Investor · South Jersey · Member since 2014 · 12 posts · 3 votes
For all NJ Landlords, I recently bought my first property and should have it rented shortly. I'm reading through the NOLO information for NJ Rental Laws and one of the things it states is that if you do not live in the same county as the rental property you must provide a contact info/address of a person in that county authorized to accept notices, etc from the tenant. Below is the text from N.J.A.C. 5:29 (2013)
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If the address of any record owner is not located in the county in which the dwelling is located, the name and address of a person who resides in the county and is authorized to accept notices from a tenant, to issue receipts for those notices and to accept service of process on behalf of the out-of-county record owner(s) are as follows:
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I just live in the next county over and only around 35 minutes from the property. For those NJ landlords, do you appoint someone in the same county as the property to meet this regulation or just ignore it.
We own 2 SFRs in Trenton, and our real estate/eviction attorney never mentioned anything like that. However, the county certainly has records of us as the owners and how to reach us, as we pay for a landlord license every year, as well as chimney/heater certifications, and of course, the tax records. Our tenants are able to reach us through an address for notices. Unless those notices come from our attorney - then they communicate with him.
Check with a real estate attorney for your county.
I looked into this further and it is part of the NJ Landlord Registration Act where you have to have a contact to accept notices, etc in the county where the property resides. I'm assuming your lawyer handles this for you or you have an address in the same county as the property.
If you aren't properly registered, your tenant can use that as a defense if you want to evict.
I will check with a lawyer on the minimum requirements. Maybe a PO Box will suffice.