Illegal Apartment in Islip, NY (Brookhaven: foreclosed, to rent, condo)

[Shatay143]

I must admit, reading this thread makes me second guess people today. Do any of you realize the state of the economy today? Do you know how high taxes and rent is in Long Island, NYC and several other cities? Now I can sympathize with a tenant that has lost his/her job and still makes attempts to pay the rent, in that specific case and without really knowing any further"truth" to that story it sounds like a crappy deal. BUT, what kind of people are in this thread that throw ideas of "calling the town" and reporting the illegal apartment to try and "stick it to the landlord"?
There are many homeowners that have fell under hard times and renting out a garage or basement is the only way to keep their homes. Answer this, which is better, to live on a street with a foreclosed home or live on a street with an illegal apartment? Is it possible that towns like Brookhaven make it so difficult and expensive to legalize an apartment that it sometimes leave homeowners between a rock and a hard place?
I do not condone breaking the law! I am a dedicated, hard working member of the Armed Forces. Several years ago, prior to joining the military (as the war began to serve my country and do my part) I bought a home in Brookhaven. I have been renting my garage which is a lovely apartment. I have wonderful hard working tenants that without a low cost apartment would not be able to live in Brookhaven. Well someone called the town and reported the apartment, probably my creepy neighbor. Now I either tear out the entire Kitchen ( stove, cabinets,spackle over plumbing and electric) or I face fines, court and all kinds of other troubles.
I unfortunately can not afford to pay the mortgage without rental income and Brookhaven will not legalize a detached garage without costly remodeling to connect the garage to the house, which they may still not agree to legalize.
My point is this... It is true I am in the wrong for renting an illegal apartment no matter how well built it is. But what kind of Americans have my husband and I fought for in the war that try to "stick it" to eachother. I am a good person and landlord and I have provided a very nice living space for good people. The law is not always right. We should never encourage anyone not to pay their rent, the homeowner has bills to pay as well.
MAybe instead of waisting time encouraging "hurting your neighbor"we should right our lawmakers to change the laws. Can we at least agree that creating an easier less costly path for homeowners to have apartments on a property they "own" could help relieve some of the homeowners economical crisis we are in?
Let's keep one thing in mind as well... When a tenant looses their job and can not pay their rent that they agreed to pay the LL should not have to carry the burden of another person they have to support. Good luck to you all and i hope that none of you run into tough times that call for tough decisions.
On this day because of this thread I am ashamed to be an American.

[cottercutie]

While I appreciate the sacrifices you've made to serve your country, the fact still remains that illegal is illegal.

It's hard to have sympathy for someone who knowingly is breaking the law. You bought more house than you could afford, if you hadn't you wouldn't have needed the extra, unreported income to make mortgage payments.

If the law isn't right in your eyes, then lobby to change it. That doesn't mean that you can just evade it because you are a "good person".

You rented out an illegal apartment. You say one thing but if it hasn't been inspected who is to say it's up to code? You drive up the cost of your neighbor's utilities, you are cheating the government out of revenue by not reporting income. You're cheating the schools in your town of the extra tax money, placing a bigger burden on your neighbors and also on town services such as trash. Why should YOU be exempt from the laws?

FWIW, I've seen what some landlords consider "lovely" and they are really dumps. And a law is a law, plain and simple,agree with it or not it still needs to be obeyed. Break the law, deal with the consequences.

I may not agree with some laws out there, but they are there for a reason and breaking them doesn't change the fact they exist.

If you wanted to be a landlord to help make ends meet, maybe you should have purchased a home which could become a legal 2 family? Don't worry though, you can just use MY tax money to refinance the mortgage you probably shouldn't have gotten from the get go. Either legalize your apartment or find a way to manage your mortgage without breaking the law.

[sickofnyc99]

Couldn't have said it better cotter. Also the law helps to keep people safe. Just look at those NYFD guys who jumped out of the windows because the LL decided to pack as many people as possible into and illegal apt.

[TristansMommy]

Originally Posted by Shatay143

I must admit, reading this thread makes me second guess people today. Do any of you realize the state of the economy today? Do you know how high taxes and rent is in Long Island, NYC and several other cities? Now I can sympathize with a tenant that has lost his/her job and still makes attempts to pay the rent, in that specific case and without really knowing any further"truth" to that story it sounds like a crappy deal. BUT, what kind of people are in this thread that throw ideas of "calling the town" and reporting the illegal apartment to try and "stick it to the landlord"?
There are many homeowners that have fell under hard times and renting out a garage or basement is the only way to keep their homes. Answer this, which is better, to live on a street with a foreclosed home or live on a street with an illegal apartment? Is it possible that towns like Brookhaven make it so difficult and expensive to legalize an apartment that it sometimes leave homeowners between a rock and a hard place?
I do not condone breaking the law! I am a dedicated, hard working member of the Armed Forces. Several years ago, prior to joining the military (as the war began to serve my country and do my part) I bought a home in Brookhaven. I have been renting my garage which is a lovely apartment. I have wonderful hard working tenants that without a low cost apartment would not be able to live in Brookhaven. Well someone called the town and reported the apartment, probably my creepy neighbor. Now I either tear out the entire Kitchen ( stove, cabinets,spackle over plumbing and electric) or I face fines, court and all kinds of other troubles.
I unfortunately can not afford to pay the mortgage without rental income and Brookhaven will not legalize a detached garage without costly remodeling to connect the garage to the house, which they may still not agree to legalize.
My point is this... It is true I am in the wrong for renting an illegal apartment no matter how well built it is. But what kind of Americans have my husband and I fought for in the war that try to "stick it" to eachother. I am a good person and landlord and I have provided a very nice living space for good people. The law is not always right. We should never encourage anyone not to pay their rent, the homeowner has bills to pay as well.
MAybe instead of waisting time encouraging "hurting your neighbor"we should right our lawmakers to change the laws. Can we at least agree that creating an easier less costly path for homeowners to have apartments on a property they "own" could help relieve some of the homeowners economical crisis we are in?
Let's keep one thing in mind as well... When a tenant looses their job and can not pay their rent that they agreed to pay the LL should not have to carry the burden of another person they have to support. Good luck to you all and i hope that none of you run into tough times that call for tough decisions.
On this day because of this thread I am ashamed to be an American.

Nice post.. I hear ya.. and it's obvious from the posts following yours your waisting your breath..

People on these boards are heartless and hypocritical to boot...LOL. it cracks me up..

They chastise you for saying you "bought more hosue than you could afford"..LOL. meanwhile I bet any one of them are a paycheck away from being able to make their mortgages as well.....

LI has a terrible housing situation. Atlest you provided a place where a young couple or a single person could live. apartment complex rentals are ridiculous!! and there aren't enough or many of them.

Guess what people.. many "illegal" rentals are peoples kids living in makeshift apartments in their parents home.. yeah.. no rent is exchanged.. but still it's illegal Why you ask.. because LI has NO affordable housing for any young out of college person..

And my first apartment was an illegal upstairs 1 bedroom / 1 bath with kitchenette LR combo for $600/month.. rented by a nice couple who happend to have been in the middle of a divorce when I moved in. They needed a tennant.. Why. .. because the hubby was a NYPD officer who now had to go find an illegal apartment himself to rent AND had to pay support to his wife who worked, but part time so she could be home when the kids got home from school.. and keeping the house was important to keeping normalcy. BTW.. they owned the house for awhile AND this was BEFORe the housing boom.

and my brothers, friends and others have always rented illegal apartments with no problems.. because there was nothing else available.


I moved off LI btw.. cause of the outrageous cost of living.. been living in PA since October.. and I rent an old farm house on 168 acres for only a little more than my first illegal rental apartment cost me!! How awesome is that!

[sickofnyc99]

Well seeing as how my taxes are redunkulous, it pains me to see ANYONE cheat the area out of revenue that will inevitably be taken away from me. It also pains me to see that people who overspend and now can't swing it are able to get nice new lower locked in rates after not paying the mortgage(and probably keeping the money anyway) while for me to drop a point on my rate I have to drop 15k in costs. People who do things the right way are getting screwed AGAIN while people who BREAK THE LAW to get ahead (illegal apt's included)have the huevos to complain when we get upset. It's enough to give me a heart attack....if I had a heart that is.

[TristansMommy]

Originally Posted by sickofnyc99

Well seeing as how my taxes are redunkulous, it pains me to see ANYONE cheat the area out of revenue that will inevitably be taken away from me. It also pains me to see that people who overspend and now can't swing it are able to get nice new lower locked in rates after not paying the mortgage(and probably keeping the money anyway) while for me to drop a point on my rate I have to drop 15k in costs. People who do things the right way are getting screwed AGAIN while people who BREAK THE LAW to get ahead (illegal apt's included)have the huevos to complain when we get upset. It's enough to give me a heart attack....if I had a heart that is.

Your taxes are ridiculous and has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the fact that there are people living in illegal apartments.. Actually THAT is a consequence of LI's ridiculous taxes!!

Think about it. Every house in the neighborhood is already owned, right. So that means that someone is paying taxes for it already. All those apartment complexes are probably filled to capacity some with waiting lists!!! SO.. unless someone comes in and a builds more houses, or another apartment complex there is no more revenue to be had.

And , btw.. most people who rent those illegal apartments are young and single and do not have children attending schools..MOST .. not all!

As for the other issue.. with peoples mortgages.. that is a NATIONAL thing and again.. has nothing whatsoever to do with peopel renting.

But.. how much you want to bet that if you took allt hose illegal renters away you'd have more people facing foreclosure and thereby requesting that write down.

I never minded someone renting out as long as the person was clean, quiete and respectful.

[cottercutie]

These homes being chopped up are not always up to code. Basements and garages are not usually able to be legal for a reason, mostly because they can't conform to building and fire codes. LL's frequently chop up their homes with little to no regard to the strain they are putting on their electrical systems, the cesspool or town sewers, parking, trash services etc.

A true, legal multi family dwelling pays higher taxes. They report the income they receive and pay taxes on it as income. They follow building and fire codes, along with town ordinances. In other words, they obey the laws of the town, state, county etc where they opted to purchase a home.

I rent. I do this because I know I can not afford a home on LI on a monthly basis. I also know I don't want to be a LL of an illegal dwelling because even if I disagree with how the towns on LI make it difficult and I don't agree with the rental permits in most cases, it IS the law of the land here and needs to be abided by.

This being said, I don't agree that a home built to code as a mother-daughter or later converted and was at one time legal should be deemed to be illegal if it's not rented out to a family member. That's ridiculous to me, if it's safe enough to be deemed legal for Mom it should be legal for Joe Public too. BUT, I do know now that this is the law and how it works here and unless it changes I will continue to rent my LEGAL apartment in a complex, which had NO waiting list and is actually less money per month for a lot of private apartments. Illegal is illegal and arguing the semantics here is not going to do diddly to get the laws changed. It's still cheating the town of tax revenue and it is still cheating the IRS by not reporting it.

Fact is, saying you "can't afford" the mortgage without the rental income means you bought more house than you can handle. And, FWIW, if I lose my job and can't pay my rent I will be out on my rear end as an eviction faster than your bank will foreclose and evict a homeowner. A bank will work with a homeowner to get the arrears caught up if it's not too bad, like a month or two, some LL's won't.

And it's sad that people need to chop up their homes to make ends meet, really it is. I do feel for them but then again I don't. You should see some of the "apartments" we saw when we looked. I don't know how anyone can justify asking a person to PAY to live in these places. Haphazardly thrown together, with obvious violations of building codes. Basements which stunk of mildew and mold and had but one window.

And the illegal apartment problem in some communities brings with it slumlords who chop their single family into 3-4 illegal dwellings for PROFIT. Then there are 10 people living in each "apartment" in a home designed to handle a single family.

Building codes exist for a reason aside from aesthetics of the neighborhood, as do fire codes.

Justify all you want to but the fact still remains ILLEGAL is still NOT LEGAL no matter how you spin it

[arangoa79]

I own one of those mother daughters, my wife and I bought the house in 2004. We paid the mortgage on our own for three months with plenty of disposable income left over. I then decided to rent the apartment upstairs since we don't use it. Illegal? yes, but I decided to help out someone in need. I rented it out to a single mother with two kids and only charged her $500 inc. utilities. This is a place I could easily get 1500 for. Her previous home was smaller, dirty and rent was 1,200 not inc. utilities. She moved out last year due to finishing her nurses certification which she was able to get because the money she saved in rent she used for a babysitter to allow her to go to school. We since moved but decided to keep the house and expand our aid. Now there are two families living there for $500 each, all we ask in return for the low rent is to show us that they are enrolled in any program that will better their future. The house is illegally rented but it is serving a higher purpose.

[sickofnyc99]

Oh great instead of doing things illegally, robbing the town of tax money that I'm going to have to pick up the slack for, over taxing our school districts can you just volunteer somewhere?? I'm sure you'll do much more good there. Everyone is so shortsighted "oh I'm helping one person and I'm making a difference" but your hurting thousands of other people who do things the right way. Nobody see's that or even worse they don't care, so hypocritical. I care, I care but screw everyone else. Talk about a disgrace.

[arangoa79]

I do volunteer elswher, I do the books for a not for profit organization free of charge. Feel how you may but I am doing much more by providing extremely low cost housing to people that have been forgotten. If thousands of those other people were to lend out a hand then maybe I wouldn't have to do things illegally. Beleive if I could turn my house into a legal two family dwelling I would, but the town said no, they are the ones that chose to reject my offer for higher revenues on their part. I debated with them for almost 6 months in the end, I did what had to be done, and I will continue to do it