The Rental Housing Clinic defines over-occupancy as “too many occupants as determined by the City of East Lansing’s zoning code for rental licensing purposes.”
Basically, your house is licensed for a certain number of people, and if you choose to have someone live there but not be on the lease in order to drop the rent, that constitutes over-occupancy. East Lansing takes this very seriously, and if it is the tenants who instigated the over-occupancy, not the landlord, fines range from $250-1000 PER DAY! EACH ROOMMATE could be fined up to $30,000. That’s serious money!
If you have more questions about over-occupancy, check out the Rental Housing Clinic’s over-occupancy pamphlet that gives all the gory details. They have tons of pamphlets on every topic imaginable, but this one is under “East Lansing Housing Law.”
