Rental registration in Elizabeth, NJ

Every covered dwelling registers annually as of 1 January, filed by 1 March, and no increase may be charged or collected unless the landlord has complied. Separately, the purchaser of any property must obtain a certificate of occupancy before the transfer.

The resale certificate is the buyer's obligation, not the seller's, and it is a closing-path item: a zoning-officer inspection, and for a property of three or more units proof of a current New Jersey registration certificate and liability insurance. A rental one- or two-family or a multiple dwelling built before 1978 must also show a lead-free or lead-safe certificate, which is the statewide lead rule arriving through a municipal door. The fee is $60 plus $20 for each additional unit. Elizabeth does not require a certificate of occupancy on a change of tenant — one granted stays in effect so long as the use does not change. The rent-control registration itself carries no stated fee; hardship, capital-improvement and rehabilitation-exemption applications cost $50 below $5,000 and $100 above.

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.

Unit counts

1+ units

Owner-occupied exemption

No