Irvington, NJ — landlord and rental rules

Irvington caps an annual increase at 4% of the prior year's rent where the landlord supplies heat and 3% where the tenant pays for it, and at 2% where the tenant or all adult tenants are 65 or over. Chapter 472 exempts dwellings of two units or fewer, and owner-occupied three- and four-unit dwellings.

Dwellings of two units or fewer are exempt, and a three- or four-unit dwelling with at least one owner in occupation is exempt as well — so an absentee-owned three-family is the smallest building covered, and an owner moving in takes a four-family out of the chapter.

Who pays for heat is a term of the lease and it moves the cap by a full point, so the rent roll and the utility arrangement have to be read together. Two things this chapter does not have, and buyers assume it does: there is no new-construction exemption — the old one was repealed on 9 April 1985 — and no substantial-rehabilitation exemption. The chapter was amended in its entirety on 23 January 2023 and further amended on 9 March 2026.

Annual cap

4%

Unit counts

3+ units

Owner-occupied exemption

Yes

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.

Chapter 472 as read contains no vacancy-decontrol or turnover-increase provision in any of its fifteen sections. The DCA survey records Irvington as having vacancy decontrol until the unit is re-rented. The two cannot both be right.

One loose thread points the survey's way: §472-9I(1) refers in passing to owners "entitled to an increase in the base rent as a result of improving vacant housing spaces", but no operative provision in the chapter grants such an increase, and the reference appears to survive from the new-construction section repealed in 1985. This is exactly the kind of conflict that decides whether a below-market rent roll is an opportunity or a permanent condition, so it is recorded rather than resolved — put it to the Rent Leveling Board in writing before an offer depends on the answer.

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.

Registration is annual, filed between the first Monday in January and the first Friday in March. It is free if timely, $300 a property after the first Friday in March and $500 after the first Monday in July — and no rent increase is permitted anywhere on the property in a calendar year the landlord failed to register on time.

Losing every increase on the property for a whole year is a larger number than any of the fees, and it is a risk that transfers with the building. Registration requires a Certificate of Housing Compliance for the property and a Certificate of Habitability for each unit, matching the tenants on the rent roll — so the filing is only as available as the inspections behind it. An owner-occupied three- or four-family, exempt from the cap, still files a registration waiver every year. A building of five or more units needs a state-licensed superintendent, at a $150 licence fee.

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.