Updated onJuly 7th, 2020

What New Jersey Renters Need to Know About Eviction

Your landlord can evict you quickly for failing to pay rent, but has to follow strict waiting periods if they are evicting you for any other reason.

New Jersey law generally makes it difficult for a landlord to evict a tenant: landlords must give tenants specific types of notices and allow tenants time to remedy any issue before they can file an eviction lawsuit and get a court order to evict you.

Reasons for eviction

Under the New Jersey Anti-Eviction Act, a landlord can evict you for the following reasons:

Failure to pay rent.
Being disorderly, destroying the peace for the landlord, other tenants or the neighborhood
Willfully, or by gross negligence, destroying or damaging the premises
Breaching the landlord’s rules and regulations, so long as you have agreed to them in writing.
Breaching the terms of the lease.
Failing to pay rent after the landlord makes a reasonable rent increase.
Failing to leave your unit after the premises has a serious violation of health or safety standards.
Owner seeks to stop using the premises for residential use.
After the lease term ends, and after receiving written notice, refusing to accept reasonable changes to the lease terms.
Habitually failing to pay rent on time.
Owner seeks to convert premises to a condominium or a co-op.
Owner seeks to personally live in the unit, or sell the unit to another person who will live in it.
You are convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, drug use, possession or manufacture in the premises, assault or violent threats, terroristic threats or theft of landlord’s or other tenant’s property.

Initial notices and waiting period

If you fail to pay rent, or fail to agree to a reasonable increase in rent after your lease expires, your landlord does not have to give you any notice before filing an eviction lawsuit.

In any other situation, your landlord does have to send you specific notices at particular times before he or she can file an eviction lawsuit. If your landlord fails to properly send the notices, or fails to include all the necessary information, this will be what’s called a “defense to the eviction,” meaning that they’ll have to start the process over from the beginning, allowing you to stay in the apartment for longer.

Notice to cease

In other states this called a notice to cure breach or quit, and it’s basically a document that says you have to fix the issue or else they will evict you. Landlords are only required to send you a Notice to Cease when you are disorderly, breach your lease, breach your landlord’s rules or regulations, or are habitually late in paying rent.

The notice needs to spell out exactly what you’re doing (or not doing) that violates the either lease or certain laws. If you do what the letter requests, then the landlord cannot evict you. This is backed up mainly by previous court cases in New Jersey, such as 1988’s A.P. Development Corp. v. Band or RWB Newton Assoc. v. Gunn, which is also from 1988.

Notice to quit and demand for possession

If you fail to resolve the issue after getting a notice to cease, the landlord will then send you a notice to quit. The law just says they have to wait a "reasonable time" between sending you a notice to cease and a notice to quit. This isn’t specifically defined and is more favorable to landlords, so expect to get the second notice pretty much right after the first. This one ends your tenancy and tells you when you have to be out by.

The Notice to Quit has to include a Demand for Possession, which is simply language that makes clear to you that you must move out by a certain date so that the landlord and take possession of the premises. It also has to re-state the reason for eviction.

Lawsuit

The New Jersey Anti-Eviction Act gives you some time before your landlord can file the eviction lawsuit. The Notice to Quit must tell you how much time you have before the landlord will file the suit.

The length of time that you get depends on the violation:

Disorderly tenant: 3 days
Willful or grossly negligent destruction of the premises: 3 days
Breach of the landlord’s rules & regulations: 1 month
Breach of the lease: 1 month
Remaining in unit with Housing or Health Code violation: 3 months
Owner seeks to stop using the premises for residential purposes: 18 months
Refusal to accept reasonable lease changes after the lease ends: 1 month
Habitual late rent payments: 1 month
Conversion to condominium/co-op: 3 years
Owner seeks to personally live in the unit, or sell to someone who will: 2 months
Drug use, possession, or manufacture: 3 days
Assault or terroristic threats: 3 days

Whatever your court date, whether you get a postponement or not, the hearing is your only chance to fight the eviction. If you don’t show up, the court will give your landlord a judgment in his or her favor, by default.

If you do show up to your hearing, but do not have any valid defenses to the eviction, your landlord will then get a judgment of possession against you, which means your landlord can evict you after taking a few final steps.

Warrant for removal

After securing a judgement for possession, your landlord must apply to the court for a warrant of possession, which will allow them to remove you from the property. The application is pretty simple for the landlord once they have the judgment of possession, and the court can issue the warrant for removal in as little as 3 days after the judgment.

Once you receive the warrant, you will have at least 3 days to leave the property. If you do not voluntarily leave the property, a court officer will come and evict you. The warrant gives the officer the power to arrest you if you refuse to leave, and if you are not home at the time, the court officer can padlock the door, and even remove your personal items from the property.

How notices must be delivered

If your landlord doesn’t send you the notices properly, it is a violation of the Anti-Eviction Act, and they cannot legally proceed with an eviction lawsuit. Both notices must be:

Given to you directly
Left at your house, apartment, or mobile home with someone who is at least 14 years old
Sent by certified mail. Your landlord can send the notice via regular and certified mail at the same time, and even if you don’t pick up the certified mail, if the regular mail isn’t returned to the landlord, the court will consider the notice properly served.