Legal definition of "Owner Occupied"

[Jay Herman]

Hello! So, I have a rather specific question for you guys that I couldn't find by searching this forum/Googling.

I'm in the market to buy a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom house in a college area. The 4 bedrooms are already rented for the term of August 2016-August 2017. However, since I will be using a FHA mortgage to purchase the property I am required to occupy the residence.

If I were to purchase this property, I'm strongly considering living in the home's garage for at least a year. The tenants would all be okay with this -- and I don't mind lowering my standard of living (I'm 21, single, and was homeless for a year).

However, would living in the garage qualify as occupancy? I suppose it would be my primary residence, but I figure that garages aren't up to code to live in -- but then again I'm not *renting* the garage to anyone, I just choose to sleep there. My intent is not to commit mortgage fraud, but to simply to see if this is legal.