Former Owners Accountability
I purchased a 2 family home. The posting and the former owners listed it as a 9 bedroom. Fast forward 2 years and we had issues with the DOB saying that three of our bedrooms are illegal and now we can’t use the bedrooms we originally thought we had. The bank even appraised our home as a 9 bedroom. My question– can I sue the former owners for the price difference in what is supposed to be rather than what we paid based on false information?

brooklyn718
in General Discussion 6 years and 10 months ago
26
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cate | 6 years and 9 months ago
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Now that is brilliant. You might have something there.

randolph | 6 years and 9 months ago
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What if you took out the garden level floor and had a really tall cellar level? I mean it’s a dumb idea but would it be legal?

cate | 6 years and 9 months ago
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Here’s Brownstoner’s guide to what makes a bedroom legal, in case it is helpful. As to the stipulation that a basement must be at least 50 percent above grade to be legal living space, grade is measured from the curb on the street — so digging down makes no difference. https://www.brownstoner.com/guides/apartment-home-types/legal-bedroom/

astoriahomeowner
in General Discussion 6 years and 9 months ago
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Lawsuits are costly, and frankly you won’t win, or make out in the long run.
“Bedrooms” are rooms that include large enough windows. The bedrooms should have been visually obvious when you walked through. If an appraiser came, they should have caught that, and found that there were in fact less bedrooms than stated. A General Contractor should have also caught that. An Architect should have caught that for sure since they file with the City all the time.
That said, you can use any room in your house as a bedroom. The issue is that those rooms don’t count when Listing the property. You will also want to update your property information with the bank and insurance company.

cate | 6 years and 10 months ago
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OP, there is a type of title insurance, which, if you have it, may make it possible to sue the seller — if you want to get into the torture and expense of a lawsuit, which may be more trouble than it’s worth. A quick consultation with an experienced real estate attorney (not the one you used in the deal) should answer your question about whether it’s possible to sue the former owners.

cate | 6 years and 10 months ago
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Randolph, grade is measured from the curb in front, so it doesn’t matter what you do inside or in the rear to change the ceiling height or add windows, you can’t turn a cellar into legal living space.

MDR | 6 years and 10 months ago
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OP – you didn’t tell us why some of the bedrooms are not legal per DOB. But unless you are renting them out, you can use the rooms any way you want.
Unless you have some kind of special agreement, when you buy real estate you get it as is – you are never going to get money back from the seller after the fact.

vthatcher | 6 years and 10 months ago
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When a bank send an appraiser to do an appraisal to a home there is a golden Rule to appraise a home with its highest and best use. If those bedrooms had closets, an appraiser most likely called them bedrooms. The appraiser is in business to value the home and compare it to other neighboring homes. Square footage room count and number of units are all factors. But the fact of the matter is if appraisal sees ran around Brooklyn flagging all the things that don’t meet code, many people would not get mortgages and many disputes would be made with appraisers putting there noses in dob issues. It is unfortunate that this was the case for you. But the C of O should have told you what floors were legal living area.

alterboy | 6 years and 10 months ago
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Lucia: you are in a tough spot, having paid good money for something that is not what you though you were buying. To make matters worse, people you relied on to make the purchase possible — supposed professionals — let you down. Some posters here are accurate in saying that, in general, no handyman can make a bedroom legal and no amount of digging down will make a cellar “bedroom” legal either. Some people who post have no better information than the “professionals” you relied on originally. The possible problems with your non-bedrooms are: lack of light and air, windows along the lot line, dimensions too small to qualify as a bedroom or perhaps rooms under a sloped roof or in a cellar. A qualified architect or engineer can tell you rather quickly whether any of the issues can be easily fixed. A lawsuit will be costly and take an enormous amount of time and effort. At this point it may not be worthwhile. I would see what a licensed architect or engineer has to say first if for no other reason than, if you were to proceed with a lawsuit, the lawyer would need the expertise of an architect or engineer to proceed anyway. Best of luck to you and yours.

RobertGMarvin
in General Discussion 6 years and 10 months ago
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AFAIK digging down cannot make a cellar into a basement, no matter how much the ceiling height is increased.

albertw | 6 years and 10 months ago
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Not bedrooms in cellars, I’m afraid.

randolph | 6 years and 10 months ago
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> @cate
> If the “bedrooms” are in a cellar they will never be legal,
not true if you were to dig down the cellar and created enough ceiling height and large enough windows? i mean with enough $$$$$$ almost anything is possible.

helen40
in General Discussion 6 years and 10 months ago
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@MaggieO Thanks for that. An earlier post mentioned “closet” as a requirement for a bedroom. Its nice to have, but I have never heard it as a requirement.
The OP really needs to let us know why DOB says the bedrooms are “illegal.” You may not rent them as bedrooms, and usually its not a good idea to list what’s not a bedroom as a bedroom in a sales listing (that why one often sees “storage” or “office” in spaces that will clearly be used for sleeping. Unless both units are an investment property, I don’t know why you can’t use the bedrooms” for whatever you want.

cate | 6 years and 10 months ago
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If the “bedrooms” are in a cellar they will never be legal, it doesn’t matter if you create windows.

Guest User | 6 years and 10 months ago
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some of these things can’t be fixed by a handyman, including installing a window. i would not hire a “handyman” to cut a hole in my wall and create a structurally adequate surround for a new window. definition of a legal bedroom:
-Have a minimum of 80 square feet and no dimension measuring less than 8 feet. If the apartment contains three or more bedrooms, half of the bedrooms may have a minimum dimension of 7 feet.
-Have a minimum ceiling height of 8 feet. If the bedroom is in a basement, it must have a ceiling height of at least 7 feet. If there’s a sloped ceiling over all or part of the room, there must be a clear ceiling height of at least 7 feet over at least two-thirds of the room.
-Have at least one window that opens to a street, yard, garden or court on the same lot. In some zoning districts, skylights may be substituted for windows.
-Have two means of egress; whether egress is via window or a door, it must be operable from the inside without the use of keys, tools or special skills.
-Cannot serve as a passage to another room.

melissa_rousset | 6 years and 10 months ago
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This is a problem confronting new Brooklyn buyers who expect the usual rules to apply in matters of real estate. They don’t! These buildings date back (often) 150 years or more, when architectural drawings were basically ‘build here’. Throw in years of corrupt and slipshod oversight buy DOB, centuries of neglect followed by an overheated real estate market and you have situations like this. ANyone buying in Brooklyn needs to be savvy about this–additions , decks, you name it. All that stuff was OFTEN built without approval. I do blame the professional helpers who should know better–real estate agents and what not but they just want the deal to close. This can also work in your favor in some cases. I have never heard of the DOB just showing up and demanding to be let in. If they do, say you’re a guest and can’t do that. Trying to sue after the fact would be a total waste of time…

Guest User | 6 years and 10 months ago
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If I bought the “9” bedroom house and found out some of the bedrooms weren’t legal I’d pay a handyman to make the rooms legal. I believe to become legal bedroom they are required to have light, ventilation and a way out in case of fire so have a handyman install a window and a light and it should be ok (double check to make sure nothing else is needed) and enjoy your 9 bedroom as you had intended.

vivian | 6 years and 10 months ago
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I also bought a house and then found out that two of the bedrooms aren’t legal. Neither my bank nor my appraiser caught it. They are considered ‘attic’ because their ceiling height is slightly lower than today’s code. However, we still use them as bedrooms, and if I sell I would just draw them as rooms and let the new owner decide/figure it out!

greenworks | 6 years and 10 months ago
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To agree with but also jump off on what slopefarm and mozeeatupu said:
Yes you should rely on professionals to make sure of those things but – BUT – no one cares more about your closing than you do, no matter how much you pay someone. In the end, it will still be a headache if there’s a problem.
If I hadn’t had a somewhat active role in learning my rights and responsibilities — and asserting those rights — throughout the closing process (on both the sale and purchase end) for the last couple of closings I’ve been through, those closings would have gone incredibly bad (and a sale even fallen through).
Your attorney can (and will) be so busy they mix some details up. Your inspector can (and will) think that something is not an issue that actually is, and alert you to something that he says is a problem but actually isn’t. That of course does not relieve them of their professional responsibilities but you can’t take a back seat in the closing process.
I held no particular expertise in this and was pretty much a noob before my last couple of closings. But I learned you HAVE to check everything out, be assertive yet polite, and confirm every representation a seller/purchaser makes. Google can be your friend if read with a critical eye and yes, depend on the wise minds of this forum.
In the end, no one cares as much about this than you.