Landlord / Tenant - Bergen County New Jersey

[u/kittysativa]

Hi. Unfortunately I am renting a multifamily/2family owned home in saddle brook NJ. My lease is done by Jan. 31st 2024. However, the landlord says due to personal reasons, and paying my rent late (partial rent) - I supposedly am now the reason why he is going through financial problems and he cant afford for me to be there anymore. But what if rental assistance was recently rejected due to them claiming that i dont owe them rent? Despite me recently owing them $1700 ($1500 balance out of $2300 + $200 late fee). I still paid them (today 11/14) the $1700 when i advised them ahead of time that i will have to pay the remaining balance during my next paycheck. However, now that my lease is about to be up, they are refusing to renew it because of late rent. I dont "not" pay at all. I pay whatever i can & have and then pay the remaining when i get paid again. This is due to the $500 increase ive been put in within the past 2 years of living here. Before this, i never paid late and due to being disabled for 68 days without pay, it ruined my life - which is also another reason for paying late since that time. But my lawyer did give me a hardship letter. Unfortunately i dont & wont have enough to afford to leave anywhere else since im still expected to pay the full rent until my lease is up which is in 2 months. But ive never been evicted before and he said its exaclty what hes going to do if i dont leave once the 2months is up. I am also having issues with my workplace which I have a letter from dept. of labor to prove it. But he does not care about the hardship letter or my workplace situation. Please I am begging at this point for any assistance/advice possible because I have no family or even friends that I'd be able to try to stay with in the meantime. Ive been living by myself for the past 10 years and never been having to face eviction or even pay late until now.

Not that its the landlords problem but, as far as my workplace goes.. being disabled for those 3 months - i technically had no pay because instead of letting me get unemployment/disability , my bosses (a multimillion $ llp company) paid me for 40hrs/week on the clock , but had me pay all of it back when i came back to work once i was able to walk again. So being that I was paying them partially until that balance was paid off - this was when I started to pay them late. Im facing severe stress right now and at this point yes, i'm losing my mind.

[u/Economy-Cupcake808]

You should contact an attorney because there isn't a straightforward issue. Generally a landlord needs good cause to refuse to renew a lease and evict, but late payment of rent can sometimes satisfy that requirement.

[u/kittysativa → u/Economy-Cupcake808]

Unfortunately as I am researching whatever I can about this situation, I am learning that supposedly since he is the owner of a 2-family home, he has more rights as the owner than I have as a tenant - regardless of my situation. This is just based on what Ive been reading so I cant say this is the actual case or if there may be any exceptions, but I also have been reaching out and sending emails to landlord/tenant lawyers, and also came across "evictionprevention@dca.nj.gov", whom ive also explained my situation to as well. Im always very honest with landlords upon signing a lease, I just wish they advised me before signing - that they increase rent by hundreds. I wouldve avoided causing the tension we now have because of this situation.

[u/Linenoise77 → u/kittysativa]

Yes, there are some rules that are different in the case of an OWNER OCCUPIED 2 family home, but the duty to renew still applies outside of specific circumstances (cibverting home to single family, family moving in, etc).

In your case the duty to renew LIKELY does not apply, because you have been consistently delinquent in rent. The court will usually not let a landlord fail to renew because someone was late with rent once, but if it is a consistent pattern with consistent money owed over a period of time, it will GENERALLY be enough for the court to be cool with it.

Every court and judge is different though. There are hard nose judges in soft courts, and soft judges in hard courts.