Is my apartment commercial or residential?

[needadvise]

I have lived in my apartment for over 4 years and now need some advices.

Well, to start off I have to say I live on the third floor in a two-family brown stone for over 4 years.
I get my lease renewed every year, and on the lease it says I have to provide own heat and hot water (which runs about $450/month during winter), and I am allowed to have one roommate besides myself, and have to pay $100 for each roommate I get. The rent increases every year by $100.

Currently I have three other roommates, and my landlord has not said a word. Also when I moved in, I had to put down floor (it was bare plywood) and paint walls. Since I moved in I have spent about $5000 to renovate the place. I have taken out the part of wall to get light coming through.

LL has seen my renovation, and has not said a word.
Anyhow, I pay my rent in cash, or unsigned money order because the LL refuse to take personal checks.
Recently I was trying to get Time Warner cable service and the phone rep told me my address appeared on their computer as commercial, not residntial. I also found out that I was billed as commercial by Con Edison.

All this is telling me that I live in illegal apartment.
Recently my landlord changed the front door's lock, and sold us the keys for $50 each.

I have never complained, since I thought I had decent deal, but something is telling me that I might be living illegaly in this place.

Can someone tell me if I should consult professionals?
Thanks for reading.

[ChrisG]

i can't see how the 3rd floor of a brownstone could be considered entirely a commercial space. is there a store on the ground floor or something? that might be zoned for commercial use but i don't think that changes the status of the living units. certainly the third floor isn't usable as a commercial space, is it? maybe you should ask time warner to come and check out your place to see if they still consider it a commercial dwelling. you could ask the landlord, but he'll probably charge a fee for the info. i don'tknow if your apartment is illegal per se, but your landlord's method certainly are.

[needadvise]

wow, thanks for a quick response.
I did some research on my own and just found out that the building is s2, which is two family houses and one store front. I guess it makes sense. Also I called TimeWarner and they said my apartment qualifies as residential, after they did some investigation (I have asked them about it 2 weeks ago).
I've come to believe that this is legal rent afterall....besides one thing. When I checked my address on the City's finance website, though I typed my street address, it kept bringing up the lot next door. The owner's name and address is my landlord's, and I just wondered what that means.

Anyhow, I am the type of the person who just sits there until the real problem takes place.
by the way, I also live in Clinton Hill. Before I moved to this address, I lived on St. James so I have spent total of 5 years in this area. The neighbor changed so much.
I want to stay in this area as much as I can, and hope my landlord will not give me anymore headache.
Thanks.

[Cranky Tenant]

I was under the impression that Landlords in New York City are required to provide heat and hot water, and include that cost in the rent. You should check the Heat and Hot Water hotline

http://www.tenant.net/Court/Howcourt/heat.html to see if this is the case.

Either way, $450 per month sounds like enough to heat a small building so you might want to do some research and see exacty what's going on here.

Beyond that, the LL is also required to provide some kind of flooring beyond plywood. It doesn't have to be beautiful hardwood but you shouldn't have to spend $5000 just to make the apartment liveable.

[needadvise]

To meagain: The landlord did not tell me that the $50 for each key is a deposit, but he told the family upstairs. So I am guessing that this is, and when I asked him about it he just kind of looked the other way. My guess is that he thinks I am just another stupid japanese girl that doesn't know much about NYC housing law. And that's fine by me, because I have a dog and it was so hard to find place, with backyard and floor thru apartment with large rooms, that meets my budget. Since this is unregurated apartment, I am willing to pay whatever I think is worth for. Thank you for dropping the line!

To Crankytenant: $450 a month does not heat up the whole apartment. We have high ceiling, so it only warm up two rooms out of four. The landlord told me that "This is a house, not an apartment building. That's why you have to provide the heat and hot water on your own cost." and he wrote that on the lease, too.
I am going to check the link that you had provided. Thank you.

[ChrisG]

yeah, i love this neighborhood, but since it's a little off the beaten path you're bound to get landlords who have wonky ideas about how to run their tenants.

even tho your apartment is in a house, it's still an apartment. unless your apartment has a separate furnace and hot water heater, you're paying heat for the whole place (and while landlords are supposed to provide this, i think if you sign a lease stating you will pay for it, that supersedes it).

in my apartment i noticed my cooking gas bills seemed extraordinarily high. we had the gas guy come check it out and it turned out we were paying for the whole house. The landlady pleaded ignorance (and sadly i believe it), and she took over full payment for the gas. your LL probably won't be as generous, but if you get a Keyspan guy out to investigate, the LL can be forced to pay for it. i know this wasn't really ne of your concerns, but you ought to consider it.

my blanket advice here is, get everything in writing. even if the key fee is a deposit, if you don't have any proof you paid it, you'll never get it back. it's probably too late to recoup any of the $5000 in renovations, but for future reference, some landlords will take reduced rent in exchange for doing work on the place.

[consigliere]

Energy Law §17-103 requires a landlord who rents a house to a tenant, where the tenant provides the heat, to give the tenant a copy or a summary of the heating bills for the last two years.
 
Housing Maintenance Code - Article 8 specifies the heating requirements for one-family houses, two-family houses, and multiple dwellings (three apartments or more) in New York City.
 

[Cranky Tenant]

It' s possible that at some point the entire building was zoned for commercial use and the LL never bothered to get it rezoned.

I lived in a commercially zoned loft for several years where the landlord didn't provide any services. We had had to provide our own electric heaters, gas hot water heater, gas refrigerator and stove. The entire building was on a single bill but the Landlord paid the utility bills.

Of course this kind of living situation is illegal but we were fully aware of it, and the rent was incredibly cheap.