8 ms·

Part of the problem is the law isn't designed for shared housing. 1/ If one roommate is disruptive (noise complaints, property damage, safety issues), landlord

by itake 1y ago

Part of the problem is the law isn't designed for shared housing. 1/ If one roommate is disruptive (noise complaints, property damage, safety issues), landlords and other tenants have limited legal tools short of eviction of everyone. That blunt instrument makes it unattractive for landlords to allow multi-tenant arrangements. 2/ From a legal discriminatory standpoint, the law doesn't have much protections for people blocking certain raises or genders from renting. 3/ Many local codes were written with “traditional families” in mind. Some municipalities cap unrelated adults per household (e.g., “no more than 3 unrelated people”), which makes normal roommate setups technically non-compliant even if the lease is joint. 4/ Standard renters or homeowners policies often don’t contemplate multiple unrelated parties. Landlords worry about claims, while tenants may find themselves uncovered in disputes or accidents. I tried to get umbrella insurance for myself, but because I rent out other rooms and I didn't want to also cover my 2-3 roommates, I am forced to go uncovered or find another provider.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
AlexandrB 1y ago
> 2/ From a legal discriminatory standpoint, the law doesn't have much protections for people blocking certain raises or genders from renting. Probably an unpopular opinion, but why is this a problem? When you're living in such close quarters with people, you should have some freedom in choosing who you're living with. The classic example would be a "female only" household that doesn't allow men for real or perceived safety reasons. There are also cultures/religions where cohabitation with those of the opposite sex is taboo. The race angle is more thorny, but I'd rather lean in the direction of allowing people to choose who they co-habitate with.
- Taek 1y ago
  Some freedom? My house is my safe space, it's the place I go when I'm exhausted, when I'm sick, when the rest of the world sucks. I should have a very high degree of freedom over who is allowed to share that space with me and I shouldn't have to justify not allowing another person (stranger or not) to co-habitate.
  - alistairSH 1y ago
    If you want that degree of freedom, a boarding house or shared occupancy is not for you. Pay up for dedicated solo housing.
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      The amount of people in a boarding house or shared occupancy is low enough that they can easily be all mutually trusted friends or acquaintances to one another. Why should people be forced by law to admit strangers that they might not be fully comfortable with into that kind of tightly-knit arrangement?
      - alistairSH 1y ago
        In a true boarding house, the landlord/owner controls who lives there - each room is rented individually. Individual tenants have zero control over who lives in the next room. But, yes, if you have a typical shared home, where 4 people get together and rent a home at once, yes, you do have that control (and should have it).
        bilbo0s 1y ago
        Actually, if they rent the home, then they still don't have that control. The landlord does. S/he is free to put someone you don't like in the upstairs unit. Or even in the 5th bedroom of the house if it's a room letting type situation. No matter what. You rent? Yeah, sorry. The landlord makes the rules. The hypothetical foursome would need to purchase their property. At that point, they would be able to control for who could live there.
        SoftTalker 1y ago
        If a group of tenants and the landlord all sign a "joint and several" lease for a house or multibedroom apartment, nobody can make changes until that lease agreement expires (at least not without the agreement of everyone on the lease). If it's an SRO lease where they are leasing just a single room and access to common areas then yes the landlord can lease rooms as he can find tenants for them.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago
  > Probably an unpopular opinion, but why is this a problem? Because it makes it relatively more difficult for minorities to obtain housing, see sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45348212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45348212 > The classic example would be a "female only" household that doesn't allow men for real or perceived safety reasons. There are also cultures/religions where cohabitation with those of the opposite sex is taboo. The solution to the “female only” or the religiously observant household is for the renters/buyers to self-select and organize themselves. I don’t see why the landlord/seller needs to mandate it.
  - dec0dedab0de 1y ago
    The solution to the “female only” or the religiously observant household is for the renters/buyers to self-select and organize themselves. I don’t see why the landlord/seller needs to mandate it. I think it's because the only two options being presented are a group of people signing one lease with one landlord. Or a group of people individually signing leases with the landlord. So basically, the problem is for people that can't find a group on their own. Or for a landlord who wants to act like every room is an apartment, when they're clearly not.
    - bsghirt 1y ago
      You can't find a group of people to share a lease with, but you want to live in a residence which excludes people by race or gender? Sounds like a you problem.
      - TimorousBestie 1y ago
        Yeah, I don’t get it either. The typical roommate situation around here is between two or four in one unit. Maybe it was harder in the days before the internet, but I expect that even then the kinds of tight-knit religious communities that would be opposed to cohabiting outside the faith would have the internal social networking infrastructure to solve this problem.
potato3732842 1y ago
Forcing things to go through the full ass reaming of the "everything else" process rather than whatever less terrible process was written to make some "supported" thing streamlined enough to not cause uproar. The purpose of the system is what it does. They don't want to make doing "bad" things easy so they let your only option be through the same absurd catch-all process.
tptacek 1y ago
These are challenges for people sharing housing, but they're not the legal reason why letting out rooms is illegal. Prohibitions on multifamily housing are all rooted in racial animus. It's the entire reason we have single-family zoning (a related legal proscription), which emerged very shortly after the Buchanan v Warley decision that outlawed outright racial zoning. There's a long and well-documented history of this, all the way down to regulations targeting multi-generational households (Black and Latino families are more likely to have a grandparent or aunt living alongside a younger family). "The Color of Law" is a good starter read here.
- tw04 1y ago
  >There's a long and well-documented history of this, all the way down to regulations targeting multi-generational households (Black and Latino families are more likely to have a grandparent or aunt living alongside a younger family). That really doesn't track with the laws actually written. Every single city I've lived in with restrictions on number of unrelated tenants, simultaneously has an exception that there are no limits on related parties, whether through blood or marriage. They are very much limiting the number of unrelated people in a single dwelling and it's targeting slumlords, not the renters.
  - danaris 1y ago
    Or they're targeting polyamory.
    - toomuchtodo 1y ago
      tptacek nailed it with regards to it being historically racial, but I've also seen, to your point, animosity towards anything that isn't a "traditional" or nuclear family. Fear of the different and unknown is a powerful motivator of the people who bring these complaints. Also animosity towards poverty and the belief or perception of material increases in crime and/or traffic. (property owner, many units, yimby, have to interface with the citizenry at zoning meetings, etc)
      - 1y ago
dragonwriter 1y ago
> Part of the problem is the law isn't designed for shared housing That’s part of the problem, but this article is actually about explicit legal limits on sharing, not merely that sharing, where allowed, isn’t always legally convenient.
narrator 1y ago
One interesting thing about roommates is the landlord can't discriminate, but the roommates can discriminate against other roommates on any basis they want if they reside in the same dwelling, at least in the U.S.
- itake 1y ago
  even more confusing: landlord occupied housing.
bryanlarsen 1y ago
In my experience, it's a lot easier to kick out a roommate than a tenant. If you share a kitchen or a bathroom with somebody, then most tenant protection laws don't apply. Once you share a bathroom or kitchen, then "not getting along" is enough of an excuse for it to become a safety issue.

by itake 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

AlexandrB 1y ago

> 2/ From a legal discriminatory standpoint, the law doesn't have much protections for people blocking certain raises or genders from renting. Probably an unpopular opinion, but why is this a problem? When you're living in such close quarters with people, you should have some freedom in choosing who you're living with. The classic example would be a "female only" household that doesn't allow men for real or perceived safety reasons. There are also cultures/religions where cohabitation with those of the opposite sex is taboo. The race angle is more thorny, but I'd rather lean in the direction of allowing people to choose who they co-habitate with.

Taek 1y ago
Some freedom? My house is my safe space, it's the place I go when I'm exhausted, when I'm sick, when the rest of the world sucks. I should have a very high degree of freedom over who is allowed to share that space with me and I shouldn't have to justify not allowing another person (stranger or not) to co-habitate.
- alistairSH 1y ago
  If you want that degree of freedom, a boarding house or shared occupancy is not for you. Pay up for dedicated solo housing.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    The amount of people in a boarding house or shared occupancy is low enough that they can easily be all mutually trusted friends or acquaintances to one another. Why should people be forced by law to admit strangers that they might not be fully comfortable with into that kind of tightly-knit arrangement?
    - alistairSH 1y ago
      In a true boarding house, the landlord/owner controls who lives there - each room is rented individually. Individual tenants have zero control over who lives in the next room. But, yes, if you have a typical shared home, where 4 people get together and rent a home at once, yes, you do have that control (and should have it).
      - bilbo0s 1y ago
        Actually, if they rent the home, then they still don't have that control. The landlord does. S/he is free to put someone you don't like in the upstairs unit. Or even in the 5th bedroom of the house if it's a room letting type situation. No matter what. You rent? Yeah, sorry. The landlord makes the rules. The hypothetical foursome would need to purchase their property. At that point, they would be able to control for who could live there.
        SoftTalker 1y ago
        If a group of tenants and the landlord all sign a "joint and several" lease for a house or multibedroom apartment, nobody can make changes until that lease agreement expires (at least not without the agreement of everyone on the lease). If it's an SRO lease where they are leasing just a single room and access to common areas then yes the landlord can lease rooms as he can find tenants for them.
TimorousBestie 1y ago
> Probably an unpopular opinion, but why is this a problem? Because it makes it relatively more difficult for minorities to obtain housing, see sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45348212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45348212 > The classic example would be a "female only" household that doesn't allow men for real or perceived safety reasons. There are also cultures/religions where cohabitation with those of the opposite sex is taboo. The solution to the “female only” or the religiously observant household is for the renters/buyers to self-select and organize themselves. I don’t see why the landlord/seller needs to mandate it.
- dec0dedab0de 1y ago
  The solution to the “female only” or the religiously observant household is for the renters/buyers to self-select and organize themselves. I don’t see why the landlord/seller needs to mandate it. I think it's because the only two options being presented are a group of people signing one lease with one landlord. Or a group of people individually signing leases with the landlord. So basically, the problem is for people that can't find a group on their own. Or for a landlord who wants to act like every room is an apartment, when they're clearly not.
  - bsghirt 1y ago
    You can't find a group of people to share a lease with, but you want to live in a residence which excludes people by race or gender? Sounds like a you problem.
    - TimorousBestie 1y ago
      Yeah, I don’t get it either. The typical roommate situation around here is between two or four in one unit. Maybe it was harder in the days before the internet, but I expect that even then the kinds of tight-knit religious communities that would be opposed to cohabiting outside the faith would have the internal social networking infrastructure to solve this problem.

potato3732842 1y ago

Forcing things to go through the full ass reaming of the "everything else" process rather than whatever less terrible process was written to make some "supported" thing streamlined enough to not cause uproar. The purpose of the system is what it does. They don't want to make doing "bad" things easy so they let your only option be through the same absurd catch-all process.

tptacek 1y ago

These are challenges for people sharing housing, but they're not the legal reason why letting out rooms is illegal. Prohibitions on multifamily housing are all rooted in racial animus. It's the entire reason we have single-family zoning (a related legal proscription), which emerged very shortly after the Buchanan v Warley decision that outlawed outright racial zoning. There's a long and well-documented history of this, all the way down to regulations targeting multi-generational households (Black and Latino families are more likely to have a grandparent or aunt living alongside a younger family). "The Color of Law" is a good starter read here.

tw04 1y ago
>There's a long and well-documented history of this, all the way down to regulations targeting multi-generational households (Black and Latino families are more likely to have a grandparent or aunt living alongside a younger family). That really doesn't track with the laws actually written. Every single city I've lived in with restrictions on number of unrelated tenants, simultaneously has an exception that there are no limits on related parties, whether through blood or marriage. They are very much limiting the number of unrelated people in a single dwelling and it's targeting slumlords, not the renters.
- danaris 1y ago
  Or they're targeting polyamory.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    tptacek nailed it with regards to it being historically racial, but I've also seen, to your point, animosity towards anything that isn't a "traditional" or nuclear family. Fear of the different and unknown is a powerful motivator of the people who bring these complaints. Also animosity towards poverty and the belief or perception of material increases in crime and/or traffic. (property owner, many units, yimby, have to interface with the citizenry at zoning meetings, etc)
    - 1y ago

dragonwriter 1y ago

> Part of the problem is the law isn't designed for shared housing That’s part of the problem, but this article is actually about explicit legal limits on sharing, not merely that sharing, where allowed, isn’t always legally convenient.

narrator 1y ago

One interesting thing about roommates is the landlord can't discriminate, but the roommates can discriminate against other roommates on any basis they want if they reside in the same dwelling, at least in the U.S.

itake 1y ago
even more confusing: landlord occupied housing.

bryanlarsen 1y ago

In my experience, it's a lot easier to kick out a roommate than a tenant. If you share a kitchen or a bathroom with somebody, then most tenant protection laws don't apply. Once you share a bathroom or kitchen, then "not getting along" is enough of an excuse for it to become a safety issue.