it’s what sealed the deal for us.  We literally thought “wow, we don’t need the upstairs at all, we could live here!”

The tenants knew the place didn’t have a C of O but didn’t care.  They wanted to stay on, and we were fine with it.

The Sellers’s agent told us that the sellers did try to “make it legal,” but guess what the hold up was:  the circuit breaker for the entire house is in the basement apartment, and the inspector insisted that each unit had to have access to their circuit breakers through their own unit.  Tearing out the walls and moving part of the wiring upstairs in order to install a separate circuit breaker in the upstairs living room would have cost thousands and thousands of dollars with absolutely no “health or safety” enhancements whatsoever.  I mean, I guess if the situation were the other way around and the whole circuit breaker system was upstairs instead of down, there might be some kind of argument that could be made that it needed to be this way for the tenants.  But if the circuit breaker is downstairs, and you and the tenant agree that if an upstairs circuit ever trips - which has happened maybe twice in the many many years that we have owned the house - we could either ask the tenant to switch it back for us or, if they’re not around, go into their apartment (with permission being granted in the lease for this specific purpose), what’s the problem?  Where’s the health and safety issue?

Oh, and we were also told that by paying $6000 to a private company to deal with DCRA for us we could guarantee a different result.  Sounds an awful lot like facilitating a bribe to me.

If you can guarantee me that DCRA will treat my application fairly, and put money where your mouth is, I’d be happy to give it a go.  Otherwise, I’ll take my chances on a fine.

By the way, have you ever gone a mile over the legal speed limit on the thinking that, hey, yea, it’s illegal but not hurting anybody?
[/quote]

Oh, boy, where to start with this. You know what started a fire that killed two young people on Riggs Place? An electric thing in their landlords part of the house. So you are very wrong and very very dangerous. I can only hope your renters read this board (which will also get crossposted)[/quote]

the fire at Riggs Place was caused by non-electric (oil) heater. Tenants were locked out due to lack of fire escapes on each side. A totally different situation.

I am a landlord and my rental basement is compliant. But it took 6 months this year to extend the BBL . Inspector was total nutcase, she gave comments and then disappeared on me for months, not even appearing for scheduled appointments. I complained to DCRA manager many times. She also was totally unreasonable in her demands: the steps into the basement are in between 2 brick walls up to the waist height. There is a large landing before you go into the basement and my real estate attorney said that railing is not required by Building Code in such case. The inspector was provided the Building Code quote but insisted on me installing the rail (and spending $2000) or suggested to complain to DCRA and never extending my license for that. Oh, did I forget to say that she suggested using a "certified" rail installing company that would only do it for me for $10K?

Total blackmail and money grabbing[/quote]

And she’d be right on every count. Rain, ice etc. she saved you tons of money on a lawsuit [/quote]

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