Legalizing a basement apartment: Is it worth it?

There’s always a process in legalizing a basement apartment. First, you’ll need to go to the town/city, take necessary papers (if online transactions are not available), get them signed off then take them to various stations. Then you’ll net to get it signed by fire and go through processes and pay the fees.

Amongst other requirements you must have:

• private 5/8 fire-rated drywall wall
• an interconnected smoke alarm, so when it went off upstairs, it goes-off downstairs
• fire-rated doors that close automatically.
• the ceilings in the ‘furnish room’ be finished along with other things to be done.

Why? Take this for example. When someone is buying a home approved by 530,000 if he/she buys a legal duplex he/she will be approved by 800,000. So the reason for that is that they can use half of the basement apartment as a rental (basically towards her income). So let’s just say she makes $1800 a month on rent and she gets to use the $900 towards her income and not put her up in her pre-approval from 530,000 to 800,000.

Even if the basement tenants lived there for 20 years and they always pay you in advance, they will not let you use that accumulated income for approval.