Illegal extra bedrooms?

[David S.]

Was looking at a property recently, and spoke with the seller's agent. He said some of the tenants of the duplex are sleeping in the basement, which has no egress windows. No egress at all, except the stairs to the main floor. 

I'd be concerned for their safety to start out with. It does raise a question though - what are the legal requirements of the landlord? If I purchased the property and knew, or had a reasonable suspicion, that tenants were living in the basement could I be liable?

[Account Closed]

I'll say the obvious but probably a lawyer is going to give you the definitive answer.

Off the top of my head though, one way to reduce any liability you may have is to ensure the lease specifies the (correct) number of bedrooms and the maximum occupancy. E.g. in some areas that means 2 people per bedroom max. Say its a 2-bedroom place and there are four occupants in the unit the renters would be within the terms of the lease. Then there's not much you can do if someone wants to camp out in the basement or sleeps on the sofa in the tv room. If your lease had this limitation in it, then you would simply police the number of people living in the house.

If you were to purchase this house with tenants in place and there existing lease does not have this sort of clause in it, then I'm not sure what you could do if there were 6 people living in a 2-bedroom place (using the above example).