All Forum Posts by: Joshua Boyd

Thanks for the advice everyone. We went under contract on Friday and I spent this morning at City Hall's zoning department to find out what they had on it. According to the city, it's currently a legal non-conforming duplex but was zoned as a triplex up until 2000. This was actually better news than I was expecting. I was told that if we wanted any sort of official document from the city recognizing it as a legal triplex, we would need to prove it had been in use as such since the change was made in 2000 and not vacant for more than 12 months. Judging from the age of appliances and finishes, it has almost certainly been in use as a triplex since then, no telling about vacancy though.

We've decided to move forward with the purchase and are requesting a letter from the seller stating that it was a triplex when he purchased it in 2006 and has been in continuous use as one since then, as well as a statement that it has not been vacant for more than 12 months during his ownership (I think the city has some form letter for this that we'll just use). That leaves a six year period unaccounted for, and it would probably be a huge PITA if we ever did have to prove this, but we're taking a chance on it.

Next moment of truth is this Friday's inspection. We've already lost one we had under contract due to about $75K of termite damage (worst our agent has ever seen, apparently), so we're hoping for a softball here.

@Rick Baggenstoss The property is in the Poncey Highland neighborhood. Where's yours?

Hi all,

I've been following the BiggerPockets forum and podcast for a couple years now, learning all I can and waiting until we had the money saved to buy our first home with an eye toward RE investing. My wife and I found an off-market triplex here in Atlanta that we plan to owner-occupy. The property is a triplex, originally built in 1920, with the main 3/2 on the ground floor, a finished 1/1 attic addition, and a studio apartment above a detached garage. The seller and I have agreed on a price and I am waiting on our agent to finish the offer contract today so we can get it officially under contract. That's the good news.

My question is: in looking at Fulton County tax records website, it lists the property as a duplex, and the city zoning is R-4 (Single-family residential). Does this mean that it is a likely a legal non-conforming duplex, but the third apartment is probably illegal? Both the attic addition and garage studio appear to be at least 25-30 years old, but I have no idea where to start looking to see if they would be grandfathered in. Any way for me to find out if this is a legal triplex on my own easily enough, without throwing the seller under the bus with the city? If not, would you wait until you had it under contract to bring up with the seller? I don't want to start paying for inspections and appraisals, or even just getting earnest money tied up, if I don't have to, and since we're using conventional financing, I don't want this to become an issue with the bank weeks down the road. If there's a strong case for waiting to ask the seller until under contract, I'd love to hear it, or better yet, some resource for me to find out myself that I haven't found yet.

Thanks for any advice,

Joshua