Help!
My fiance and I just recently moved from the midwest and currently live in Nassau county Long Island. We just moved into our apartment a week ago and the LL has contacted us about the apartment being inspected by building inspectors.
We first saw the listing from our apartment on a popular real estate website and it was listed as a two bedroom apartment. When we viewed the apartment it was in a house and consisted of two apartments on the first floor of the house and two on the second floor. The apartment we were showed was on the second floor and had nicely carpeted stairs leading up to the third floor which is more or less a finished attic. Our LL marketed the upstairs as a great master bedroom and even recommended to us a furniture place where we can get split box springs to fit our queen bed upstairs. The place and LL seemed great so we signed our generic lease.
When we moved in a week ago, our LL gave us our keys and informed us that we were technically not supposed to use the upper stairs as a bedroom, but they did not regulate it and getting an inspection is very rare. My fiance and I did not think anything of it as we are from the midwest and are unfimilar with this type of environment and the laws regarding housing/renting. I received a phone call from my LL saying that inspectors are coming to look at the place and that they wanted to look at the electrical wiring of the upstairs "finished attic" and to check to make sure it is not being used as a living quarters.
The LL did not mention any of these laws prior to us signing our lease and there is no where in the lease that states that we are not suppossed to use the finished attic as a living area. They also marketed the apartment as a two bedroom (one of which is the finished attic) and made no mention of the regulations behind the place. Does anyone have any advice for us regarding this situation and whether we have legal grounds to break the lease, etc.....? Thanks for any help! Appreciate it!
Deeply Concerned