WHAT IS A HOLD-OVER TENANT?
Under New Jersey Law, year-to-year tenants tend to become month-to-month tenants once their lease expires. They continue on, much as they did before, the only exception being that the tenant can breach the lease and move-out with reasonable to notice to the landlord.
There is a major exception to this, though, and this pertains to the Doctrine of Holdover Tenancy. (NJSA 2A:42-5 and 2A:42-6).
Here, a situation arises when a tenant notifies a Landlord that they will be vacating the premises on a given date and time. However, the tenant then refuses to vacate the rental on the agreed-upon date and time. In such cases, the tenant is considered a “holdover tenant.” Here, the Landlord has the ability to collect double rent from the tenant in a lawsuit.
The key to doing this is to ensure that the tenant’s notice is confirmed by the landlord and that the landlord sends out a formal notice letter confirming that they received the notice of the tenant and that they are relying upon it, and re-stating that the tenant agreed to leave by a certain time. It may even be useful to have the tenant sign a form agreeing to same.
If the tenant stays past this date, you can ask them to pay double rent. If they don’t, you can take them to court to get the court to enforce this and declare them a holdover tenant and require them to pay double rent.