Rental registration in Irvington, NJ

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.

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