Can You Advertise A Non-conforming Bedroom?
If you have a rental that has 2 conforming bedrooms and a non conforming bedroom in the basement, say without proper egress can you advertise for tenants that it is a 3 bedroom?
Say you were going to finish a basement but there was no way to make an egress so to comply with codes you could leave the closet out of the room which would make it just a room. Could you advertise that property counting the extra room as a bedroom?
I realize you can DO anything you want, my concerns are are you openning yourself up to big trouble, does a copy of that ad end up as evidence in court if God forbid something happens and they hold you liable because you advertised it as a 3rd bedroom?[ Edited by The-Rehabinator on Date 11/12/2004 ]
I had the same problem on a house, and ended up just labeling it as a "Bonus Room", but as I was showing the house, I'd mention that it'd take very little work if the tenants wanted to use it as a bedroom.
Hey I had a similar thread going that might be of interest to you. I think you might run into some legal issues if there was a fire, someone got hurt. Probably not worth the risk. I haven't seen any basements yet that were big enough to justify finishing but you couldn't get the egress window in, unless there just isn't enough space on the property line. You might want to look into that further. I know here it costs be about $2500 materials and labor to put in the window.
Joe
From the view of full and fair disclosure you can not advertise or even suggest the room can be used as a bedroom if it is non-conforming. How someone chooses to use it later is their issue assuming you are selling. If you are renting the place you would have to inform the tenant they can not use it as a bedroom.
The risk is too great if someone has a major accident.
BTW - If someone bought it because you told them they could make it into a bedroom and they did not understand that you were saying is it non-conforming they could sue to reverse the sale or collect damages (it being a 2 bd when they through there were more or less getting a 3 bd).
If there is such a large difference in value and the work to convert it to conforming would be minimal either do the work before you offer the place or at least have plans and approvals put in place so you can sell the specific potential.
John
[addsig]
It seems the concensus is pretty much what I suspected.
That being the case what can you do or are you just out of luck in regard to advertising the rental.
The problem is lets say you could probably find tenants that would pay you $900 a month for it because after they see it they see that they could use the extra room as a bedroom. However you would probably have a hard time getting people to see it if you advertise it as a 2 bedroom for $900 when all the other 2 bedrooms are being advertised for $750, and 3 bedrooms are being advertised at $950.
What tricks are there to maximize that bonus room to get people to see it?