Can I live in an illegal unit to meet the residency requirement?

[Dylan Cadet]

I haven't been able to find the answer to this online. So I'm hoping someone here might know. Does the residency requirement for primary housing require living in a legal unit? In Chicago, there are quite a few buildings with illegal garden units, and I thought it might be possible to live in one of those while I'm trying to make it legal with the city but would that be against FHA guidelines or conventional loan requirements? I'm also unsure who to ask this question, is that attorney territory or MLO?