New Jersey bill would add a $75 eviction filing fee

In New Jersey, a new $75 charge at the courthouse door would become part of the machinery that keeps people housed. The fee would be collected when an eviction action is filed and sent to the Office of Eviction Prevention for homelessness prevention, relocation help, rapid rehousing, rental assistance and legal support.

The charge could not be shifted to tenants or treated as additional rent. The bill also leaves the regular eviction rules in place for small landlords with three or fewer rental units, and for some owner-occupied properties with four or fewer units.

Who gets through the door

The proposal revises the Homelessness Prevention Program Act, also called the Prevention of Homelessness Act (1984). To qualify, an applicant would have to be a New Jersey resident and either homeless or in imminent danger of homelessness.

That danger would have to come from a covered eviction action related to an inability to pay rent, a mortgage foreclosure, or an inability to keep up with rent or mortgage payments that is likely to trigger one. The Department of Community Affairs would decide when that risk is real enough to qualify.

Housing help, not a tenant surcharge

The filing fee is meant to pay for help at the point where a housing crisis starts to harden into displacement. The bill ties that money to services for people already out of housing or close to losing it, instead of sending the cost onto the tenant who is already under pressure.

For foreclosure-related help tied to mortgage or property-tax arrears, the assistance would come as a loan secured by a recorded mortgage. That makes the program more than a one-time grant pool. It also gives the state a formal claim behind the help it provides.