Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Letters in Bayonne, NJ

A peninsula of small buildings

Bayonne rents 18,468 of its 28,951 occupied homes: 63.8 percent, on the 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, in a city of an estimated 74,532 people in 2024. That is well above New Jersey’s 36.2 percent, and it is the fourteenth-largest municipality in the state.

The number tells you less than the buildings do. Bayonne fills a narrow peninsula between Newark Bay and the Kill Van Kull, and its housing reflects that: streets of two- and three-family houses, many of them owner-occupied, alongside larger developments. For someone asking about an emotional support animal, the landlord on the other side of the request is often a person who lives upstairs rather than a management company with a policy binder.

That changes the first question you should ask. Not “what does the law require?” but “does the law reach this building at all?”

The two-family carve-out, and how narrow it is

New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination hides its housing exemptions inside a definition rather than a section marked “exemptions.” N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(n) defines “real property” and then says that, “except as to publicly assisted housing accommodations, the provisions of this act shall not apply to the rental: (1) of a single apartment or flat in a two-family dwelling, the other occupancy unit of which is occupied by the owner as a residence.”

Read the shape of that carefully, because it is narrower than landlords tend to assume.

It covers a two-family house where the owner lives in the other unit. A three-family is not in it. A two-family whose owner lives elsewhere is not in it. And the carve-out is switched off entirely for publicly assisted housing — which N.J.S.A. 10:5-5(m) defines to include “all housing financed in whole or in part by a loan, whether or not secured by a mortgage, the repayment of which is guaranteed or insured by the federal government or any agency thereof.”

Federally insured mortgages are ordinary on small Bayonne properties. So a tenant in a two-family should not assume the exemption applies before finding out how the building was financed. Giving up at this stage is the most common avoidable mistake in a city built like this one.

The security deposit rules have the same shape, and a switch

The same style of carve-out shows up in the money rules, with one difference that is worth real cash.

New Jersey’s security deposit law caps a deposit at “1 1/2 times 1 month’s rental” under N.J.S.A. 46:8-21.2. Deposits are held in trust and stay the tenant’s property under N.J.S.A. 46:8-19. And if a landlord wrongly fails to return one, N.J.S.A. 46:8-21.1 lets a court award “double the amount of said moneys, together with full costs.”

Now the catch, N.J.S.A. 46:8-26 in full: “The provisions of this act shall apply to all rental premises or units used for dwelling purposes except owner-occupied premises with not more than two rental units where the tenant has failed to provide 30 days written notice to the landlord invoking the provisions of this act.”

That is not a flat exclusion. It is an opt-in. A tenant in an owner-occupied two-unit Bayonne house can bring the whole deposit statute into play by giving thirty days’ written notice, and most tenants in that position have never been told so.

Once you are covered, the test is the same everywhere

Assume the building is covered. What the law then requires does not depend on whether your landlord owns two units or two hundred.

The duty is regulatory. Under N.J.A.C. 13:13-3.4(f)(2) a housing provider may not “[r]efuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services … when such accommodations or modifications may be necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” The Division on Civil Rights readopted that chapter effective 13 October 2025 without touching the housing rules.

That regulation reached the New Jersey Supreme Court in Players Place II Condominium Ass’n, Inc. v. K.P., 256 N.J. 472 (2024), decided 13 March 2024, and the Court set out how it works for a support animal. The resident shows a disability and shows the animal may be necessary for equal use and enjoyment. Then “[h]ousing providers then have the burden to prove the requested accommodation is unreasonable,” measured by whether the animal would “fundamentally alter” their operations or “impose an undue financial or administrative burden.” And, in the sentence a small landlord most needs to hear: “Whether the animal has been trained is not a relevant consideration.”

A homeowner who has never handled a request like this is not acting in bad faith by being unsure. The Court asks both sides for “a good-faith, interactive dialogue,” and in an owner-occupied house that conversation is usually the whole case. Put the request in writing anyway; it dates the request and it gives you something to file if talking fails.

Fees: cite the right thing

New Jersey has a statute that sounds perfect and is not. N.J.S.A. 10:5-29.2 carries the heading “Housing accommodations,” entitles the tenant to “full and equal access to all housing accommodations,” states they “shall not be required to pay extra compensation,” and voids any lease clause “prohibiting maintenance of a pet or pets on or in the premises.” It even protects a service dog kept on after retirement.

None of it applies to an emotional support animal. The section covers only a person with “a service or guide dog,” and N.J.S.A. 10:5-5 defines both by the training the dog has received.

The protection an emotional support animal does have comes from the Division on Civil Rights, whose guidance the Supreme Court adopted. That guidance says a housing provider “cannot require you to pay an additional security deposit or pet fee, or obtain additional renter’s insurance, in exchange for allowing you to keep an ESA,” while leaving you to pay “for any actual damage the animal causes.” DCR is equally clear about the ceiling: “unlike service or guide animals, ESAs are not automatically exempt from a housing provider’s no-pet policies.” It is a balancing test in which the landlord carries the weight, not a free pass.

There is no local office. Anywhere in New Jersey.

If the conversation fails, the complaint does not go to city hall, not in Bayonne, and not in any New Jersey municipality.

N.J.S.A. 10:5-10 is the only provision in the LAD about local commissions. It allows a mayor to appoint one, and describes its work as fostering “good will, cooperation and conciliation” and making recommendations on policy and education. Compare N.J.S.A. 10:5-8(c), which puts the power to “receive, investigate, and act upon complaints” in the state Division, and N.J.S.A. 10:5-14, which makes the investigation the Attorney General’s job. Look at HUD’s roster of partner fair housing agencies and New Jersey shows a state entry only: no city or county in this state is certified to take a fair housing charge.

So two doors. DCR takes complaints at bias.njcivilrights.gov and on 1-833-NJDCR4U (833-653-2748); the closest regional office to Hudson County is in Newark, 973-648-2700. HUD takes them at 1-800-669-9777.

The deadlines are different, and that difference is the point. Under N.J.S.A. 10:5-18 the state clock runs 180 days from the discriminatory act. HUD allows one year under 42 U.S.C. § 3610(a)(1)(A)(i), and New Jersey’s own N.J.S.A. 10:5-9.2 ties the two systems together by declaring that the LAD is meant to let DCR “qualify as a ‘certified agency’ within the meaning of the Federal Fair Housing Amendments Act.” A tenant who lets six months slip by should still ask about the federal route.

What actually supports the request

No training. No certificate. DCR’s fact sheet puts the second half plainly: “Documentation obtained from the Internet that does not come from a treating healthcare professional generally will not be sufficiently reliable to support the need for an ESA.”

What holds the request up is a letter from someone who treats you. Hudson County falls inside the service area of Northeast New Jersey Legal Services, whose central intake line is 973-523-2900 and whose nearest office to Bayonne is on Summit Avenue in Jersey City, 201-792-6363.