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What the writer of the piece you link has not done is define "legal." Whose terms is he discussing? Does any government agency actually define these things in terms of verbiage or is he generalizing? He mentions a residential building code but how does that apply to a preexisting house? Is it a requirement of the local MLS or other industry group?
In my book if it's not "legal" it must be "illegal," meaning it is subject to criminal penalties. I would like to see that defined and what the penalties might be. Who is to enforce that which is not legal. What about all those houses in the area that were built prior to built-in closets being commonplace - are they illegal now or must they simply be sold as zero bedroom structures?
It is all about trust. If there are guidelines, rules, or laws (GRLs) we can have trust that a particular statement is true within a range of values. Since this is important to people, the GRLs should be adequate that we can trust that x-bedrooms means something. When representatives of an industry skirt those GRLs for personal profit it weakens trust. It starts with tweaking a fact (oceanview--if you live next door), or an exaggeration (oceanview--if you are standing on a ladder on your roof top), and eventually becomes a lie (oceanview--if California falls into the ocean). There is a movement in some circles to infer that making money at all (social) costs is expected and imperative. Hopefully each industry can put a stop to this before it gets too out of control.
If the agent does not correct his mistake, the broker should be informed. If the broker condones this, the listing MLS should be informed. That is the chain of representation and responsibility.
YOU used the word "recourse". YOU have stated MULTIPLE times here that you own many properties and seem to spend a large amount of your free time looking at real estate. You are not a RE novice. You also stated you were looking at the house next door. It's hard to justify stating that you wasted your time....unless you are on a 24 clock where you can make money every minute of the day (and hey, maybe you can, good for you), the 10 minutes it took to ascertain that this was a waste of your time is, frankly, petty.
Plus, you'd expect someone who has that much expertise in buying investment properties in the DC metro area would know that east coast cities have lots of old properties with tiny and oddly-shaped or subdivided rooms. Consider it part of the charm of living in an older city, especially DC, which may have more than it's share because so many political and government workers keep coming and going, and some will pay big bucks just to have a little subdivided place to sleep.
A tiny room like this might be worth an eyeball roll or two, but not really worth complaining about. I'm not sure I'd call it "recourse", but if things like this have become an aggravation, you might try checking out listing photos before you go see a place. If they don't have listing photos, expect that there is going to be something odd.
Last edited by Piney Creek; 07-13-2017 at 07:59 AM..
What the writer of the piece you link has not done is define "legal." Whose terms is he discussing? Does any government agency actually define these things in terms of verbiage or is he generalizing? He mentions a residential building code but how does that apply to a preexisting house? Is it a requirement of the local MLS or other industry group?
In my book if it's not "legal" it must be "illegal," meaning it is subject to criminal penalties. I would like to see that defined and what the penalties might be. Who is to enforce that which is not legal. What about all those houses in the area that were built prior to built-in closets being commonplace - are they illegal now or must they simply be sold as zero bedroom structures?
Your book needs some work. Laws do not only apply to criminal activity, they apply to a multitude of civil situations as well. Just because someone doesn't end up in jail doesn't mean that laws are not involved.
And yes, regulations (which are a form of law) can certainly say that a bedroom needs to have direct egress and it can't go through another bedroom
It is all about trust. If there are guidelines, rules, or laws (GRLs) we can have trust that a particular statement is true within a range of values. Since this is important to people, the GRLs should be adequate that we can trust that x-bedrooms means something. When representatives of an industry skirt those GRLs for personal profit it weakens trust. It starts with tweaking a fact (oceanview--if you live next door), or an exaggeration (oceanview--if you are standing on a ladder on your roof top), and eventually becomes a lie (oceanview--if California falls into the ocean). There is a movement in some circles to infer that making money at all (social) costs is expected and imperative. Hopefully each industry can put a stop to this before it gets too out of control.
If the agent does not correct his mistake, the broker should be informed. If the broker condones this, the listing MLS should be informed. That is the chain of representation and responsibility.
Absolutely. I get really annoyed when people try to mislead me for the sake of a dollar.
As an update, my agent complained to the listing agent's broker today. She had shown the property to another client and warned them about the bedroom being a closet. When touring, she noticed a few more issues that were blatantly misrepresented so she is making a complaint. We will see if it goes anywhere.
Your book needs some work. Laws do not only apply to criminal activity, they apply to a multitude of civil situations as well. Just because someone doesn't end up in jail doesn't mean that laws are not involved.
And yes, regulations (which are a form of law) can certainly say that a bedroom needs to have direct egress and it can't go through another bedroom
But what "regulations" are you and he pointing to?
I used to rent a 2 bedroom home. The home had a living room in the front of the house. Walk thru the front door and you would get to a small hallway. The door to the left was the dining room, strait ahead was the bathroom, and to the right were two bedrooms. If you entered the dining room there was another door on another wall that would enter the kitchen. The dining room and kitchen were two separate rooms. You could also enter the kitchen from the living room. Entering the kitchen you could walk to the back wall and another door entered a laundry room with a half bath at the end of the laundry room. The home also had a two car garage with an entrance from the laundry room. Hope that is not too confusing.
We used the dining room as a dining room. On that same street the homes were all about the same, built in the late 40's early 50's almost similar. Back then we only had one son. What I wondered was many families had a lot of people and I wondered to myself where everyone slept. Turns out that most people used the dining room as a third bedroom. I did always think it was strange having the entry to the dining room in the same hallway as the bedrooms. Not that it was much of a hallway.
So here is the comparison. People would advertise these 2 bedroom 1 bath homes as 3 bedroom 2 bath homes, or 3 bedroom 1 and a half bath homes. Even though it did have a half bath it was not much of a bath and in basically the garage area. For example the main house had all the rooms, and the garage part had this extra separate room with the laundry and half bath.
My point is that the 3rd bedroom did not have a closet and had two entrances, one of which was into the kitchen.
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Plus, you'd expect someone who has that much expertise in buying investment properties in the DC metro area would know that east coast cities have lots of old properties with tiny and oddly-shaped or subdivided rooms. Consider it part of the charm of living in an older city, especially DC, which may have more than it's share because so many political and government workers keep coming and going, and some will pay big bucks just to have a little subdivided place to sleep. 
