Question on Legality of Triplex

[Joshua Boyd]

Hi all,

I've been following the BiggerPockets forum and podcast for a couple years now, learning all I can and waiting until we had the money saved to buy our first home with an eye toward RE investing. My wife and I found an off-market triplex here in Atlanta that we plan to owner-occupy. The property is a triplex, originally built in 1920, with the main 3/2 on the ground floor, a finished 1/1 attic addition, and a studio apartment above a detached garage. The seller and I have agreed on a price and I am waiting on our agent to finish the offer contract today so we can get it officially under contract. That's the good news.

My question is: in looking at Fulton County tax records website, it lists the property as a duplex, and the city zoning is R-4 (Single-family residential). Does this mean that it is a likely a legal non-conforming duplex, but the third apartment is probably illegal? Both the attic addition and garage studio appear to be at least 25-30 years old, but I have no idea where to start looking to see if they would be grandfathered in. Any way for me to find out if this is a legal triplex on my own easily enough, without throwing the seller under the bus with the city? If not, would you wait until you had it under contract to bring up with the seller? I don't want to start paying for inspections and appraisals, or even just getting earnest money tied up, if I don't have to, and since we're using conventional financing, I don't want this to become an issue with the bank weeks down the road. If there's a strong case for waiting to ask the seller until under contract, I'd love to hear it, or better yet, some resource for me to find out myself that I haven't found yet.

Thanks for any advice,

Joshua