Tenant wants to move his new girlfriend and two kids in

[Samantha Klein]

One of my tenants wants to move his new girlfriend and her small children into my 2 bedroom apartment, it's only him there now. Am I legally allowed to increase his rent a little to cover the extra water usage? 

[Mike H.]

Technically, I'm guessing it depends on how your lease is stated. Do you have anything in there that explicitly states he is the only one allowed in the property? i.e. 1 adult occupant only?

If not, I'd ask your attorney. You may be out of luck there. But if it turns out you can't, you may be able to tell your tenant that he is the only one on the lease and he can't have anyone else there. Then see what he says. 

Most tenants don't know the laws either. So if it seems likely to be true, then tell him that and then tell him you will amend the lease to allow them to stay if they pay the additional water amount of $25/mo or whatever.

I guess the other question is would you have rented to him if he'd have had a girlfriend with 2 kids? Do you have a higher rental rate based on the number of occupants? 

That seems odd to me. I understand why you might want that given the water cost going up. But i'm not so sure if thats legal or not. I would think you'd have to do that as a water fee or something and not as rent.

I don't think you can charge single occupants less than say couples or couples with kids. Never really had it come up though so I don't know for sure if there's an issue there or not. But I'll be interested to see how other people respond to this one. :-)