2 rules apply — the local one first, then the county and state rules that bind alongside it.
Verified on 2026-08-17.
Ordinance O.2215-2024, adopted 25 April 2024, rewrote Edison's annual multiple-dwelling registration: a building of five or more rental units registers each year at $100 per unit, giving the owner's name, address and telephone number and the square footage, sleeping rooms and kitchen facilities of every unit. The fee is waived where the owner is over 66 and lives on the property.
$100 a unit a year is the largest recurring municipal registration charge in this tranche by an order of magnitude — a twelve-unit building pays $1,200 annually, which is a real line in an operating statement rather than a filing fee, and it lands on exactly the size of building a small investor moves up into. It is being litigated: owners of more than 8,000 units sued the township in Middlesex County Superior Court arguing the fee is unlawful, the information demands improper and the inspection requirement vague. A repealer was introduced and then withdrawn. So budget the fee and check its status, in that order.
In effect since 2024-04-25.
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Verified on 2026-08-17.
The Landlord Identity Law requires a certificate of registration for every residential rental — filed with the municipal clerk for a one-unit rental or a non-owner-occupied two-unit premises, and with the DCA's Bureau of Housing Inspection for a multiple dwelling of three or more units. Until it is filed no judgment for possession may be entered: the court continues the case for up to 90 days and then dismisses it.
Registration reaches a one-unit rental and a two-family alike, and the exemption is narrower than it looks. N.J.S.A. 46:8-27 excludes owner-occupied two-unit premises from the definition of "landlord" — but N.J.S.A. 46:8-28.5 separately requires every owner of a tenant-occupied one- or two-family property, expressly including a two-family with one owner-occupied unit, to register with the Bureau of Housing Inspection, unless the property is certified free of lead-based paint, was constructed in or after 1978, or is a seasonal rental let for under six months a year.
The registration is filed within 30 days, or at the creation of the first tenancy in a newly built or reconstructed building, and a copy of the certificate goes to every tenant — again at the creation of each new tenancy, and within seven days of any amendment. An amended certificate is due within 20 days of a change, which for a buyer means the closing itself: a new owner is a change. No tenant can waive any of this. Treat it as a closing task rather than a filing to catch up on later, because the sanction is not the fee — it is that an eviction cannot be completed until the record is right, and the court's 90-day continuance is the whole of the remedy.
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