Woodbridge, NJ Rental Property Rules: Just Cause Eviction (2026)

Township Code § 20-12 bars any landlord of housing space subject to Chapter 20 from serving a notice to quit on a tenant, or instituting any action to recover possession, whether by summary dispossess proceeding, civil action for possession of land, or otherwise, as a reprisal for the tenant's efforts to secure or enforce rights under the leasehold arrangement or under the rent-control chapter itself. The ordinance labels this conduct an unlawful reprisal and ties it directly to the penalty provisions elsewhere in the chapter.

This is not a broad good-cause requirement covering every eviction in town; it is a targeted anti-retaliation shield keyed to tenants who assert rights, such as requesting a Bureau of Housing inspection under § 20-11, disputing a surcharge, or challenging a rent increase. Because the protection lives inside the rent-control chapter, it applies to housing space controlled by that chapter rather than to every rental unit in Woodbridge, and it operates on top of, not instead of, the eviction procedures available to a landlord under the New Jersey Anti-Eviction Act.

The Township places enforcement in the hands of whatever court hears the underlying possession action, with the reprisal finding exposing the landlord to the chapter's own violation penalties rather than a separate civil damages remedy spelled out in the text.