In-Law Unit (Unwarranted Room) Affects Homeowner's Insurance

The home that I am in contract with contains an unwarranted in-law (typical in the San Francisco Sunset district). How will this affect my ability to obtain homeowners insurance? Does the insurer go into the home after the homeowner's insurance is issued? If so, does the mere fact that there is an in-law disqualify me from the policy if anything happens?

Thanks!

I assume you mean an in-law apartment that is not properly approved and up to code.

It will have no effect on you whatsoever if it is not occupied.

The only reason I opened this thread was I thought it was about Carrie and Doug Heffernan.

Edit the title to say in law UNIT

drobins9 said: I don't know about homeowners, but I would kick her out. Once you own the house, you don't have to let her keep living there.

I must say my household efficiency suffered terribly when the old battle ax croaked. She did a lot of work around the house. <sigh> Wish she had passed that obsession on to the wife. Oh well what are you going to do? Messy homes don't clean themselves up, so I guess we just live with them. Maybe I should start advertising a room for rent at the OCD support group.

edit: editing the OP sure made my post above seem out of place.

But I'd have to pay them with real money! No no no no no! I much better like the idea of renting a room to Mr. Monk, and getting paid to have my house cleaned. I should have thought of this years ago.

ptiemann said: Unpermitted additions will not be covered by the typical insurance policy.

You could have the city inspect it, possibly bring it up to code as needed, pay for permits, and then the city and county records will include your new squarefootage/ room count. As a nice side effect, your property tax will be adjusted upwards as well.
This would be good in case of a future resale.

Or you could leave it without permits, and get a specialized insurance that is willing to cover unpermitted additions, for a little more premium.

-PeterProperty tax should not go up, because he is buying the home now and the purchase price is FMV.

Also its very unlikely the unit can be brought up to code cheaply. Almost all of these Sunset inlaws were done long ago and to get current permit they must meet 2009 standards

if the buyer's goal is to make it legal they would want to do it immediately after purchase specifically to ensure there is no tax assessment hike

Illegal units in SF are a dont ask dont tell kinda thing, thats how ppl get insurance

I don't know who the previous owner had insurance from. This is an REO property. I wouldn't mind bringing the building up to code, but the cost would probably be too high. Does anyone know where I can get the specialized insurance to cover unpermitted room? I don't mind paying the additional premium so I don't get burned down the road if something happens. I don't want to bring it up with the insurance company that I'm buying insurance from for fear that they'll deny coverage. Like SIS says, it's pretty much don't ask and don't tell in SF.

New2Workin said: The home that I am in contract with contains an unwarranted in-law (typical in the San Francisco Sunset district). How will this affect my ability to obtain homeowners insurance? Does the insurer go into the home after the homeowner's insurance is issued? If so, does the mere fact that there is an in-law disqualify me from the policy if anything happens?

Thanks!

I own a few properties with in-law quarters (here, we call them Ohana units). I haven't had any problem with getting them insured whatsoever. I'm trying to figure out why it would even be a problem. Basically, an Ohana unit contains a bathroom and separate kitchen. However, if you simply remove the refrigerator or stove, the kitchen becomes a wetbar, which is a legal accessory to a full kitchen in the main home. So simply removing a an appliance makes the "illegal" Ohana unit a legal bedroom within a home w/bathroom and wetbar. As another poster mentioned, if you don't disclose you are renting a portion of your home out to a tenant, you shouldn't have any issues getting it insured. If you want to insure with the tenant, just tell them you are renting a room out (which really is what you're doing).

Kanosh said: Having a house with an extra kitchen AKA in-law unit is not illegal.
However it DOES become "illegal" if you try to rent out the in law unit to someone else.
Yes, this happens all the time (that's how I got my first apt. in Queens, NY)
But if you rent to a screwball tenant who doesn't pay the rent, don't expect the courts to give you any sympathy.
You can get the tenant of an illegal unit evicted, however you can't collect any back rent and the buildings dept. may be notified.

Having a single family house with an extra kitchen is illegal, period. If you rent a unit with an illegal kitchen to someone you simply increase the chance that your tenant will turn you in to city officials.

What you're saying is that it's not "illegal" unless someone else knows about it. Kind of like jaywalking when no cops are around. You could have 10 kitchens in your home and if only you knew about it you would never get in trouble.