Rental registration in Hoboken, NJ

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

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