ᐅ Secondary apartment – Definition question

Hello,

I hope this is the right forum for my question.

I have a question about accessory apartments: Is a converted attic with various rooms and a bathroom but no kitchen automatically considered an accessory apartment? In theory, the entire area could be locked and is accessible via the main entrance, hallway, and stairs. However, from the hallway on the ground floor, you can access all rooms on the ground floor, meaning the upper area could be locked, but the ground floor area would be accessible to everyone, including potential tenants of the upper rooms. This may not be ideal from the landlord’s perspective. Additionally, separate billing for electricity and water would not be possible.

Another question: in the basement, there are various rooms, including a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom, but these are not connected as a standalone unit and cannot be locked off. Can this be classified as an accessory apartment?

I am less concerned with the potential rental of these spaces and more interested in whether they would be considered accessory apartments.

Question for you. As a third party looking for an apartment, would you want to rent these rooms as a flat? The answer to this question is also the answer to your question.

Without a kitchen, I probably wouldn’t rent the apartment in the attic. Also, the fact that a proper utility cost statement isn’t possible would bother me. As an owner, I probably wouldn’t rent out the whole thing because every tenant would have access to all my rooms. The rooms of the main apartment are all freely accessible.

I definitely wouldn’t rent the rooms in the basement, not because of the basement itself, but because all potentially rentable rooms are scattered all over the basement floor. Each room would need to be locked separately. As a landlord, I wouldn’t rent that out either.

My main concern is the valuation, since some claim that the value of the house increases significantly due to these so-called “granny flats,” which they actually aren’t.

Calli47 schrieb:
My main concern is the value assessment, as some claim that the value of the house would increase significantly because of these "granny flats," which they are not.

You have already given yourself the assessment. These are not value-increasing "granny flats."

I could also say: In my house I don’t need a basement room, the second bathroom, and one child’s bedroom is free – so suddenly I have a granny flat and my house is worth much more.

Thank you, that's roughly the information I was looking for. ;-)

Out of curiosity, can you roughly estimate how much the value of a house increases by adding a granny flat / accessory dwelling unit?

Calli47 schrieb:
Just out of curiosity, can anyone roughly estimate how much the value of a house increases with a secondary flat?

Well, a house with 200 sqm (2150 sq ft) of living space will have about the same value, or slightly higher, than a house with 200 sqm (2150 sq ft) where 160 sqm (1720 sq ft) belong to the main dwelling and 40 sqm (430 sq ft) to the secondary flat. The construction costs are not significantly higher either.
For some buyers, the house with a secondary flat might even be less valuable, since they no longer feel like the sole "master of the house," but rather like living in an apartment with immediate neighbors who could watch them sunbathe naked in the garden.