State Specific Question About: NEW JERSEY (NJ)

do you have a lease with them. if you do then you are in breach of YOUR SIDE of the contract which is failure to provide what you say you would.

The house is uninhabitable [going by your post] so my advice is to get yourself to an atty. who can guide in the best way to go with his in your area.....ad it is ;likely that you will be liable to PAY THEM TO LEAVE or pay for them to stay somewhere else....perhaps for quite a bit of time.

The atty. can help you structure this to help get you out of this problem with as little ss possible

Hurry up.

Definitely check with your attorney. It may be that notifying city code department would result in uninhabitable rating and removal of tenant by city.

Eyew...mess. Messes are expensive.

Okay, you said you have no lease--Frank must have missed that part. That means you have a month to month rental agreement in most areas, which requires 30 days written notice. Your states laws may be different, but that's how it works in MO and many other states based on how other frequent posters here describe.

You said rent has not been paid. Normally, that would be an easy eviction. BUT, here's the problem: if you have no lease...what's the rent? How do you prove the amount due? Do you have copies of canceled checks from the tenant?

Compounding the issues is it sounds like your building is completely out of code as a rental. Many jurisdictions have rules allow tenants to WITHHOLD some or all rent until proper repairs are made. I could see the tenant aruging that they haven't paid because you failed to provide an adequate, permanent heat source. In my area (Greene County, MO) space heater are NOT sufficient, permanent sources of heat and I would be cited by the city and ticketed for failing to provide proper heat. I can see a judge being VERY sympathetic to your tenant if indeed you have failed in your basic responsibilities.

Regarding not having money to fix the heater. Yeah, tenants use the "I don't have money to pay rent" excuse all the time. Your financial woes are not their problem, and I doubt the judge will excuse you.

Why all this "the judge, the judge, the judge?" Because I'm afraid you're going to end up IN COURT, and from what you've told us so far I think you're going to lose. Possibly BIG TIME! Unless there are some legitimate mitigating factors you haven't told us yet. It sounds like you fumbled the ball on the 5 yard line and the tenants are going to run it back for a TD (i.e. get the city involved and all up in your stuff).

So, what I would do if I were in your shoes is scrape together $1000 and offer the tenants that amount to be moved out by next week Friday. Unfortunately, messes are costly, especially when you're responsible. And in this case, I think you bear some--if not all--of the blame.

Sell the property to me and I'll deal with your tenant and property problems. I can close by Wed next week and I'll take care of all of your problems and you will have cash. I have contacts in your area and we can close fast and pay cash.

Sid was right....I missed the no lease part. NJ is 30 notice for M2M. that's the good news.....BUT

is the property registered with the State? If not you have another problem and will have to show your dirty hands in Court...instant dismissal.....but you may be allowed to get another date after you have registered the property.

If your town requires it, do you have a CO?

Again, if no then you will hurting more as you will likely have to put them up someplace while the place is inspected and brought up to code.

Sorry - but you rented an uninhabitable house and now you are coming on here to ask for advice. It is landlords like you who give us all a bad name and cause ever increasing new laws and regulations to make sure landlords provide decent housing.

You said your pipes are now frozen after the boiler broke? If so, you are done, finished, outof business. Period! The amount of damage fozen pipes will leave you with could exceed the cost of a new boiler. You should have fixed the boiler as soon as it was reported especially since the temps in New Jersey are in the single digits. Two nights ago temps got down to 0. Your done....

John