Dilema (for sale, real estate, apartments)

[OhBeeHave]

My husband helped a friend by checking out a house he was looking to buy. As expected there were many problems (it was listed as 'needs TLC') but one thing that struck and has troubled my husband is that there was an obviously illegal apartment in the basement which was carved into many small rooms with no proper egress. The interior staircase access was sealed off, limiting the basement dwellers to one exterior door. Some rooms were windowless, others had small, very old basement windows. It was apparent that people (children) are living/sleeping there.

Hubby and friend were met at the house by the RE agent.

Is this something the RE agent should be showing -- a home with an obviously illegal death trap apartment?

My husband (and my) greatest concern is for the safety of the children living in this substandard dwelling. Their safety is at risk heaven forbid there was a fire or if the ancient furnace is leaving CO.

Who would I report this to? CPS? The building dept? The town's legal dept?

If anything happened, I would feel horrible for not doing anything.

[TomMoser]

What town is this in? Some towns have laws about real estate agents showing homes for sale that contain illegal apartments, others do not.

If your concern is simply the apartment and not the real estate agent, just report the home to the towns code compliance department.

[totallyfrazzled]

I think the Town's building dept/Code Enforcement would be the best bet. I don't know if they would take an anonymous tip though, or just on someone's say-so. Because it's not visible from the outside, the Town may require some kind of "just cause" before demanding access. It's not like when someone gets annoyed at their neighbor's kids shrieking all day in the inground pool that they know the neighbor never got a CO for, or doesn't like that someone let their hedges grow too tall on a corner plot, and calls in an anonymous complaint about something that's in plain sight. Not sure how interior things work, maybe the Town needs some kind of proof?

Even CPS is reluctant to get involved. A few years ago my sister's teenage daughter got a phone call from a friend who said she was going to commit suicide that night over a breakup with her boyfriend. The daughter was afraid that if she did nothing and the girl did kill herself, she'd be responsible, so she told my sister and brother-in-law. They discussed what to do and because this girl had a single mom who wasn't too in touch with reality herself, decided the mom would probably not believe it if they told her what was said. So my sister called CPS. CPS said they could do nothing without a witness to the girl's statement of suicide OR a suicide statement either in writing on in a text message or a phone message or an AOL message etc. They refused to intervene simply on "someone's say-so". They told my sister to call the police first, and IF the police got involved, then CPS would step in also. So my sister called the police who came to her house to take statements from her daughter and then went to the girl's house and spoke to the girl and her mother. Of course the girl denied saying any such thing. The mother was furious at my sister's family for making embarassing accusations and threatened to sue! She didn't go that far but she told all the other parents in my neice's school circle that my neice had made up vicious lies about her daughter, and over the next few months there were all sorts of random accidents and incidents at my sister's house (mud thrown all over her white siding, broken bottles in their driveway, etc). The 'retribution' for doing the right thing continued for months and my sister's family now regret they ever tried to do what they thought was the protective thing. So it's hard to know what to do in such circumstances. As far as the basement apartment goes, I would say call the Town's Code Enforcement and see if you can make an anonymous complaint. If they say it has to be in writing, saying that you have SEEN these conditions personally, then you must decide whether you want to become involved in that level and possibly have the homeowner find out who ratted them out...