Below grade bedrooms

[uncle sam]

Does HUD allow basement bedrooms?

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Sure.

 

[Overimprovement]

What do you mean by allow? Any below grade living area must be reported on a separate line, but on the current 1004 form there is a space for below grade rooms/bed/bath. To be countable as a bedroom, there must be 2 methods of ingress/egress--the 2nd usually being a window generally large enough for a firefighter to fit through.

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

the 2nd usually being a window generally large enough for a firefighter to fit through.

I'm more worried about a fat boy getting out of that window, not coming in.

 

[Tom D]

Yes allowed, it's a means of egress in case of a fire if there is no access from a door with our city code. FHA likes an exit door also. You are calling them basement bedrooms because they have beds in them, large family. Basement rooms have different functional utility. Could be a rec room and another finished room. The use by another owner might not be bedrooms.

But if the zoning code says just windows you are still ok. But that is non GLA space, so what's your worry. Make everyone sleep upstairs. It's a finished space, the use makes no difference.

 

[sputnam]

Just be clear about it. A dwelling has rooms. The way those rooms are used is decided by the occupants and is suggested by the design of the dwelling. To be a legal bedroom there must be a secondary means of egress. That usually means a window big enough to use as an exit in case of an emergency. As for reporting, if a dwelling has 2 bedrooms above the ground and 1 bedroom in the basement.. it is not a three bedroom house. The reporting standard is.. and has been... GLA which can be defined as heated, finished, above the ground, and contiguous. That hasn't changed. What changed was the standard by which the dwelling is measured and GLA calculated.

 

[J Grant]

Putting a bed in a room does not make it into a bedroom , just as putting a car in a room does not make it into a garage -

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

Putting a bed in a room does not make it into a bedroom , just as putting a car in a room does not make it into a garage -

Sometimes it makes it a second story garage

 

[Tom4value]

Putting a bed in a room does not make it into a bedroom , just as putting a car in a room does not make it into a garage -

No, but it does make you rethink your alcohol consumption.

 

[djd09]

the market decides what is a bedroom or not...and what is basement or not