Inspection in Bloomfield, NJ

Chapter 431 requires every rental unit to be registered, forbids renting one until a certificate of code compliance issues, and requires each unit to be inspected at least once every three years or on a change of occupancy.

The turnover inspection is the item that bites a schedule: a unit cannot be re-let until the certificate issues, so a vacancy assumption has to include the inspection queue, and that queue is exactly when a five-yearly reset would otherwise be taken. $60 per unit, renewed every three years or on a change of tenant; $100 per unit where the owner fails to renew or to give notice of the change; $60 for a reinspection where the first one finds the unit out of compliance. No fee for an owner-occupied unit where the owner is on the deed. Chapter 431 was itself amended in its entirety on 19 May 2025.

Fee per unit

$60

A building in which three or more units of dwelling space are occupied by people living independently of each other is a multiple dwelling under the Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law. It must be registered with the DCA's Bureau of Housing Inspection, recertified annually by 1 July, and inspected on a cycle set by its own record: seven years where no violation is found or all are abated at the first reinspection, five where they are abated by the second or third, and two where they are not.

Three or more units of dwelling space — so the two-family a small investor starts with is outside this regime and the three-family is inside it, which is the single largest step change in operating obligations in the New Jersey small-multifamily market. A group of ten or more two-unit buildings on one parcel or on contiguous parcels in common ownership also counts. Registered hotels, certain condominium and co-operative sections of not more than four units meeting fire-separation criteria, and certain non-profit retirement-community buildings of three storeys or fewer are excluded.

The tier is the fact worth underwriting: a building bought with an open violation history is on a two-year cycle rather than a seven-year one, and that is an inherited operating cost the rent roll does not show. Note that the DCA's own web pages and guidance still describe a flat five-year cycle — the statute has been tiered since 2019, and the commissioner retains power to revert multiple dwellings to five years by regulation, so confirm the cycle for a specific building with the Bureau rather than reading it off either sentence. The statutory inspection fee is $33 a unit for the first seven units, $21 for units 8 to 24, $18 for 25 to 48 and $12 above that, capped at $65 for an owner-occupied three-unit and $80 for an owner-occupied four-unit where the owner's household income is under 80% of the county median, with a $40 per-unit reinspection fee after the first reinspection; the commissioner may reset all of them by rule, and the registration fee has no statutory amount at all. A new owner must register within 20 days of the transfer.

Fee per unit

$33

Unit counts

3+ units

Highest tier

7 years — no violations, or all abated at the first reinspection

Middle tier

5 years — abated by the second or third reinspection

Lowest tier

2 years — not abated by the third reinspection

Annual certification

1 July