Studio in Townhome basement?

Question

I just recently purchased a townhome in Lehi, Utah. The basement is unfinished, and about 600 sq ft.

I could share the garage with a tenant and turn the basement into a studio apartment with a kitchenette (creating two separate living spaces). I can easily make two separate entrances from the garage leading to my living space and the studio downstairs.

I’m sure this isn’t zoned correctly. HOA most likely doesn’t approve, but I feel like I should still be able to get away with doing so.

Is it worth the risk to hack this townhome? Has anyone done something similar to this?

Jonathan Greene · Answer

Very risky inside an HOA community. I would not do it. Neighbors in HOA communities report everything in my experience, but that was in FL mostly with tight HOA. If they see someone exiting and entering all the time they will eventually figure it out. You would need certain window height and exits to be fire legal also and you could be held liable if something happened to the illegal boarder tenant. (I am an attorney, but no longer practice. This does not constitute legal advice.)

Frank Chin · Answer

Depends on where you are. Depends on the politics of the HOA, how diligent they are and if the municipality is short of funds and looking for violations like these to "teach a lesson" and enhance their revenues at the same time.

I bought a duplex at a foreclosure auction where the owner built an illegal unit in the basement. The basement can be legally converted, got the right ceiling height, window sizes, two entrances and exits. But the fact remains it's a two family zone, and a variance will not be granted for a three. Another is tri-plexes requires fire escapes, concrete enclosed furnace room which duplexes do not require.

The city where I am, NYC, depends on whistle blowers, and someone across the street had a dispute with someone two doors down from me, that this neighbor 2 doors down had an illegal apartment. It was rented with tenants in place. The city sent inspectors, in these cases, besides citing the landlord, forbid reentry into the unit, stringing up yellow tape, yellow entry not allowed signs, so when the tenant returned home, he cannot get in. In this case, the tenant was locked out and couldn't get a change of clothes that night or even shower. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Then the inspector goes down the street, looks for similar illegal units, and I was dumb enough to have three mailboxes even though my illegal unit was not rented out, so no yellow tape and notices taped on doors. I needed the extra mailbox as I order many magazines and the ones there didn't accommodate. I was cited, ordered to remove the illegal apartment. Fortunately, I hired an expeditor to work on it and had the unit legalized as an office for my business and spent $6,000, and the expeditor appealed to the city not to impose fines normal in these cases as I bought it at foreclosure to alleviate neighborhood blight.

I also owned condos where there was an HOA and they are quite strict enforcing rules so something you planned to do won't fly either. Here they don't depend on whistleblowers as the HOA board members are neighbors, many of them retired people, with nothing to do, and see what's going on everyday and every night.

Then a friend lived in a town in Long Island with inspectors driving around looking for violations. He had a opening cut through the wall below a window to install a thru the wall AC because with the window AC, he couldn't use the window. An inspector driving by notices and cited him for not getting a permit for it. He had to pay fines for not pulling a permit, back real estate taxes as real estate taxes increases applied in these cases, and fines for not paying the back taxes. Quite a few dollars. After that he had to get an inspection, the whole nine yards.