Opinion
DOCKET NO. A-3598-13T3
04-08-2015
GEORGIAN GARDENS, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. RUSSELL and VANESSA SHIELDS, Defendants-Appellants.
Russell and Vanessa Shields, appellants pro se. Beinhaker & Beinhaker, LLC, attorneys for respondent (Dore Beinhaker, on the brief).
NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Accurso and Manahan. On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Essex County, Docket Nos. LT-21417-13 and LT-10129-13. Russell and Vanessa Shields, appellants pro se. Beinhaker & Beinhaker, LLC, attorneys for respondent (Dore Beinhaker, on the brief). PER CURIAM
Defendants in this long-running landlord/tenant dispute appeal from the entry of a judgment of possession and the denial of their motions for reconsideration and a stay. We affirm. We confine ourselves to the facts and procedural history that are necessary to resolve the single issue before us, whether defendants were properly evicted for non-payment of rent.
Defendant, Vanessa Shields, was a tenant of plaintiff Georgian Gardens, a forty-unit apartment complex in East Orange, for over thirty years. During the summer of 2013, the landlord offered her and her husband, Russell, a renewal lease at an increased rent. Defendants executed the new lease, but with modifications the landlord found unacceptable. The landlord filed an eviction action based on defendants' failure to sign the renewal lease as offered.
Vanessa Shields began renting the apartment in 1977. Her husband, Russell, moved into the apartment in 1993.
The parties were at that time involved in another landlord/ tenant action instituted by the landlord for failure to pay rent under the prior lease. Judgment of possession was entered in that matter in April 2013, and vacated when defendants paid all rent owed into court to secure a "Marini hearing." See Marini v. Ireland, 56 N.J. 130 (1970). The court thereafter held a hearing on the habitability issues. After hearing the proofs, the court ruled in favor of the landlord and the rent monies were released to it in July. Defendants did not appeal that decision.
At a hearing on August 5, 2013, the trial court considered defendants' modifications and ruled on each one. The landlord's attorney marked up the lease on the record in accordance with the court's rulings and presented it to Vanessa Shields for signature in court. As noted on the record, the effective date of the new lease was to be August 26. Because Russell Shields was not present to sign, the court acceded to defendants' request to execute the new lease that evening and return it to the landlord by certified mail. The court adjourned the case without date pending notification from landlord's counsel of its receipt of the fully executed lease.
Defendants did not return the fully executed lease to the landlord until September 5. As a result, the court entered a judgment of possession for the landlord. Defendants thereafter filed an application to vacate the judgment claiming they had satisfied the landlord's requirements by executing a new lease. Vanessa Shields acknowledged, however, that defendants had not paid the increased rent due for September, or, indeed, any rent for that month as they were seeking a rent abatement under an East Orange ordinance prohibiting the landlord from increasing the rent while a municipal code violation presenting a threat to life, health or safety existed in the apartment. Defendants contended that mold in their apartment prohibited the landlord from effecting the rent increase.
The court allowed defendants to pay the old rent until the municipality could resolve defendants' complaint regarding the mold problem. The municipality's rent control board wrote to the parties on October 18, advising that the City inspector had determined "that only light painting is needed and there is no cause for action." The board further advised it was considering "the complaint resolved and closed," thereby denying defendants' application to block the rent increase.
The parties returned to court on January 15, 2014 on the landlord's application for a warrant of removal as defendants had refused to pay the increased rent over the preceding five months. Defendants contended they paid the old rent each month from September through January, although the landlord had not cashed their rent checks. Defendants further asserted that the municipal ordinance prohibited any rent increase until the landlord abated the mold problem, which they claimed did not occur for months following their complaint in September.
Concluding that defendants were obligated to pay the increased rent from September 5, 2013, the date they signed the new lease, the judge advised defendants the matter would be dismissed upon their tender of $275.40, the difference between their old and new rents over the five months since the inception of the new lease. When the judge asked Vanessa Shields if defendants were ready, willing and able to tender the difference, she advised she would not pay the increase "because that would be violating the rent control statute of the City of East Orange." The court then authorized issuance of the warrant of removal upon the landlord's filing of a certificate of occupancy.
Defendants had also argued the judgment of possession should not have been entered because the landlord had never presented a certificate of occupancy and that the new lease had not become effective until the date of the hearing because the landlord's representative had not signed it until that date. The judge rejected the latter argument as utterly without merit because the landlord's delay was caused by defendants' insistence that no rent increase could become effective until the rent control board considered their request for an abatement.
Landlord's counsel subsequently wrote to the court to advise that East Orange did not require a certificate of occupancy when Vanessa Shields moved into the apartment in 1977. Because her tenancy had been continuous since that time, no certificate of occupancy was ever required or obtained. In response, the judge wrote to the parties on February 20, 2014 authorizing the eviction of defendants upon the re-posting of the warrant of removal, leaving sufficient time in advance of that date to allow defendants to seek relief in this court. Defendants' request for reconsideration was denied.
Defendants applied to this court for emergent relief, and we summarily reversed and granted a stay of the eviction explaining that the court's letter did not "provide a sufficient record to decide the legal issues this appeal presents." Because the judge who had decided the matter was no longer serving, the matter was remanded to a new judge.
It appears defendants failed to provide to the judges considering their emergent application the February 26, 2014 transcript of the court's consideration and denial of their motion for reconsideration.
That judge held a hearing on March 27. After hearing oral argument, the judge denied defendants' motion for reconsideration, finding the first judge had considered, and rejected, defendants' arguments that no rent increase was due and owing from September 2013 through January 2014 because no increase was due under the East Orange ordinance until the month following abatement of the health and safety violation, and that the landlord had not executed the new lease until January 15, 2014. The judge also clarified with the parties their understanding that East Orange had not required a certificate of occupancy until a few years before Russell Shields began living in the apartment Vanessa Shields had occupied since 1977. Finally, the judge ordered the landlord to return to defendants the $9,748.32 in rent payments it had received and held uncashed since August 2013.
Acceptance of rent by the landlord after a judgment of possession may void the judgment. Ivy Hill Park, Section III, Inc. v. Abutidze, 371 N.J. Super. 103, 115 (App. Div. 2009) ("In some circumstances, acceptance of rent may operate as a waiver of a breach of the lease and thereby prevent eviction."). It is unclear why the judge ordered return of these rents as there was no dispute that defendants remained in possession of the apartment during that period. The judge acknowledged the landlord could file a separate action to collect all unpaid rent.
We denied defendants' emergent application for stay of eviction pending appeal and the Supreme Court did likewise. This appeal followed.
Defendants contend they were evicted in violation of "standard court procedure and New Jersey Statutes," and that the trial court's conclusions were "unsupported by the competent, relevant and reasonably credible evidence." We disagree.
Our review of a trial court's final determination in a non-jury case is limited. We will not disturb the judge's factual findings and legal conclusions unless convinced they are so unsupported by, or inconsistent with, the competent, relevant and reasonably credible evidence as to offend the interests of justice. Seidman v. Clifton Sav. Bank, S.L.A., 205 N.J. 150, 169 (2011); Rova Farms Resort, Inc. v. Investors Ins. Co. of Am., 65 N.J. 474, 484 (1974). No such finding is appropriate here.
The summary dispossess statute, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-51 to -61, was designed to provide landlords with a quick and simple remedy for possession. Carr v. Johnson, 211 N.J. Super. 341, 347 (App. Div. 1986). It was also designed to secure enforcement of a tenant's rental obligation in actions for nonpayment of rent. Hous. Auth. of Morristown v. Little, 135 N.J. 274, 281 (1994). To that end, a tenant can secure a termination of the action by depositing the rent at any time before the end of the court day on which judgment is entered. Stanger v. Ridgeway, 171 N.J. Super. 466, 473 (App. Div. 1979).
The Anti-Eviction Act, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1 to -61.12, however, limits the grounds for which residential tenants may be evicted in a summary dispossess proceeding. Jurisdiction to grant the remedy requires a showing that one of the statutory grounds of good cause for eviction exists. Little, supra, 135 N.J. at 281 (citing Levine v. Seidel, 128 N.J. Super. 225, 229 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 65 N.J. 570 (1974)). A tenant's failure to pay a reasonable, that is, non-unconscionable, rent increase complying with all other laws and municipal ordinances after appropriate notice is one of the enumerated good causes for eviction. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1f.
Here, it is undisputed defendants declined to pay the additional $55.08 monthly rent for the five months between the effective date of their new lease in September 2013 and the January 15, 2014 hearing. Although judgment had already been entered some months before and never vacated, the trial judge nevertheless allowed defendants the opportunity to tender the $275.40 into court to terminate the proceedings in accord with Stanger. Although able, defendants declined to do so based on their position the rent increase violated the municipal ordinance. The municipal rent control board, however, had already declined to block the rent increase, finding the mold in defendants' apartment too insignificant to trigger any action on its part. Accordingly, we agree with the trial judge that defendants' rent abatement action did not toll the effective date of the rent increase.
We further note the trial court had only months before rejected defendants' habitability defense after conducting a Marini hearing.
We are satisfied the trial court carefully considered, and rejected, the many arguments defendants made over several months to try to delay and defeat the landlord's lawful rent increase. Defendants were allowed a full and fair opportunity to litigate their claims and provided the option of paying the increase to avoid eviction after the court rejected their defenses.
Defendants' remaining arguments that the landlord should have obtained a certificate of occupancy for the apartment when Russell Shields moved in and that the landlord's failure to timely execute the new lease defeated its claim for increased rent, are without sufficient merit to warrant discussion in a written opinion. R. 2:11-3(e)(1)(E).
Affirmed. I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.
We reserved decision on defendants' motion to supplement the record with documents from a pending Law Division action in another county in which the landlord is attempting to recover its unpaid back rent from defendants. As the documents were not presented to the trial court in this matter and are irrelevant to the issues before us, we now deny the motion.
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CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION