Case Law Summaries

Deb Associates v. Pollack

• Opinion Date: April 27, 2001
• Real Property Law
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LANDLORD-TENANT; SECTION 8—Landlords are required to accept Section 8 tenants and cannot thwart the Section 8 program by refusing to execute the program’s necessary documents.

An elderly widow, whose only source of income consisted of Social Security benefits, leased an apartment for a monthly rental almost equal to her Social Security benefits. Later, she applied for Section 8 Rental Assistance. However, a dispute arose between her landlord and the administrating agency, the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), because the landlord contended it was not required to sign two forms required by the DCA, namely the contract and the Housing Assistance Payments lease addendum. The DCA took the position that without the execution of those documents by the landlord, it could not provide housing assistance rent subsidies to the elderly tenant. The landlord then sought to evict the tenant because she was only paying 30% of the rent and depositing the balance in a trust account held by her attorney. The matter was moved to the Law Division where the landlord also sought a declaration that it was not required to execute the documents required by the DCA. Its claim was that it had not refused to accept Section 8, but that its refusal to execute the two documents was based on its contention that the documents would negate the landlord’s rights under the lease. The lower court found that the landlord was not allowed to refuse a Section 8 tenant and in order to be a Section 8 tenant, the government requires that the landlord sign certain documents. The lower court found that the landlord could contest the conditions of those documents in a separate action between itself and the DC. The Appellate Division upheld the lower court, saying, “[a] landlord cannot dispossess a tenant receiving Section 8 assistance or refuse to accept rent subsidy payments on behalf of the tenant. ... Implicitly, the landlord cannot refuse to execute the necessary documents to effectuate the rent subsidy and then dispossess the tenant for non-payment of rent.”

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