Does it matter if my suite is not legal?

It affects insurance, financing and what the City can require of the owner. An undisclosed rental unit can be a coverage problem if there is a fire or a flood. Some lenders will not count the rental income, and an insured mortgage may not be available. Municipalities can require an unauthorized suite to be brought up to code or removed. It also affects what a buyer will pay.

What size can a secondary suite be in BC?

Under the BC Building Code 2024, a secondary suite is limited to 80 square metres, which is about 861 square feet, and its floor area must be less than 80 percent of the floor area of the other dwelling unit in the house. A basement conversion that takes up most of the home does not qualify as a secondary suite under those provisions.

How many suites can a Penticton house have?

Only one secondary suite is permitted per single detached dwelling. A carriage house is a separate form of accessory dwelling with its own requirements and approvals. Zoning rules change, so confirm the current position for a specific property with the City rather than relying on a general answer, including this one.

Does a secondary suite in Penticton need its own parking space?

Not since June 2024. The City removed the on-site parking requirement for carriage houses and secondary suites as part of its small-scale multi-unit housing changes. Before that a secondary suite required a parking space in addition to the parking for the house. This is one of the areas where older online advice is now wrong.

Should I disclose an unauthorized suite when selling?

Yes, and accurately. Trying to describe it vaguely while implying it is legal is where sellers get into genuine trouble, because a buyer who relied on that has a real complaint. Say what it is, say what you know and do not know about permits, and price accordingly. The MLS fields draw the distinction between a suite, a legal suite and an unauthorized one for exactly this reason.

How do I find out whether a suite was permitted?

Ask the City for the permit history on the property. That is the record that settles it, rather than a previous owner's recollection or the way a listing was worded. If the work was done under permit there will be a file. If there is no file, that itself is the answer, and it is better to know before you write an offer than during a subject removal period.

Legal and unauthorized suites in BC

Q: What makes a suite legal in BC?

Two separate things have to line up. Zoning has to permit a suite on that lot, and the suite has to have been built under permit to the building code. Zoning governs where a suite is allowed. The building code governs how it must be built. A suite can satisfy one and fail the other, and people commonly assume that meeting the code is enough on its own.

Q: Can I put a suite in a house on a septic system?

In Penticton a secondary suite must be connected to a community sewer system unless the lot is 830 square metres or larger and meets the requirements for an on-site sewer management system under the Public Health Act. Septic capacity is a real constraint on rural and large-lot properties and it is worth checking before you count on suite income.

By Dan Jones · September 12, 2026

Bottom line: a suite is legal when the zoning permits one on that lot and the suite was built under permit to the building code, and those are two separate tests that people routinely collapse into one. Zoning governs where a suite is allowed. The building code governs how it has to be built. Under the BC Building Code 2024, which took effect March 8, 2024, a secondary suite is capped at 80 square metres, about 861 square feet, and must be less than 80% of the floor area of the other dwelling unit. In Penticton one secondary suite is permitted per single detached dwelling, and since June 2024 neither a secondary suite nor a carriage house requires an on-site parking space, which is a real change from the advice still sitting on most websites. Where a suite is unauthorized, the consequences land on insurance, financing and what the City can require, and all three show up in the price.

I am Dan Jones, a REALTOR with Royal LePage Locations West in Penticton, licence number 1118346. I built houses for twenty-four years as a Red Seal journeyman carpenter before I was licensed in 2004, so when I am walking a house with a suite in it I am looking at egress, ceiling height, separation and where the furnace is, not just at whether there is a second kitchen.

I am not a building official. What follows is how this affects a sale and what to go and check. For whether a specific suite complies, the City is the authority.

The two tests

This is the distinction worth getting right, because almost every misunderstanding I encounter comes from missing it.

Zoning tells you where. A local government’s zoning bylaw decides whether a suite is permitted on that lot at all, how many, and under what conditions.

The building code tells you how. The BC Building Code sets the construction standards: fire separation, egress, ceiling heights, smoke alarms, ventilation.

Meeting the code does not make a suite legal if the zoning does not allow one. Being in a zone that allows suites does not make an unpermitted suite legal either. Both have to be satisfied, and a building permit is the evidence that the second one was.

BC has had secondary suite provisions in the building code since 1995, so this is not a new framework. What has moved recently is the zoning side, and it has moved toward permitting more.

What the BC Building Code 2024 sets

The current code took effect March 8, 2024 and applies to projects with permits applied for after that date.

For secondary suites it carries two limits people run into:

Maximum 80 square metres, roughly 861 square feet
Less than 80% of the floor area of the other dwelling unit in the house

The second one catches basement conversions in smaller homes. If the suite would be nearly as large as the rest of the house, it does not fit the secondary suite provisions, and the project becomes something else with different requirements.

What Penticton allows

The City has moved substantially on this, and the changes are recent enough that most of what is written online is out of date.

One secondary suite per single detached dwelling.

No on-site parking requirement. As of June 2024, parking requirements for both carriage houses and secondary suites were removed. Previously a secondary suite required a parking space in addition to the parking required for the house. If you were told a suite needs its own stall, that was true and is not any more.

Carriage houses are a separate thing from secondary suites, with their own rules, and they require planning approval through a development permit.

Servicing matters. A secondary suite must be connected to a community sewer system unless the lot is 830 square metres or larger and meets the requirements for an on-site sewer management system under the Public Health Act. On rural and large-lot properties, septic capacity is a genuine constraint and it is worth establishing before anyone builds a budget around rental income.

Zoning is property specific and it changes. The City offers a pre-application meeting, and for anything you intend to rely on financially, confirm it with them for that address rather than with a general description like this one.

What an unauthorized suite actually does

Three consequences, and they compound.

Insurance. An undisclosed rental unit is a coverage problem. If a fire or a flood starts in a suite the insurer did not know about, you are arguing about coverage at the worst possible moment. This is straightforward to avoid by telling your insurer, and it is regularly not done.

Financing. This is where it reaches the price. Lenders differ, but many will not count rental income from an unauthorized suite when qualifying a buyer, and insured mortgage options can narrow. A buyer who was counting on that income to qualify may simply not be able to buy the house. That shrinks your buyer pool, and a smaller pool is a lower price.

The City. Municipalities can require an unauthorized suite to be brought up to code or removed. That risk transfers with the property, and a buyer’s lawyer will point it out.

None of this means an unauthorized suite makes a house unsellable. Plenty of them sell. It means the suite is worth less than a legal one, and pretending otherwise does not survive a financing condition.

If you are selling with one

Be accurate and be early.

The MLS fields draw the distinction deliberately: a listing can say there is a suite, that it is a legal suite, or that it is unauthorized. Those are different representations and they carry different weight.

What does not work is a listing that implies a legal suite where none exists. That is where a seller gets into real difficulty, because a buyer who relied on the representation has a genuine complaint, and the discovery usually happens during financing rather than after closing.

What I would do:

Find out the permit history from the City before listing, rather than relying on what you were told when you bought.
Disclose accurately, including saying you do not know where you genuinely do not.
Price it as what it is. An unauthorized suite has value. It does not have legal suite value.
If legalising it is realistic, get a quote. Sometimes it is a manageable amount of work and it widens the buyer pool considerably. Sometimes ceiling height or egress makes it impossible, and knowing that is also useful.

If you are buying

Ask for the permit history. That record settles the question, and a seller’s recollection does not.

Then look at the things that decide whether legalising is even possible: ceiling height, window egress from bedrooms, fire separation between units, a separate entrance, and whether the furnace and hot water tank serve both units and how they are separated. Those are the items that turn a legalisation project from paperwork into construction.

And tell your lender early. Finding out during a financing condition that the rental income does not count is a bad week.

Where this sits in an older house

A suite is one item on a longer list that older South Okanagan homes tend to carry, and it interacts with the others. A 60 amp service will not support a second dwelling unit. Knob and tube or aluminium branch wiring complicates any legalisation. Poly B affects insurance independently.

The full older-house list is here, and if you are renting part of your home there are tax consequences at sale time worth knowing about in advance: capital gains when you sell your home in BC.

Requirements above come from the BC Building Code and the City of Penticton and are current as of September 2026. Zoning and code requirements change, and they are property specific. Confirm with the City for your address before relying on any of it.

If you want me to walk a property with a suite and tell you what I see, email me at dano007@shaw.ca or call 250.488.0226.