SOURCE: NJ.gov
Have your tenants had difficulty making rent payments as a result of the COVID-19 emergency? The Small Landlord Emergency Grant (SLEG) Program will reimburse small residential rental property owners for lost rent revenue due to COVID-19 between April and July 2020, as long as they agree to forgive outstanding back rent and late fees that their tenant accrued during this time.
The application portal will open on Wednesday, August 19 at 9 AM and remain open until Wednesday, August 26 at 1 PM. Once the application portal is closed, applications will be reviewed and awarded in a computer-randomized order to give each application an equal chance of being funded. Applications will be evaluated for eligibility and completeness.
We will make a sample SLEG application available for preview beginning Monday, August 10.
Want to talk to a SLEG Program Representative?
Call our Hotline Toll-Free at 866-280-9756
Program Overview
The SLEG Program provides financial support for small rental property owners (and, indirectly, to renters) who are struggling due to the COVID-19 emergency in the State of New Jersey. The Program will reimburse small landlords for rent payments that were missed or reduced in April, May, June, and/or July 2020. Only properties with low-to-moderate rent levels are eligible (see Eligibility Criteria below for more information).
Please note: grantees must pass the benefit on to their tenants by forgiving outstanding back rent and late fees for COVID-impacted units for the April-July 2020 period.
Eligibility
To be eligible for the SLEG Program, the applicant and the applicant’s rental property have to meet the eligibility criteria.
The applicant must:
Be the Primary Property Owner of a residential rental property (i.e., not condominium or cooperative) property in New Jersey and registered as such with New Jersey Department of Community Affairs’ (NJDCA) on the Bureau of Housing Inspection Registration Inspection Management System (RIMS) database. You must be registered as of July 17, 2020.
NOT be a government entity or public housing authority.
Be current on all state and local tax obligations.
The applicant’s property must:
Contain at least 3 and no more than 10 total housing units.
NOT be a seasonal or vacation rental property.
Have a fire inspection certificate, current as of March 9, 2020, from the Local Enforcement Agency responsible for fire safety.
Please note: NJHMFA reserves the right to screen the property for outstanding life safety code violations in NJDCA’s RIMS database.
Contain at least one non-vacant COVID-impacted unit with a net rent deficit between April and July 2020. This means that the total rent due from the tenant in this four-month period exceeds the rent the landlord received during this period.
Rents charged to COVID-impacted unit(s) are no greater than the maximum rent thresholds listed in the table below. If a unit has an above-threshold rent for its bedroom size, that unit is ineligible for assistance.
Grant Award Amounts
NJHMFA has been allocated a total of $25 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to administer the SLEG Program. There are no preset minimum or maximum award amounts for this program. The grant award amount will be calculated on the basis of the number of eligible, COVID-impacted units in the property and the net rent deficit for each eligible unit for the four-month period between April and July 2020. To ensure that the SLEG Program serves "mom-and-pop" property owners vulnerable to financial stress during COVID-19, at least one-third of program funds will be reserved for those applicants who are registered in the NJDCA RIMS database as individual or family owners.
Application Process
How to Apply
Applicants will be required to create an account on the SLEG application platform using a valid email address. To register, applicants should use an email account that they check regularly, since NJHMFA staff will exclusively use the platform and email notifications to communicate with the applicant.
After creating an account, the applicant may create and submit an application for their rental property. If the applicant has multiple eligible properties, they can submit a separate application for each property under their single applicant account. Each application requires several pieces of information, listed on this Application Checklist.
Language Accessibility
NJHMFA will provide the online application in English and Spanish, and translated versions of the application in other languages will be available on the SLEG Program website in advance of the portal opening. NJHMFA has contracted for interpretation services to support speakers of at least 10 additional languages: Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, and Tagalog. Applicants can contact languagehelp@njhmfa.gov to receive a call within one business day from a representative who can communicate with them in their primary language. PDFs can be found in the menu to the right.
Review Process
An annotated version of the application will be available for preview beginning on August 10. The application portal will launch at 9 AM on Wednesday, August 19, and stay open until 1 PM on Wednesday, August 26. At this point, all applications received will be sorted randomly by computer and reviewed in that random order. Applications will be reviewed for eligibility and completeness. NJHMFA will use the documentation provided to verify information entered into the web form and will alert the applicant of any issues with documentation to give them an opportunity to cure. Applicants will have 5 business days to cure outstanding documentation.
Applicants will be notified through the application portal whether their application has been selected for award, placed on a waitlist, or denied. All applicants that are selected for award will have 5 business days to upload their banking details, a W-9, and any additional information required to the application portal for subsequent electronic payment.
After payment is disbursed, tenants residing in units that have been assisted by the program will receive a letter from NJHMFA alerting them that their landlord has received a SLEG grant.
What Next?
To learn in detail about what information and documents you need to apply to the SLEG Program, review the Application Checklist.
To learn more about the SLEG Program, review these Frequently Asked Questions.
Want to talk to a SLEG Program Representative? Call our Hotline Toll-Free at 866-280-9756 or email sleg@njhmfa.gov.
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