A City of Austin ordinance states that no more than six unrelated people may live in a residence. In addition, there is a minimum square footage requirement for each person living in a residence.

For families, the guidelines are slightly more complicated. In 2003, the City of Austin adopted a reasonable occupancy policy for residential property that allows two adults plus one child up to the age of 24 months to live in a one-bedroom unit. The City of Austin Equal Employment/Fair Housing Office uses this occupancy policy as its standard in determining cause in the familial status complaints it investigates.

HUD’s guidance on occupancy standards states that “an occupancy policy of two persons in a bedroom, as a general rule, is reasonable under the Fair Housing Act.” However, HUD also states that other factors such as the “number and size of sleeping areas or bedrooms and the overall size of the dwelling unit” should also be considered when determining what is reasonable.

Please call the ATC telephone counseling line at 512-474-1961 to discuss your specific situation.

Is there any law limiting the residents to 6?

Please visit HUD’s website for statistics on fair housing complaints. This advertisement was part of a national campaign developed by the National Fair Housing Alliance and was approved for publication by HUD.

If you had a written lease that stated “no pets unless approved by the landlord,” the landlord could argue that you breached the contract. If the landlord wanted to keep your deposit for damages, she still had an obligation to send that within 30 days.

when we moved out we did everything by the book, gave her a written 30day notice and forwarding address. we tried to arrange a walk-thru but neither her nor the property manager seemed interested and were unavailable. when we left the keys, we inlcuded a letter itemizing everything we did to leave the house clean and neat. we even did some touch up painting.

30 days passed and we didn’t hear a word. we spoke a couple of times with the property manager who seemed to be avoided our calls and she said she would be back to us . now, 6 weeks later, she claims there is a nagative balance on the the security deposit because we were in breach of contract – having pets – and they had to repaint and get new air conditioning ducts because of pet hair. the air conditioning ducts had been leaking, from the ceiling, an ongoing condition the owner knew about. i think that is the real reason. not pet hair.
does she have a claim because we had pets and didn’t pay a pet deposit, even though she knew? she didn’t contact us at all within 30 days-could we owe her money? should we still try to get our deposit?