Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in New Jersey

I am currently facing a court date in landlord tenant issue in the superior court of New Jesey in the first week of November. Me and my husband recently took a 3 bedroom apartment for rent in a multi family home which is owner occupied, we choose this as we both lost our jobs after 7 yrs and only my husband got a job as a consultant on a 6 month project hence we wanted a 6 month lease for the apartment. This was a owner occupied building and after we moved in there were a lot of problems and the owner was hesitant to get them fixed for example no hot water in one of the bathrooms, bugs in the kitchen etc!! and then finally within 6 weeks of us staying there the owner wanted us to leave as we were bothering them to get the things fixed!!, He was threatening us to leave within 20 days, so after doing some research on the internet about the landlord tenant laws we decided to get some legal advice as we had a 6 month lease in place.

I also found out that the security deposit of one and half months rent can be used as future rent if the owner does not put it in a separate interest bearing account so we gave them a legal notice that we would be moving in 6 weeks and we would like to apply the security deposit as rent. After receiving the letter there were few more incidents when they tried to barge into our apartment and we had to call the cops. after all this we receive a notice from their attorney to attend the superior court of NJ for eviction proceedings, I have a strong nagging belief that they are doing this only to bother us and threaten us as any court judgment against us would be reflected on our credit history. I would like to know how this might effect our credit history?


Asked on 10/29/09, 3:12 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Corbett Corbett Law Firm LLC

Landlord/Tenant Court does not issue money judgments. Nothing that goes on there will affect your credit. If the landlord wants to collect money from you, he must file suit in the Special Civil Part. A money judgment there would show on your credit history. You are correct about the security deposit. Get a copy of the police reports and bring them to court; you may need them as evidence.

See also: http://info.corbettlaw.net/lawguru.htm

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Answered on 11/04/09, 9:27 am


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