[Gumby]

Say you have an unauthorized suite. What are the pros and cons to having it recognized by the city?

Thanks!

Edit: Why would anyone in their right mind want to turn it into a legal suite?

Or what risks do I run if I choose to continue renting out an unauthorized suite?

[Sky_High]

There's pro's?

[Gumby]

There's pro's?
Haha good point... :D

[TheNewGirl]

You can use a legal suite as reported income for your mortgage or other loans/credit.

Also the land lord has more protection with a legal suite.

You can get tax write offs on the your improvements/repairs on the suite.

Cons wise you have to pay tax on the income.

As a renter it doesn't matter really, you're protection extends under the tenancy act regardless.

[TRDood]

Does the landlord gets insured under house insurance if the tenant burns down the house? Liability issues?

[jACEDesignsLtd]

do people report to the City about unauthorized suites?

[ruthless]

do people report to the City about unauthorized suites?

In some instances yes...

In our neighbourhood there were two new houses being built and I guess someone reported them. Then a city bylaw officer came and checked every house for a suite...and how many suites each had etc.

[Gumby]

do people report to the City about unauthorized suites?
If your tenants caused problems (too noisy, make a mess, take up all the parking, etc) and your neighbours weren't forgiving, they could complain to the city.

[quasi]

At the end of the day people are going to do what they want and they can't really police it unless they want to hire people who do nothing but enforce it. I will say though it does fuck up neighborhoods. There isn't enough parking, people aren't paying there fair share for garbage collection or contributing enough in taxes to the schools among other things. This of course doesn't help the overcrowding because they can't properly judge how many people live in an area. Personally I'd love to see them crack down on them and have home owners with suites pay more property taxes to offset the extra burden they're putting on the neighborhood and city but it will never happen so do what works best for you I guess.

[melloman]

My neighbour has rented out his entire house and sectioned it off into 3 suites.. it wasn't bad until the new 2 downstairs tenants.. pretty much I'm calling the city once the upstair neighbour moves out in June. Way too annoying and loud.

[Glove]

I cant stand people who do nothing but complain to the city all day,

we were doing reno's on my house and someone fuckin complained, I dont even know why, everything we were doing was legal.

I wish I fucking knew who it was, mind your own god damned business.

IMO anyone who complains to the city should need to put it in writing and sign it, and it should become public record. Way too many people at home with nothing better to do, they should atleast be accountable for their complaints.

[melloman]

Depends on time and place.

And if you have everything legally, doing everything the legal way, there shouldn't be a problem with the city anyways.

[ruthless]

I cant stand people who do nothing but complain to the city all day,

we were doing reno's on my house and someone fuckin complained, I dont even know why, everything we were doing was legal.

I wish I fucking knew who it was, mind your own god damned business.

IMO anyone who complains to the city should need to put it in writing and sign it, and it should become public record. Way too many people at home with nothing better to do, they should atleast be accountable for their complaints.

Depends on time and place.

And if you have everything legally, doing everything the legal way, there shouldn't be a problem with the city anyways.

+1 mello

If everything is by the book, then the neighbors can complain all they want...

but usually for small reno's people don't get permits so...:smug:

[Gumby]

I came across some info from Leah Coss' blog (http://www.mortgagecentrebc.com/blogs/cossl/). She's a mortgage planner in Vancouver. This entry (http://www.mortgagecentrebc.com/blogs/cossl/?p=1310), from Sep 19, 2011, talks about unauthorized/illegal suites, and here's the gist of it:

The only difference between having an authorized and an unauthorized suite is simply that you’re paying higher property taxes. Now, a lot of you are going, ” I’m not going to pay higher property taxes.” Well, you know what? You need to because, as taxpayers, if you don’t pay for them, the rest of us are.

Why the city wants you to pay higher taxes is because you have two separate dwellings, which means two separate families producing twice the amount of garbage. Now the garbage service is having to work twice as hard, and you’re not paying for that. The same with water, things of that nature, that you pay to the city part of your taxes. But, by having two separate dwellings, you need to be paying more. Hopefully, that makes sense to you. In a lot of cases, if the city’s going to come by and do a checkup on your suite, and you don’t want that suite getting ripped out, then, guess what? You’re going to have to pay those higher property taxes.

But for some cities, for example Vancouver, there are somewhat a few more hoops that you’re going to need to jump through. For example, if you’re going to have a separate living dwelling in the basement or as a duplex or something like that, you’re going to need a certain amount of sprinklers in certain places. You’re going to need windows. You’re going to need a separate entrance and different requirements like that. Definitely go to your city and see what other requirements there are there.

But if the city does find out that you have an unauthorized suite, then they can make it so that you have to rip it out. What are they going to do to make you rip it out? The kitchen. [chuckles] Without a kitchen in there, a basement suite is going to be hard to rent out.

To avoid this altogether, or to at least take the steps of finding out what you need to do to make it authorized, just go to your city. Find out what needs to happen. Are there sprinkler requirements, window requirements? How much more of property taxes would you have to pay? Because if they do inspect, you’re going to have to rip it out anyway. If you rely on that income, that could put you into big, big trouble. As well, it’s important to know that not all lenders, such as Scotiabank and such, will lend on homes with unauthorized suites. They don’t want anything to do with them if you’re relying on that money in the basement suite.

[Selanne_200]

As a home owner with a illegal suite before and got checked by the city because of a complaint (which is stupid because tenants were quite, they only parked in front of my house, never party, no noise), the cost of taking out the kitchen is quite costly. You have to cut the range wire back i believe 6 inches into the wall, breaker for the stove taken out and a dummy breaker put in, your kitchen sink's waterline would have to be cut off, plumbing taking out and capped and sealed, hood fan taken out etc. Not to mention, some of the work requires a city permit so you can't even do it yourself.
Yes you have to pay higher property tax for a legal secondary suite, but as others mention, there are benefits to it, be glad that city of vancouver actually allows a secondary suite, you can't have one in burnaby to rent out even if you're willing to pay.

[melloman]

You can't have one in burnaby to rent out even if you're willing to pay.

Didn't know this. Thanks.
Currently living in Burnaby with my dickhead basement suite neighbours and the whole house is technically illegal. It'll be fun to see him fined and evicted.

[Gumby]

Guess I should confess that I'm interested in buying a house with an unauthorized basement suite. I would be willing to buy it IF I can successfully get a permit for it. If there are code violations requiring expensive modifications, I want to find out before buying it.

Given that the suite is currently illegally rented out, the seller will tell me to GTFO if I submit an offer "subject to an inspection by a city bylaw officer"!

So, any advice?

[GLOW]

Didn't know this. Thanks.
Currently living in Burnaby with my dickhead basement suite neighbours and the whole house is technically illegal. It'll be fun to see him fined and evicted.

i can picture your face during the process...something like this->:ilied:

[surreyjack604]

I hate when people rent out both basements and fuck parking up. faggots.

[melloman]

Guess I should confess that I'm interested in buying a house with an unauthorized basement suite. I would be willing to buy it IF I can successfully get a permit for it. If there are code violations requiring expensive modifications, I want to find out before buying it.

Given that the suite is currently illegally rented out, the seller will tell me to GTFO if I submit an offer "subject to an inspection by a city bylaw officer"!

So, any advice?

Advice would be the norm.. before going through with payment the house has to go through a full Inpsection. That's just standard and if he denies then there's something DEFINATELY wrong. Never buy a house without a THOROUGH inspection.

I can see that if nothings wrong, then apply for the permit for the suite. But I'd read all the FAQ's and see if you can see any problems yourself.

[Gumby]

Advice would be the norm.. before going through with payment the house has to go through a full Inpsection. That's just standard and if he denies then there's something DEFINATELY wrong. Never buy a house without a THOROUGH inspection.

I can see that if nothings wrong, then apply for the permit for the suite. But I'd read all the FAQ's and see if you can see any problems yourself.
Oh yeah, I'd never buy a house without first doing a house inspection.

The problem is that a home inspection is only an examination of the current condition of a house. It is not a municipal inspection, which verifies local code compliance. But I guess it's close...

Shit, I didn't realize buying a house would be so stressful...

[melloman]

The thing is, they inspect the plumbing and everything to make sure its up to code.. if everythings is up to code, then it shouldn't be an issue getting it legalized.

The only things to make sure would be:
-Seperate entrance
-Bedroom has a big enough window for emergency exit (dependant on percentage compared to size of occupancy)
-Smoke detectors (2 IIRC)
-6' 6" headroom in 60% of the suite and at all exits/entrances

Assuming it's in Vancouver: Licences & Inspections, By-law Administration and Records Services, Secondary Suites Program (http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/licandinsp/compliance/bylawadmin/secondarysuites.htm)

[Gumby]

-6' 6" headroom in 60% of the suite and at all exits/entrances

The Secondary Suite PDF document says 80%.

Now the other part - calculating the maximum allowable area using the lot size & Floor Space Ratio (FSR) seems impossible given that city policies are stated in square metres, whereas floor plans are measured in square feet!

Edit: Ok maybe not impossible, but certainly one hell of a math problem!

[melloman]

1 square foot = 0.09290304 square meters :thumbsup:

[Glove]

+1 mello

If everything is by the book, then the neighbors can complain all they want...

but usually for small reno's people don't get permits so...:smug:

it wasnt a small reno, pretty big one,

but we were doing everything legally, then when the inspector came,

we literally had to drop our tools and go through 2 weeks of paperwork MID project. it was fuckin rediculous, everything was eventually passed with no problems,

but why the hell would someone complain anyway? I just dont get it, why do they care what im doing to my house?

[DsZ24]

it wasnt a small reno, pretty big one,

but we were doing everything legally, then when the inspector came,

we literally had to drop our tools and go through 2 weeks of paperwork MID project. it was fuckin rediculous, everything was eventually passed with no problems,

but why the hell would someone complain anyway? I just dont get it, why do they care what im doing to my house?

Probably some old lady neighbor with nothing better to do. "Some construction worker looked at me the wrong way so I'm going make em pay" Hate people like that.

[GLOW]

city policies are stated in square metres, whereas floor plans are measured in square feet!


i hate that. every time i see metric on construction drawings or code books i'm like :fuckthatshit: give it to me in imperial

i'm always just using google to convert for me :lawl:

[rb]

a potential risk could be problems with your insurance company or fire department if you have a house fire.

We had a fire at our rental property in Vancouver and were grilled by the fire department and insurance company about whether we had the proper licenses, things up to fire code, having a proper fire exit for the suites, etc. Everything we did was legal but talking to the adjustor, he told me some ppl have had trouble getting their claims approved due to having an unauthorized suite, not having things up to code, etc.

[too_slow]

Wow, I did not know that the City of Burnaby DOES NOT ALLOW legal suites.

[Selanne_200]

Not for rent anyways, you are ALLOWED to have an in-law suite, but you'll need to sign an affidavit stating that it is for a close relative or a nanny

[Gridlock]

Seriously, keep that legal.

Years ago we went to check out a basement suite...now, I'm not a fan of the subterranean lifestyle at all, but we go and check it out. It was nice enough, but the guy was a douche.

Anyway, he's going on that he wants rent paid in cash...the whole thing just made me feel so far off the record that I was purely there to pay the mortgage. Yeah, I know, that's the point, but you don't need to throw it in my face.

My point here is, keep it legal. At 84 rental units(and counting!) here's a few things that are gonna help you out:

1. You'll get a dickhead tenant.

You want to feel jumpy every time there is a knock on the door? Cause you are going to have a dickhead. You are going to spend 6 months getting rid of him, and 5 minutes after you do, he's going to call the city.

2. You are going to have dickhead neighbors.

They are everywhere! They don't like you, or anyone for that matter. They'll call the city just for the entertainment. Your basement dwellers will be a nice target.

3. Bylaw enforcement officers are dickheads.

You seeing a trend here? Big floppy penis's abound man. They have shit jobs. A 'bust' is the highlight of their xmas party stories.

So..tenants, neighbors and the city are all against you. Too many bad guys for my taste.

[BrRsn]

lol there's always anonymous whistle blowers. One hounded us for not having grass while the house was under construction :fulloffuck:

another time, we were making a house for ourselves to live us, and we (as the owners) went to the house with shovels to level the ground for the grass on a sunday ... someone called the cops for a noise complain :fulloffuck: how do you call a noise complain on 3 guys with shovels at 1pm on a sunday? Some people just love being dicks.


Back on topic, the way most vancouver special houses are made are upper floor is washroom/living room/kitchen/dining room/ bed rooms and two basement suites on the bottom (one smaller 1 bedroom/bath/kitchen and one larger 2 bedroom/bath/kitchen). Without this setup most people cannot afford the vancouver house they live in, renters pay off the mortgage and most people don't register their suites.

[Gumby]

Does anyone know if windows are required on all bedrooms in a suite? Even if the suite is 100% below ground level?

These city bylaw documents are so difficult to interpret...

[Selanne_200]

I'm not sure if suites are allowed to be 100% below ground but yes, windows are required in every bedroom as far as I know

[TheNewGirl]

They are as a fire safety thing. You can count a windowless room as a "den" but not a bedroom IIRC.

[melloman]

A bedroom by law needs to have:

A window (for emergency escape)
A closet (can be substituted for an armoire IIRC)

[Gumby]

They are as a fire safety thing. You can count a windowless room as a "den" but not a bedroom IIRC.
A "den" can have a bed, right? :troll:

(Not looking for a serious answer)

A bedroom by law needs to have:

A window (for emergency escape)
A closet (can be substituted for an armoire IIRC)
Thanks, but the requirement for a closet makes no logical sense... it's just a "nice to have" thing!

[melloman]

Thanks, but the requirement for a closet makes no logical sense... it's just a "nice to have" thing!

Yeah.. Don't ask me why, but when I was in school it was a "MUST" (took Architectural Design) so yeah.. I think it's a "live-ability" thing.

[Selanne_200]

That's weird tho, Cuz I currently have an authorized secondary suite in the basement of my house and there are no closets on the approved plan for either bedroom in the suite

[TheNewGirl]

The closet thing might differ from city to city. Every city has their own criteria.

[quasi]

Got a letter in the mail from the city that I have an illegal suite and unless I have a city inspector come by there going to start charging me more for my garbage and what not through property taxes. I don't have a suite but I think this is awesome, apparently everyone on my block got one and 9/10 people do have suites.

At least the city is doing something right for once.

[jACEDesignsLtd]

^ouch. That will be a shock to the neighbours renting out an unauthorized suite. But I wonder, how can that be enforced? The letter is presuming you are renting out. In your case, they were wrong. Does that mean they can still enter your house without a warrant just to verify?

[ruthless]

^ouch. That will be a shock to the neighbours renting out an unauthorized suite. But I wonder, how can that be enforced? The letter is presuming you are renting out. In your case, they were wrong. Does that mean they can still enter your house without a warrant just to verify?

I believe he will have to call in and make an appointment for an inspector to come check it out. I believe the inspector comes in and checks to see if there is a stove present and the appropriate plug for the stove(there shouldn't be a stove or a plug if there is no basement suite being rented out; but all municipalities are different with their regulations) also he/she may go through the rooms in the basement to see if anyone other than the owner is living there.

[quasi]

Ya pretty much. I have to make an appointment for them to view, if I don't I automatically get billed.

[Mr.HappySilp]

The thing is so many people rent these so call illegal suites coz is cheaper and the rental market is in high demand now.

Just image just 20 to 25% of these illegal suites stops renting coz of the by law and another 20 to 25% starts charging more becasue they now have to pay for more tax etc etc........ A lot of people will have a tough time finding a place to rent.

[Acura604]

I've got a suite rented out to a couple who don't even have a car.

But across the street there are two houses side by side with 2 brothers who chose to live next to each other. So, both have tenants - tenants have 3 cars. Home owner has total of 6 cars. So yah, you guessed it - 5 cars parked on the street. At times in front of my home which pisses me off.


Anyways back to the suite rental, it definitely helps as a mortgage helper but Im selling next year and moving to a home with no suite....too much hassle at times.

[murd0c]

Got a letter in the mail from the city that I have an illegal suite and unless I have a city inspector come by there going to start charging me more for my garbage and what not through property taxes. I don't have a suite but I think this is awesome, apparently everyone on my block got one and 9/10 people do have suites.

At least the city is doing something right for once.

I rent the lower half of my dad's place and he received that same letter then other week. Just a fricken hassle and extra money when you have the huge houses living in Surrey that have 6 suite's in them and they city does nothing.

It's just a cash grab so the goverment officals can get bigger bonuses I'm sure.

[quasi]

Since you rent from your dad does he still have to pay higher tax suite or not? You're family, it's the same as if you lived at home, no?

I really don't have a problem with people who are renting out paying more they do use more services. Like the post a few up, the renters to my left have 6 cars and 8 people living there. Those 8 people use a lot more garbage and sewage then myself, wife and son do.

[Teh Doucher]

I rent the lower half of my dad's place and he received that same letter then other week. Just a fricken hassle and extra money when you have the huge houses living in Surrey that have 6 suite's in them and they city does nothing.

It's just a cash grab so the goverment officals can get bigger bonuses I'm sure.

6 suites? exaggeration much?

[GLOW]

6 suites? exaggeration much?

maybe he meant 6 families living in it :troll:

[Gumby]

I believe he will have to call in and make an appointment for an inspector to come check it out. I believe the inspector comes in and checks to see if there is a stove present and the appropriate plug for the stove(there shouldn't be a stove or a plug if there is no basement suite being rented out; but all municipalities are different with their regulations) also he/she may go through the rooms in the basement to see if anyone other than the owner is living there.
I think the city can't stop you from having a "second kitchen" in your house. If someone other than family is using that space, then that's when the city can penalize you for renting out the space illegally.

[Selanne_200]

The city will most likely not allow you to have a second kitchen, regardless of who's using it or whether it is even being used. If the building by-law doesn't allow you to have a secondary kitchen, then you're not allowed to have one, regardless of who's the end user

[murd0c]

Since you rent from your dad does he still have to pay higher tax suite or not? You're family, it's the same as if you lived at home, no?

I really don't have a problem with people who are renting out paying more they do use more services. Like the post a few up, the renters to my left have 6 cars and 8 people living there. Those 8 people use a lot more garbage and sewage then myself, wife and son do.
Yep he now has to pay higher suite tax even if I'm family. I think its about $350 a year for garbage collection and BS. I told him he should fight it but he's happy now because it's considered an authorized suite which will add value to the house.

6 suites? exaggeration much?

nope 2 on the upper floor and some have 3 on the bottom. The house I used to live next to had 4 but I have seen some with 6 before.

[Gumby]

The city will most likely not allow you to have a second kitchen, regardless of who's using it or whether it is even being used. If the building by-law doesn't allow you to have a secondary kitchen, then you're not allowed to have one, regardless of who's the end user
I talked to a friend over the weekend, and you're right. No second kitchen period!

Friend's relative got a inspection notice, and they made arrangements (including a bit of financial compensation) with their illegal tenants to move out for a short period. During that time, the home owner actually removed all the appliances & cabinets in the suite's kitchen, then put everything back after the city inspection!

[Gridlock]

I talked to a friend over the weekend, and you're right. No second kitchen period!

Friend's relative got a inspection notice, and they made arrangements (including a bit of financial compensation) with their illegal tenants to move out for a short period. During that time, the home owner actually removed all the appliances & cabinets in the suite's kitchen, then put everything back after the city inspection!

Better hope that tenancy doesn't go sour.

[Acura604]

The thing about these suites... is if there is a HUGE crackdown and most are deemed illegal and closed, that would throw out ALOT of people who just cant afford apartment living and what not. Some or most of these 'suites' provide renters with a very affordable rent payment.