Garage conversions and in-law suites in Tampa, FL.
Three garage conversion pages below. Pick the one that sounds like yours. A garage or a spare room becomes a place where someone can live. That takes a plan, the City's rules and a written scope before anyone touches a wall. Each page tells you the same three things, including the one most companies leave out. Where you can legally rent it is the first question, not the last. The pages are long on purpose. They answer what a walkthrough would, before you give anyone your afternoon.
Priced by written scope, never by the hour.
Pick the job that sounds like yours
Three servicesIf two of them sound like yours, that is normal. A garage apartment is an in-law suite with a full kitchen and, often, its own meter. Say what you want it for on the walkthrough. The written scope covers the right one under one price.
Not sure which one is yours? Start here.
Most houses are one of these six cases. Read the line that sounds like your house. The page it points to is the one to open first. On every one of them, plumbing, electrical and structure go to the trade licensed for it, named in your scope. The plan, the price and the order of work are ours.
You want to rent it out
That is a garage to apartment conversion. A full kitchen, a bath and its own door. Read the rent section on that page first. In most of Tampa the address decides whether a tenant can live there, not the contractor.
A parent or an adult child is moving in
That is an in-law suite conversion. A bedroom, a bathroom and a door of its own, inside the house or in the garage. In the city it is 600 square feet or less, and the family part is written into the code.
You want a number before anything else
Read the cost page. It gives you the 3 questions that put any garage conversion in a range. It shows what a low bid quietly leaves out. It has the Tampa market range, with its source. Your number comes after the walkthrough.
The garage floods, or the house is near the water
Read the flood section on the cost page before you spend on plans. A garage floor below the flood line can only be parking and storage. Nothing on a plan changes that. A suite inside the house, above the line, may still work.
You only need a bedroom, not a kitchen
Then it is not a second dwelling and the zoning question goes away. A bedroom and a bath is the small version of an in-law suite. A kitchen is what turns a bedroom into a unit with rules of its own.
The house is in an HOA
Read the CC&Rs before anything else. Many require a covered garage, and most say no to a second unit. Get the board's written yes first. Any of the three pages can follow that, and none of them should come before it.
Before you plan it: what the City and the County allow.
This is the part no garage conversion page prints, and it decides the whole job. The rules are different inside the City of Tampa, in the rest of the city, and in the county. We look up your address before we write a scope. Here is what we look for.
Inside Tampa's ADU area, you can rent it
The City allows a rentable unit in Seminole Heights, Tampa Heights, East Tampa and the area around Lowry Park. The unit can be up to 950 square feet. It needs one parking space. The owner has to live on the property, in the house or in the unit.
Everywhere else in the city, it is family only
Outside that area the City calls it an extended family residence. It is limited to 600 square feet. The people living in it have to be family by blood, marriage, adoption or guardianship. The owner lives on the lot. It cannot go in a garage that breaks the setback rules.
Unincorporated Hillsborough has its own rule
Brandon, Riverview, Valrico and most of the county are not the City. There the lot has to be at least 7,000 square feet. The unit can be up to 900 square feet of living space. The owner lives in the main house. One unit per lot.
A garage below the flood line stays a garage
In a flood zone, the space below the base flood elevation has three allowed uses. Parking, storage, and getting in and out. That is a federal rule. And if the work costs half the value of the house, the whole house has to meet flood code. We check both before the price.
The same five steps on every conversion above.
Never hourly, never a verbal number. Serving Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties.
Where we work
Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Sarasota counties. If your town is not on this list, call and ask: the answer is often yes.