May not be legal, but doesn't seem like it impacts your situation here. 

I agree that the cost can be outrageous, and it may be worth it if they truly live up to their end of the deal with oversight, reviewing your deals, avoiding legal traps, yeah there’s a lot we don’t know starting out.

Nah needs to be 30+ apartments syndicated from a blind pool of investors with no money of your own before you turn 18 years old on a sub-to commercial deal skirting the lines of legality placed in an LLC INSIDE of a reverse S-Corp with dividend disbursements on a quarterly schedule of 10+%. 

The good thing about househacking a legal multifamily unit is that lender allows you to use the vacated units of 75% market rent as an income to offset the potential current mortgage.

Especially from a legal liability perspective.

I'm also asking for contractor, CPA, insurance, and legal references from the property managers and will speak with / cross-reference them before going forward with one. 

It's a factual and legal question.

Hey @Liz Zack I will start off by saying that I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice.I do not know all of the details here, but it sounds like you are going direct to seller on this deal.

My question is, can I legally rent this space?

The only real way to create a "warning" is to pursue them legally to get an arrest or to get a money judgment - both of which will show on a background check.Although, all the tenant rights advocates are pushing to STOP landlords from being able to consider criminal history in tenant screening:(