Hoboken, NJ — landlord and rental rules

Hoboken permits no increase greater than 5% or the change in the CPI over the lease term, whichever is less. Chapter 155 defines a dwelling as any building rented to one or more tenants or family units, and its exemption list contains no unit count and no owner-occupancy exemption.

The widely repeated claim that Hoboken covers only buildings of four or more units, and exempts owner-occupied buildings of four or fewer, is not in the ordinance — §155-1 defines a dwelling as one rented to "one or more tenants or family units" and §155-2 lists eight exemptions, none of which is a unit count or owner occupancy. An owner living in their own two-family here is still inside the chapter.

The base rent is what was charged on 1 October 1985, or the first rent charged after that date. A capital-improvement surcharge may not raise a base rent by more than a third in any twelve months.

Annual cap

5%

Unit counts

1+ units

Owner-occupied exemption

No

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.

On a tenant vacating, the unit is decontrolled — but the new rental is limited to an increase of 25% over the last rent the vacating tenant paid, the new rent becomes the base rent, and no unit may be decontrolled more than once in any three-year period.

Three conditions decide whether the increase is available at all: the dwelling must be registered under §155-30, the vacancy must be voluntary and free of harassment or duress or else a lawful eviction (a holdover dispossession does not qualify), and the three-year clock must have run. The current chapter controls over the DCA's narrower summary. Separately, Chapter 154 requires most vacant units to be re-rented within 60 days, requires notice after 30 days, and authorizes inspection on seven days' notice; it is an anti-warehousing programme, not a routine certificate at every turnover.

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 rent registration statement is due each 30 June. Since 1 January 2023 a failure to register costs double the annual fee and may lead to the CPI increase and the vacancy-decontrol increase both being denied.

The fee is $50 a year per property plus $10 a unit for a property of nine units or fewer, or $15 a unit at ten or more; a vacancy-decontrol filing is a further $50, and a certificate of substantial compliance from the construction officer is $25 an apartment. What matters more than the money is what non-registration forfeits: this is the one town in the tranche where missing a filing can cost both the annual increase and the turnover increase, so the seller's registration history is a diligence item and not a formality.

Fee per unit

$10

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.