In some countries, like a poster mentioned, they include the “built” size, not the actual liveable size. Sometimes the balconies are included in that, and it is misleading. Two bedrooms in 900sqf liveable is one thing vs 3 bedrooms in 900sqf built area including balconies.
... Huh. This actually explains something I'd been confused about before; people on this site claiming that a 1000sqft apartment was small. Which, I suppose, if you include the entire footprint of the apartment including balconies, sure. It would never have occurred to me to do it like that.
Until you measure the apartment later and find out that a) it's much smaller and b) it doesn't matter because you rent the apartment as seen, not as advertised.
Well, in Germany at least - if the living space differs drastically, that is at least 10%, you can lower the rent accordingly and make a demand for a refund of the entire rent you overpaid since you moved in - and you probably should also make a second case for damages due to purposeful deception.
A consumer doesn't buy anything from a business "as seen", that is not a thing over here. There are binding rules to protect consumers from malevolent sellers or landlords, and legal obligations you can't subvert by tricking customers into purchasing something different from what was advertised.
Maybe it’s different for rentals but you’d think the banks would also want accurate data on the properties they’re mortgaging…and cities for tax revenue…so strange!
For big commercial rental properties they probably don’t care because it doesn’t really push the property value.
I don’t think it really changes the property value because those interior walls are usually cosmetic and not load bearing. If the bank has to foreclose, the next buyer will be well aware they can strip those walls out for nothing relative to the cost of buying the building.
I’m doubtful it pushes the tax revenue for the same reason, everyone is already evaluating based on what it could be.
Smaller units are probably just not worth the effort to manage. It’s a lot of over head to start auditing old duplexes where the owner has a property or two and isn’t a giant company with a whole compliance department.
Why? Banks and cities only care about the price. They also want price to be under and over estimated respectively, neither would want the accurate price, even less so the accurate area.
There are property taxes in the US, they are levied on the appraisal price of the property, not on the living area. You know the price is reasonable from the comps. As you're overestimating or the appraisal is already at the legal cap (in case of taxes) you don't really care about the living area.
There are no US-wide property taxes. However, almost every home in the US has to pay property taxes to at least one level of government. That's what pandaman was referring to when they said the city (which would be levying the taxes) would want the footprint overstated so they could get more tax revenue