Rental registration in Passaic, NJ

Section 231-24 requires every landlord subject to Chapter 231 to file complete tenant registrations for all dwelling units and to submit copies of the filed registrations to the Rent Leveling Board annually. No rent increase is permissible unless the landlord has complied.

Added by Ordinance 2494-25 in September 2025, so a seller who has never filed one is the normal case rather than a warning sign — but the increase is unavailable until it is done, and the 30-day notice under §231-25 must carry the landlord's certification that the registration is in order *and* a certification that the unit substantially complies with the city's Property Maintenance Code. That second certification is what turns a deferred-maintenance building into one that cannot raise rent at all, which is a real underwriting constraint and not a filing fee.

In effect since 2025-09-02.

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