All Forum Posts by: Cassandra Devine

Hi Zalman,

Thanks for your reply, some quick responses:

1. The top unit and rest of the townhouse is completely unliveable without renovation, the only liveable spaces are the two studio apartments that the tenants live in. So I am hoping the council would allow us to move into one of those studios. But since each studio is just one room and we have kids do you know if they would allow us to evict both tenants to allow enough space for the whole family?

2. I have no idea, this is a question for an attorney to look into I think.

3. That's useful to know, thanks. 

4. It's definitely priced to sell, but I agree, this would be more stress and more time.

Please do let me know if you have any referrals for lenders and attorneys, thank you!

I am looking at buying a townhouse in NYC that is currently designated as an SRO with two rent stabilised tenants living on one of the floors and the other floor unit is vacant. The townhouse we are looking at has a Certificate of No Harassment in place, open violations and a vacate order. The tenants are currently in court with a title dispute so the house would have to be paid for cash only.

I would like to convert it to a primary residence and turn the garden level into a separate two bedroom apartment for use as an in law suite. I found this fact sheet which seems to indicate it would be possible to evict the rent stabilised tenants so long as they haven't been living there for more than 15 years or are older than 62 or disabled: https://hcr.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/10/fact-sheet... 

From the fact sheet it's not clear to me if I would be able to evict both tenants or just one of them because it says you can take possession of only one dwelling unit and I am not sure if each of the studio rooms counts as a separate dwelling unit?

Does anyone have any practical experience with similar situations and if so what was the outcome and how long did it take to resolve everything? How long does the legal process take, and can we move in and live in the unoccupied floors while the situation is being resolved? The house currently can't get financing but do you know if the tenant situation was resolved if I would then be able to finance the property so I could do the renovations? If there is no other way to evict the tenants and instead I offered to renovate the garden level into a two bedroom apartment would they have to accept that offer? 

Thanks for your advice.

I am under offer on a house built on a slope that already has an unpermitted 800 sqf walk out basement apartment and I am trying to decide if it's worth the money and time of getting the basement apartment remodeled and properly permitted as an ADU. I am concerned the cost of remodeling may be expensive because the existing ceiling height is only 6.5 feet so we would need to lower the floor by at least a foot. Plumbing is already roughed in but there will be a lot of structural work needed to lower the floor and redo the kitchen and bathroom. Can anyone who has done a basement apartment conversion including lowering the floor tell me how much that cost you to do?

The house is in a desirable vacation area and I am planning to rent the main house out on Airbnb. If we remodel the basement we would rent it out as a separate Airbnb. I am trying to work out if we would get complaints from the people renting out the main house if there are also separate guests in the basement. The two rentals would have their own outdoor spaces and separate entrances, but one is directly above the other, so I have concerns about privacy.

I think it would only be worth it if the basement apartment can be added to the square footage of the house because then it would add equity which we could use to do a HELOC to recoup the cost of the remodeling work. Does anyone know how a walkout basement apartment would be appraised by a lender? If the county permits the work as an ADU and adds this to the overall square footage of the house for tax purposes, would the appraiser count it the same as the main floor square footage?