For many, being a landlord is a great experience. You get to own a property and make potentially long-lasting relationships with a variety of people. It’s also a great way to increase your revenue stream. Unfortunately, like any great job, there are always a few less-than-stellar aspects. Aside from managing and maintaining a building and its tenants, sometimes landlords have to put up with some pretty bad people. Tenants can get angry, uncooperative, and, in some extreme cases, dangerous.
That is precisely why it’s important to know that you can evict a tenant. However, in order to evict a tenant, there are a few key things to know before going through with the potential long and arduous process. Here is some basic information on how to file for an eviction in the state of New Jersey.
Good Cause
Before I go any further, it’s important to know that, in the state of New Jersey, you only have the ability to evict a tenant as long as you have good cause. Luckily, there are a variety of grounds to present a good cause eviction to your tenants. Some of the most common grounds for eviction are: failure to pay rent, disorderly conduct, damage to property and violation of landlord’s regulations. Landlords can even evict tenants if they wish to retire their property completely.
Notice to Cease
In the state of New Jersey, you can present a Notice to Cease to your tenants. Essentially, a Notice to Cease serves as something of a final warning. If you notice that one of your tenants is damaging property, violating regulations or behaving in any way that counts as grounds for eviction, you have the right to try to mediate the situation by serving a Notice to Cease. However, should the tenant continue, then a Notice to Quit may be served.
Notice to Quit
In the state of New Jersey, a Notice to Quit is, in essence, an eviction notice. The Notice to Quit lets the tenant know that the landlord would like him or her to vacate the premises. In order to legally evict a tenant, a landlord must give a written description of each cause (aside from nonpayment of rent) to the tenant. Once the Notice to Quit has been served, then the landlord has the ability to file for an eviction, and if the landlord wins, then he or she will be given a Judgement for Possession, in which case the landlord has every right to remove the tenant from the property.
While this is the basic information on what an eviction can look like in New Jersey, I would love to explain a bit more about the actual process of filing for an eviction. For more information on how to formally file an eviction please visit my website at DoMyOwnEvictions.com.