Occupants - Allowed in Addition to the Lease/Rental Agreement

Post date: Jul 26, 2016 5:57:49 AM

Tenants may be vulnerable to eviction if they have more people living with them than their lease specifies. However, the Ordinance provides that one person in addition to those permitted in the lease may live with a tenant if it is their spouse, domestic partner, child, grandchild, parent, grandparent, brother or sister. The tenant must notify the landlord in writing about the additional person and state the nature of the relationship.

These relatives do not have a claim to continue as tenants when the last tenant on the original lease moves out unless the relative has lived with the tenant for more than a year and the tenant has died or become incapacitated. Otherwise, the relatives need to move-out at the time the tenant vacates or the landlord may treat the unit as vacant and demand a credit check, new lease, increased rent and new security deposit from the relatives.

The tenant may also have a full-time live-in assistant for medical purposes certified by the tenant's physician as one additional occupant. The live-in assistant must move out of the unit when the tenant vacates it - no matter why the tenant vacates the unit.