How to verify ADU in Saint Petersburg is legal

[Claire D.]

Hi BP community. I'm currently seeking a property to house hack in St Pete and one thing that is unclear to me is how to verify if a property that has an existing mother in law / ADU is legal and up to code. I ran into one situation where the seller told us up front the work was not permitted to convert their mother in law unit so now I am wary of this.

How do you go about verifying if an ADU/ mother in law/ garage apartment etc is legal and up to code before offering? Tried reading through the codes site but it was pretty dense so hoping someone can break it down for me in a more digestible way. Thanks for the advice!