So I'm about to be in a position where I might rent out some rooms in my house. I'm wondering if anyone who has done this can
give me some helpful information, like
how much I can charge for a room in west philly
Legal ramifications, leases, IRS that kind of thing
Anything else from your experience that might be helpful...

Thanks

Since this is um a public forum - a few things. Legally as a "landlord" who wants to be able to legally evict - even for rooms there are permits that officially be pulled etc., building codes about hardwired fire alarms, etc. because you could be considered a "boarding house". On the other hand if you have a room in your house you let a friend stay in with you in exchange for them helping to cover the bills with an informal agreement - that's different. If you are dividing up your house into apartments you will need a zoning variance, etc. and if you pull permits for doing the construction work you will get caught. I'm assuming you are sharing a room with a friend in an informal agreement, correct?

In that case the bulletin board at the coop is good place to meet potential housemates.

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Barack Obama on security, Iraq and Afghanistan. We need a Commander in Chief who knows the differences between Shii'a and Sunni.

Yeah, I'm going for more of the friends (or friends of friends(I mean, we're all friends here, right?)) who are staying in a room to help out with the bills situation...

If I wasn't clear, any written agreement you might draw up with your friend would be legally non-binding - unless you were to become an official "boarding house". Think of it more as a written out guideline for how you plan to live together.

__________________
Barack Obama on security, Iraq and Afghanistan. We need a Commander in Chief who knows the differences between Shii'a and Sunni.

Yeah, I got what you were saying. What about considering such "help with the bills" as "income"?

I don't think so. If its just helping you defray mortgage, insurance, heat, etc., I doubt it would bump you into a different tax bracket anyway. If you want to have the legal power to evict on the other hand - then you are supposed to not only count it as income but even pay the friggin' BPT to the city. Actually the city will get you for the BPT no matter what but the IRS will probably still not care.

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Barack Obama on security, Iraq and Afghanistan. We need a Commander in Chief who knows the differences between Shii'a and Sunni.

for this owner-occupant room rental situation in which a friend is writing checks to you, you should worry a lot more about the IRS than the city

the IRS has much more sophisticated data mining capabilities - basically they look for patterns in the transactions to red flag you (if you are receiving checks)

occasionally we'll have people stay with us for a month or two - i report it as rental income on my taxes but I am not going to get the city involved

never try to cheat the IRS on the income side, just push the deductions hard

I'm in the same situation with friends renting two rooms in our house. They have two bedrooms and a bathroom, but share our kitchen and common areas.

The city finding out is a joke. Think about how many people rent rooms to family, friends, etc for a couple hundred bucks a month, not to mention all the illegal boarding houses where it's genuinely an income generator for some slumlord.

As for taxes...well, I'm on the fence and still worry about it. I've asked two tax professionals about declaring this income as rental income, and in both situations was told not to bother. The amount of income is low, I don't have any complicated investments, and I don't make that much money in general. I was basically told that the IRS has bigger fish to fry, and splitting household costs is not their top priority. Still, I worry about getting audited and finding out the hard way that I wasn't doing things right.

ETA: Aww, crap. I did it again. This is phillysw on my girlfriend's laptop. Gets me everytime...

Deal in cash and you'll be fine. You'd be able to offset rental income with rental expense (like a portion of the mortgage), so don't sweat it.

I would be more concerned about finding non-crazy people to rent my room to. You can check criminal and civil court records on this website:

http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/WebDock...rCriteria.aspx

do you have a craigslist ad or anything for this room/s?

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"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."
— Howard Zinn