As a Realtor, I often get questions about Legal and Illegal Basement Suites in Calgary.
I have been through the process of converting an Illegal Suite to a Legal suite and want to share my understanding of what is happening with Basement Suites in Calgary.
In Calgary, I would estimate that 90% of suites are illegal. The City of Calgary previously had a strategy that they would not ever shut down an illegal suite unless there was a complaint. Complaints typically came from a neighbour and were most often about parking or noise.
A couple of years back the City changed their position and started to encourage people with illegal suites to convert them to legal suites. They said at that time they would make it easy for people to convert to legal if the existing suite was built before March 12, 2018. To convert you would need to:
a) Re-designate that Land use if not already allowed
b) Require the suite to meet all current fire code.
What they will not look at is meeting building code which is what makes it very expensive to meet.
At that time they gave people a couple of years grace and then the plan was to shut down the rental of all illegal suites. In December 2021 the City identified a large majority of suites had not made the conversion. In December 2021 City Council extended the amnesty program until December 2023 so suites need to be converted prior to this.
The additional risk to buying an illegal suite is during conversion the City will post a notice to change Land Use and there is a possibility that neighbours complain about it and if the City does not approve the land use change then you have a home without a suite. I have never heard of this happening but it is a possibility.