Atlantic City permits an annual increase equal to the increase in the housing component of the CPI for the region, with no hearing — but only where the landlord serves the calculation on the tenant and files it with the Office of Landlord-Tenant Affairs at least 30 days beforehand. Missing that makes the increase void for the year and repayable.
Chapter 41 covers apartments generally, efficiencies included, and the only unit-count carve-outs are an owner-occupied duplex or triplex and the post-1987 new-construction rule — so a non-owner-occupied two-family is covered.
The "price index" is not the headline CPI: §41-1 defines it as the housing component of the CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers for the region, published quarterly by the Office, and the landlord must use the latest one published. The use-it-or-lose-it rule is the underwriting trap here — a seller who has skipped notices has not banked the foregone increases, and they cannot be recovered.
Exemptions
- Any owner-occupied duplex or triplex (§41-8D).
- Apartments in buildings of three or more units constructed after 25 June 1987, per N.J.S.A. 2A:42-84.2 (§41-8C). The city's own webpage says four or more units; the ordinance says three, and the ordinance governs.
- Federally subsidised housing including Section 8, buildings with HUD mortgages, and apartments renovated under the Rental Rehabilitation Program.
- All public housing.
- Seasonal rentals under N.J.S.A. 2A:18-59.2.
- Vacancy decontrol
- Yes — rent resets on vacancy
- Unit counts
- 1+ units
- Owner-occupied exemption
- Yes