Sue landlord over Illegal apartment? (Deer Park, Bay Shore: lease, broker, house)

[dman72]

90% of apartments in houses on LI are illegal. I lived in four of them in my 20's . I never had a bad landlord, though. The arrangement saved both of us money. I paid $575 a month for a one bedroom when studios were going for over $700 in complexes. They also had help with their mortgage. I don't think they were really an issue until you started having 15 illegal immigrants in a house divided into 2 apartments.

[arangoa79]

In my personal opinion there is nothing wrong with illegal apartments as long as the place is safe for occupancy and the tenant is treated with respect. In the past I have lived in illegal apartments and have also rented out illegal apartment. It's a win win situation for both parties, that is as long as the landlord is respectful and mindful.

[AlexisT]

No, it's a loss. It's a loss for the town, that doesn't collect extra taxes; it's a loss for the school district, which has children to educate that it doesn't get money for; it's a loss for neighbors who have to live next door to slumlords; it's a loss for tenants who have no legal protection.

I'm not opposed to all house subdivisions, and I am pro-rental-availability. But that does not excuse breaking the law.

[omigawd]

Originally Posted by AlexisT

No, it's a loss. It's a loss for the town, that doesn't collect extra taxes; it's a loss for the school district, which has children to educate that it doesn't get money for; it's a loss for neighbors who have to live next door to slumlords; it's a loss for tenants who have no legal protection.

I'm not opposed to all house subdivisions, and I am pro-rental-availability. But that does not excuse breaking the law.

Exactly.

These slumlords who take a one family home and chop it up into a 2 or 3 family are putting an undue burden on the town services and doing a terrible disservice to the children in the district.

In addition, you can't guarantee an apartment is safe or up to code unless it's been inspected. Most slumlords have "handymen" or "my cousin" or "a guy" do all the work and, I would say 99% of the time, it's shoddy work, put together shabbily, and done in the cheapest way possible (even if that means doing things that could be dangerous).

There are reasons why the housing laws and town codes exist and it's not just for the towns to collect money. It's to keep people SAFE and to make sure everyone is paying for the services they get and are getting the proper amount of services they're entitled to.

And, in illegal apartments, the tenants have no recourse whatsoever. No rights. No protections.

Remember that family in West Babylon? 3 people died, including a little girl 6 years old? Why? Because the house was being illegally rented and the greedy slumlord refused to make proper repairs. (and I hope he goes to prison for life --- it's a shame there's no death penalty in NYS!) Had this place been legal, the family could have filed the propler complaints and not had to worry about being on the street because the place was illegal.

[arangoa79]

I hear what you both are saying and I agree with for the most part. I just feel that sometimes the town I have my rental property in has some redicoulous zoneing laws. In my case we bought a colonial mother daughter, with no renovations to the structure since it was built. The house has two separate floors with separate entrances, when you open the front door you have a door for the first floor and then a hallway that leads to stairs for the second floor. The house also has a side entrance which accesses the first floor. The layout of the house is really strange because in no way does it lend itself well to a one family home design, it looks as though it was built as a two family from the get go. When we didn't need the upstairs and decided to rent it out instead of having it sit empty, we didn't need the cash so we just used the rent money to get me a sports car I could of gotten a legal permit to rent out the top floor but it must be for a blood relative. The area is not zoned for two family homes or else I would have requested to file the home as a two family. Though across the street the zoning changes I don't understand why they let you rent it out to a blood relative but not a stranger

So we rented it out for two years to a lady with two kids who use to live in the same town but lost her job and didn't want to uproot her kids. When we moved to WI we were not able to sell the house in time so we tried to rent the whole house to one family but there were no bites. So we opted for two tenants, which is where it sits today. I spend more time and money on that house then I do my own. [/SIZE]

[dman72]

Originally Posted by AlexisT

No, it's a loss. It's a loss for the town, that doesn't collect extra taxes; it's a loss for the school district, which has children to educate that it doesn't get money for; it's a loss for neighbors who have to live next door to slumlords; it's a loss for tenants who have no legal protection.

I'm not opposed to all house subdivisions, and I am pro-rental-availability. But that does not excuse breaking the law.

All of the apartments I lived in had ground floor level entrances. They were houses with smaller families or older folks with no kids. 1 was with 2 retired people with no kids...so 3 people under one roof. Another was with my wife, with a family with 2 kids upstairs, so that was 6 people in a huge house on the North Shore...my family growing up we had upwards of 7 people in our house at any given time (grandparents, my brother, his wife and baby for a year, etc). Another was with a single mom and her daugher upstairs, me on the ground floor in Port Jefferson. Where exactly was the strain on infrastructure and schools there?

People are having smaller families, sending fewer kids to school. I honestly think in the end it all evens out, unless of course you are cramming a mother with 3 kids in a basement apartment somewhere or chopping up a house into multiple apartments with no landlord on the premises. The zoning should be more reasonable. Aren't there laws already about having more than 4 unrelated people in a one family house? In my illegal rentals, that rule was never being violated, and there are houses near my in laws that have upwards of 10 related people with 6 kids total...that puts a hell of a lot more strain on the taxpayer than anything I or my landlords were doing.

[omigawd]

It has a lot more to do with just the number of people living in the house. One of the biggest things it has to do with are the fire codes --- having more than one stove, entrances/exits, etc. Also, sanitation, education, street parking, etc.

Just because you lived in a house where there were only three people, that is not the norm. The place I was living in had 13 people in one house..... 5 upstairs, 3 of us, 3 next door, and 2 in the basement.

[dman72]

Originally Posted by omigawd

It has a lot more to do with just the number of people living in the house. One of the biggest things it has to do with are the fire codes --- having more than one stove, entrances/exits, etc. Also, sanitation, education, street parking, etc.

Just because you lived in a house where there were only three people, that is not the norm. The place I was living in had 13 people in one house..... 5 upstairs, 3 of us, 3 next door, and 2 in the basement.

I don't think that your situation is the norm with illegal apartments on LI. Just look at the classifieds...most advertisements are for 1 bedrooms and studios. We're probably talking 5-10% of the illegal rentals being make-shift apartment houses like what you describe. I'm not saying they aren't out there, but I think that they are far from the norm.

[Elke Mariotti]

Originally Posted by dman72

I don't think that your situation is the norm with illegal apartments on LI. Just look at the classifieds...most advertisements are for 1 bedrooms and studios. We're probably talking 5-10% of the illegal rentals being make-shift apartment houses like what you describe. I'm not saying they aren't out there, but I think that they are far from the norm.

As always in real estate: location, location, location

some areas will have (almost) none, others will have many illegal apartments in a 1-family house... i.e. it's rare in Cold Spring Harbor, not uncommon in Huntington Station

[arangoa79]

I think it also has to do with the type of house. I know that my neighbor has a mother daughter as I do. His mother mother actually lived in it until sadly she passed away. After that the upstairs was just empty, so he like others with mother daughters that don't need the added space, decided to rent it out. At least it's not like queens were you have people renting out rooms.