Three Units but Legally Single Family

[Eric Telese]

Good morning BP.

There is a property for sale in Suffolk county, NY. One of my co-workers purchased it about a year ago, got divorced and now the ex is selling it. It is a single family house but has two units in the main building and a cottage in the garage building with separate meters.

The rents here are $4k for a $250k purchase so the numbers are beautiful. I do not like the idea of not doing things by the books and it doesn’t seem like this one would ever be able to be made legally multi-family.

Should I take my chances and go ahead with it anyway? What kind of repercussions occur if the town were to find out about something like this?