Which certificates you need to sell or rent a home, town by town in New Jersey

For 30 of the largest NJ towns: the municipal resale or rental certificate, the state smoke and carbon-monoxide alarm certificate, the fee tiers by lead time, the reinspection fee, how long it stays valid and how early to apply, read from each town's own current form.

Who this is for

You are selling a house in New Jersey and the contract has a closing date. Or you are a landlord with a tenant moving in next month. Or you are the listing agent, the attorney or the paralegal who has to get the certificates in hand before the closing table. The town wants a certificate before the keys change hands, every town names it differently, the fee depends on how many days before closing you apply, and the rule you find online is often the one that was repealed.

The problem

Every sale or lease of a one- or two-family home in New Jersey needs the state smoke and carbon-monoxide alarm compliance certificate from the local enforcing agency (N.J.A.C. 5:70-2.3: "Before any one- and two-family or attached single family structure is sold, leased, or otherwise made subject to a change of occupancy for residential purposes, the owner shall obtain a certificate ... from the appropriate enforcing agency"). On top of that, many towns add their own resale certificate (a certificate of continued occupancy, a certificate of code compliance, a residential resale inspection) and their own rental certificate or landlord registration. Each town publishes its rules in its own PDF or web page, with its own fee tiers, reinspection fee, validity window and lead time. There is no page that puts the towns side by side, and a wrong "not required" costs a seller a delayed closing.

What this page does

One page per town, for 30 of the largest New Jersey municipalities. Each page answers, from the town's own current application form or fee page: which certificates the town requires before a sale and before a new tenant, what they cost (with the fee tiers by lead time where the town has them), the reinspection fee, how long the certificate stays valid, how early to apply, who applies, and a link to the source document with its date. The right-hand column of every table quotes the town's own words, so you can check the sentence the answer came from. Where a document does not state something, the row says so instead of guessing.

What is free and what is early access

The town pages are free. In early access: a checklist for your town by email, and an alert when your town changes its form or its fees (the finished product will re-read every town's documents monthly and flag a changed form). Leave your email above to get your town's checklist first and to be told when its rules move.

How to read a town page

Towns on this page

Where the records come from

Every number and every quote on the town pages comes from a document on that municipality's own website (an application form, a fee ordinance page or a fire prevention bureau page), fetched on 24 October 2026, plus the state rule text. No broker posts, no code-publisher mirrors, no third-party summaries were used as a source. The links are listed below. This is a test page for a product in early access, not legal advice.