NJ Rental Lead Safe Law
NJ's NEWEST lead-based paint law went into effect in July of 2022 and directly targets ALL pre-1978 rental properties. The new law is being referred to as, New Jersey's Lead Safe Certification and will require lead-paint inspections, (Visual &/or Dust wipes) on all nonexempt rental properties at tenant turnover.
If you own a rental property, single or multifamily built before 1978 and do not conform to the few exemptions of the law (exempt owner occupied, lease less than 6 months) your property is subject to the lead inspections required under the law.
What Lead Inspections are required?
100% of target properties require a visual inspection or interior tenant access areas of the building. This means hallways, common areas, a basement, and dedicated living space. Exempt portions of the property are exteriors, detached garages, and areas of the building the tenant does not have access to.
Visual Assessment
The visual assessment is just that, a licensed New Jersey Department of Health Lead Paint Inspector/Risk Assessor visually inspects indoor components with deteriorated paint. Deteriorated paint is just as it sounds, paint that is chipping, peeling, flaking, you know deteriorated. The photos below have deteriorated paint and would fail the inspection requiring repair and reinspection.
The law assumes that all paint in pre-1978 buildings contains lead. Paint that is found to be deteriorated is assumed to contain lead and therefore is a lead hazard and needs to be addressed. The law does not reference XRF to verify if the paint has lead.
If you think your paint is not lead-based and is found to be deteriorated, the law allows wipe sampling of the area. Wipe sampling is testing of the surface or floor by the paint and independent laboratory analysis of the sample for lead.
For the record, the sample on this window failed.
Take this floor for example, clearly a newer paint that likely does not have lead, and assuming it is a newer floor was not applied onto an older coat of lead paint (you will note this newer floor paint is losing adhesion to the floor). You can acquire wipe samples to prove this. But again a repair before inspection would save the testing cost.
The owner should have fixed the paint on these units before inspection but did not.
Some towns also require Wipe Sampling as part of the inspection.
Every property gets a visual assessment, but in certain towns, where children have been found to have an elevated lead blood level, you must also do lead dust wipe sampling. The following lists municipalities in Gloucester County, some of the towns such as Paulsboro, Swedesboro, & Woodbury City require dust wipe sampling.
Lead dust wipe sampling is sampling windowsills and floors (by doors) for lead. You sample and send the sample to the lab for analysis. Detection levels for passing are very low and government regulations have only lowered them over the years.
Pro Tip
Historically, lead wipe clearance and blood lead levels have only gone down.
If a property is believed to have been completely renovated a landlord can consider attempting to obtain a Lead Free designation, which requires collecting hundreds of samples during the inspection.
Lead testing on site requires an XRF gun (Think Xray), that allows immediate testing of surfaces. Currens owns the newest units, that have no radioactive isotope allowing the safest of lead testing inspections available.
Obtaining a lead-free designation or even attempting one involves physical testing of all painted surf cases in the unit. A bedroom with a closet would be considered two rooms and you would physically. test all walls, trim, window components, doors and door jams, ceiling, etc. More often than not you will start finding lead paint because whoever told you they gutted the place before you bought it, didn't gut everything. Your hopes or more or less dashed about being lead-free and the inspection will pivot to a visual lead-safe inspection.
The reason you stop testing for lead paint when you find it during a Lead-Free inspection is that any lead found is a fail. You can only obtain a lead-safe certification.
In addition, if you possess lead testing data, regulations require you to provide that to renters and buyers.
A copy of any lead inspection report is to be provided to new lessees (tenants) and purchasers of the property under Federal law (24 CFR part 35 and 40 CFR part 745) before they become obligated under a lease or sales contract.
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