So, with a little help from the City Council this week, the city tightened its rental rules.

The council voted unanimously to add a few key phrases to the city code to thwart the numerous attempts to get around the "owner-occupied" requirement for accessory apartments.

"It's just a clarification of what we already had in place," City Councilwoman Margaret Black said Wednesday. "People are creative, and they try to find ways to get around things."

Orem's "owner occupied" rule is intended to prevent single-family homes from turning into duplexes, thus maintaining the stability of single-family neighborhoods in the city of 90,000.

But owners, often looking to snag student renters - many of whom attend Utah Valley State College in Orem and Brigham Young University in Provo - have skirted the law by creating their own definitions of "owner occupied," city officials say.

Some have given a fractional ownership interest to tenants, some have put the title in the name of a trust or corporation while others have wondered if their children could qualify as the owner occupants.

The revised ordinance clarifies that dwellings are owner occupied only if the owners use the residences as their primary home and primary mailing address. If they meet that requirement, the accessory apartment can be rented to up to three unrelated individuals, said Orem Assistant City Attorney Steve Earl.

"There is a considerable problem with the two colleges down here," said City Councilman Les Campbell. "You move into a residential neighborhood thinking you're going to buy a single home, and then you find out you've got three homes that are quasi-apartments."

Provo has seen its share of accessory-apartment issues, too. In fact, the City Council is set to rehash laws regarding the often-complicated system again this month, according to the council's executive director, Terry Ann Harward.

"You're going to find [the problems] anywhere you have a university town," Harward said.

According to Orem's revised ordinance, children or relatives of the owner - and any person (other than a spouse or child of the owner) who is listed on the title but hasn't paid for an interest in the property - aren't considered owners.

"My honest feeling is there's always going to be people who try to get away with it," Campbell said.

toddh@sltrib.com