5 Common Questions with NYC House Hacking

[Damon Bodine]

Hi Everyone,

House Hacking is really taking off this year in NYC.   I've been speaking and working with prospective home buyers every single day who want to take advantage of this amazing strategy.    I try to post a good amount on BP about different things to consider with your house hack.    Today I wanted to focus on 5 common questions i've been asked over the years.   Obviously this is not meant to be legal  advice and of course one should always do additional research. Just trying to provide good information that you might find useful.   

#1. If you are to take on roommates as an owner  they must maintain a 'common household'. 
This essentially means roommates must have access to the common spaces of the apartment.   This also means that you cannot install external locks on doors to separate living areas.  Heres is a good article to reference for more information.  

#2 Landlords cannot collect more than one month security deposits when renting.  
One piece of misleading advice I've seen many times is the idea that landlords can collect multiple months of a security deposit when renting to tenant.   That is not legal in NYS under almost every circumstance.    Here is an article on this .  
https://www.nysenate.gov/legis...
https://rentguidelinesboard.ci...

#3 Renting out rooms in a basement.   
This is generally not permitted.   There is a way to legalize some basements in NYC but before making making assumptions  I would read the sub section. 'basement and cellar occupancy law' here. https://nyc.gov/site/hpd/servi...

#4 Adding more kitchens 
I see this a lot in buildings around the city.  Situations in which the owners have installed extra kitchens, put up pressurized walls etc to add more rentable space in house.  Most of the time this was not done legally.     Here are some articles that are hopefully valuable on illegal conversion and non conforming bedrooms.  

https://www.brickunderground.c...
https://www.nyc.gov/site/build...

#5.  What is a legal Bedroom 
This is a very common thing in NYC.  The general definition is that a legal bedroom is a  minimum of 80 square feet total and no less than 8 feet in any dimension.  There are some carve outs for units with more than 3 bedrooms.  Fontana has a great article on this.  
https://fontanarchitecture.com...

Hope you find these helpful.  Will do more soon.