Bayonne, NJ — landlord and rental rules

Bayonne's Chapter 16, rewritten in 2023, controls only a "covered rental unit" — one controlled under the 1973 ordinance and its successors that "continues to house a tenant who has not vacated the rental unit or been legally evicted from the rental unit since June 30, 2011". Where a unit is covered, the increase is CPI-based and capped at 5.5% of the current base rent.

Dwellings containing four or fewer rental units are exempt outright, so the two-, three- and four-family stock a small investor buys here is outside the ordinance whatever its tenancy history.

This is what makes Bayonne unlike the rest of Hudson County, and it cuts the buyer's way: control lapsed for every unit vacant on 30 June 2011, so for most buildings on the market the chapter is dormant unless a sitting tenant has been in place continuously for fifteen years. Ask for tenancy start dates, not the rent roll alone — that column decides whether the ordinance applies at all. Hardship needs operating expenses above 60% of gross annual income, and capital-improvement surcharges are capped together at 20% of the monthly base rent.

Annual cap

5.5%

Vacancy decontrol

Yes — rent resets on vacancy

Unit counts

5+ units

New Jersey has no statewide rent control. Roughly 100 municipalities impose their own, with caps, exemptions and vacancy rules that differ town by town.

This municipality has not been researched. Read the municipal code — or call the clerk — before assuming rents can be reset on purchase or turnover.

A covered unit becomes "forever decontrolled" on the voluntary vacancy or the legal eviction of the rent-controlled tenant, on an approved application for permanent decontrol supported by proof of the vacancy.

Permanent, not until re-rental — which is why the covered class only ever shrinks, and why a turnover during the hold is worth more here than the same turnover across the river. It still needs the Rent Control Office to approve the application, and the Anti-Eviction Act still requires cause for the eviction route.

Vacancy decontrol

Yes — rent resets on vacancy

The New Jersey Anti-Eviction Act requires good cause for every residential eviction statewide, with no small-landlord exemption. A month-to-month tenant cannot be removed simply by ending the term.

Practical effect for a buyer: an occupied unit conveys with its tenant, and a business plan that depends on delivering the building vacant needs a lawful cause for each unit before it is a plan.

A landlord of any dwelling that includes a covered rental unit must file a completed Registry of Rent-Controlled Tenants with the Rent Control Office on or before 1 December each year, and give a copy to every tenant listed on it.

This is where the covered class is written down, so the seller's past filings are the document that answers whether the ordinance binds a unit — ask for them in diligence rather than reconstructing tenancy dates from leases. It is in addition to the statewide landlord registration under N.J.S.A. 46:8-27, not instead of it. The ordinance states no fee for the filing.

Pre-1978 one- and two-family rentals must be inspected for lead-based paint hazards at tenant turnover or every three years, whichever comes first. The certificate is valid for two years.

Budget the inspection and any remediation into the turnover cost of every pre-1978 unit, not into a one-off line at closing.

Construction

Built before 1978

In effect since 2022-07-22.