• Landlords must follow procedure and law to increase rent in New Jersey.apartment building image by mashe from Fotolia.com
  
  Budgeting for the cost of living is complicated enough with variables such as fluctuating food costs and seasonally changing utility costs; luckily, tenants in New Jersey do not need to worry about their rent increasing without notice. Renters in New Jersey enjoy a few legal protections to help keep rent-payment uncertainty from unraveling their household budgets.
  
  

Bound by a Lease

• A lease is a legally binding document, so if you are in long-term lease, your landlord is required to adhere to the definitions of the lease, including rent costs. Thus, if you sign a one-year lease, you can rest assured that your landlord cannot change your rent until the next lease period, and then you will be notified in the context of the new lease of your increased rent rate.
  
  

Terminating a Lease

• If you are renting on a month-to-month basis, your landlord must inform you of his decision to end your lease and begin a new one with an increased rent rate. If you are renting without a formalized lease, your lease term is considered to be the length of stay your payment covers. Your landlord is required by New Jersey law to provide you with 30 days' notice of rent increases.
  
  

Refusal to Pay Increased Rent

• Staying in your dwelling after being notified of a rent increase is not considered implied acceptance of the new rental rate. You will, however, be at risk of eviction from your dwelling of nonpayment of rent, and will not get the mercy of the court unless you successfully argue that you were not given proper notification of the new rent increase. If this case is successful, it will not prevent your landlord from increasing the rent in the future.
  
  

Unconscionable Increases

• Under New Jersey law, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1(f), landlords are barred from massive, unconscionable rent increases. These large jumps in your rent rate are not defined by the law, and are open to interpretation by the court depending upon circumstances of the case. As a rule of thumb, unconscionable rent increases are so large as to be shocking, punitive or otherwise egregious.