House hacking in San Diego, turn a sfh into a “duplex”

[Steven Nguyen]

Hi Bp.   I just finish a rooms additions to my single family house in San Diego. The house was originally a 2bed/2bath, 1008 sf.   After the addition, it has 4 beds/4 baths.    The new addition and the original house is separated by a door.   This way it can be considered as 2 different units if I keep the door locked..  (My house is on R-1 zones.)

My questions are:

If I decide to rent  the front part of the house to someone , and rent out the newly  built partnof the house to a couple different persons as room rental, is it legal for me to do that? (The room addition is permitted).  If not, what kind of troubles it could happen to me? 

Second,   I plan to use a hot plate for the roommate to cook, since there is no kitchen in the new part of the house, but I have a sink in the commo area.  Would I run into into home  insurance  issue?  The reason I decided to rent out as separate units because of significant more cash flow vs.  renting it out as a 4b/4b house.  

Please give me your thoughts and advice.   Thanks.  

[Justin R.]

The City's code compliance team is going to care primarily about Life and Safety issues and secondarily about complaints by tenants or neighbors.  It's your house, and you're free to rent rooms out however you'd like.  The space is permitted, so there shouldn't be life and safety issues (primarily, people need to get out of the rooms if there's a fire).

There's nothing that says you're required to provide kitchen access to someone you rent a room to, so I see no issue with providing a hot plate.  The City definitely cares if you build a second kitchen - end of the day, that's what really triggers an non-permitted dwelling unit risk.

I wouldn't be concerned about risk here.  If the City sees you doing something you shouldn't, they'll give you a notice to fix it.  If you fix it, you have no problems.  I've worked on several code compliance properties - everyone I've met in the code compliance team has been fair to work with ... they just want the issue addressed.

In short, go for it.