Stack Amendment in New Jersey: When a Charity’s Promise to Pay Rent Counts as Payment After Warner Village v. Crawford

The lockout happened Monday. On Thursday, the tenant’s lawyer sends a money order and two letters from charities promising to pay the rest. There is no check and no wire, only promises. Most landlords’ instinct is to refuse and keep the unit.

Under the Stack Amendment, that instinct is now a liability. On October 23, 2026, the Appellate Division approved for publication Warner Village Realty Group v. Crawford, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2026), and held that a charity’s written commitment to pay, made within the post-lockout window, is a payment. The landlord in that case lost its judgment of possession even though it had already re-rented the apartment.

The decision matters most to owners and managers who recover units through nonpayment actions, and to landlords who file for nonpayment when the real dispute is something else. It also tells tenants, and the organizations that help them, what a commitment letter has to do.

We represent New Jersey property owners, managers, and tenants in landlord-tenant matters, and we handle appeals. Below we explain what the court decided, where we think its reasoning is vulnerable, and what landlords should change in their practices now.

In this guide

• What the Stack Amendment does
• What happened in Warner Village v. Crawford
• What the Appellate Division decided
• What the Stack Amendment now requires of landlords
• Why a nonpayment case cannot carry other lease disputes
• What the decision means for tenants and charities
• Where the decision is open to challenge
• What landlords should do now
• Frequently asked questions

What Is the Stack Amendment in New Jersey?

The Stack Amendment is a 2019 law that gives a tenant evicted for nonpayment three business days after a lockout, or after a warrant of removal is posted, to pay the rent due and keep the tenancy. The landlord must accept the payment and notify the court within two business days, and the court then dismisses the nonpayment action with prejudice. N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16a.

The opinion cites this provision as N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16(a), a typo. The cure provision is codified at N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16a. N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16 is a different section, governing warrants of removal and the court’s ten-day retained jurisdiction after a lockout.

A companion provision says what payments count. It requires a landlord to accept “a rent payment made within the three business day period . . . whether made by cash, certified check, or money order, or through any federal, State, or local rental assistance program or bona fide charitable organization on behalf of the tenant.” N.J.S.A. 46:8-49.3(a). The next sentence adds a duty: “A landlord shall cooperate with any federal, State, or local rental assistance program or bona fide charitable organization which has committed to pay the rent due and owing.” The last sentence gives the tenant a remedy. If the landlord does not respond to the tenant’s efforts to resolve late payment through a third party, the tenant may seek an order to show cause.

Before Warner Village, the open question was simple to state. A tenant’s own payment has to be in hand within three business days. Does a charity’s?

What Happened in Warner Village Realty Group v. Crawford?

A tenant locked out for nonpayment tendered more than the judgment amount on the third business day: a money order plus written commitments from two charities. The landlord refused, citing other lease issues and the lack of cash. The trial court held that payment means immediate liquidity. The Appellate Division reversed.

The tenants had rented the apartment since 2018. In August 2025, Catholic Charities, Diocese of Trenton, wrote to the landlord promising to pay $1,180 on their behalf and asked for a W-9 to process the payment. The landlord’s agent refused to provide it, calling the tenants holdover tenants. Two days later, the landlord filed a summary dispossess action based solely on nonpayment. A default judgment of possession for $4,455 followed in October.

The order for orderly removal told the parties that the rent “may be paid up to and including three business days after a lockout to save the tenancy” and that “[t]he landlord shall accept any rental assistance payments[.]” The tenants were locked out on November 10. On the third business day, their lawyer tendered $5,867: an $880 money order, a reaffirmation of the Catholic Charities commitment, and a letter from HomeFront promising to pay $3,807 if the tenants were restored to possession and no other money was owed. The tender exceeded the judgment by $1,412.

The landlord declined. Its representative cited other lease violations, including the tenants’ refusal to sign new lease terms. Its counsel wrote that the landlord was “disinclined to grant re-entry” because it did not have “cash in hand for the full [j]udgement balance, only promissory notes.” The Special Civil Part denied the tenants’ order to show cause. It held that payment under the Stack Amendment means immediate liquidity, and that a landlord need not wait past the three business days for funds to arrive. The tenants moved out in December, and the landlord re-rented the unit in February 2026.

What Did the Appellate Division Decide Under the Stack Amendment?

The court held that a bona fide charitable organization’s written commitment, made within the three business days after lockout, is a payment under N.J.S.A. 46:8-49.3(a) if the funds are issued within a reasonable time. It held that the landlord violated a mandatory duty to cooperate. It directed the trial court to vacate the judgment of possession and dismiss the eviction.

1. Re-renting did not end the appeal. The landlord argued the case was moot because the tenants had left and the unit was re-let. The panel reached the merits anyway because the question is important and likely to recur yet evade review, given how quickly removal follows a judgment of possession.
2. A written commitment is a payment. The holding: “a payment occurs when a bona fide charitable organization commits in writing, within the three-business-day period, to satisfy the amount due, provided the funds are issued within a reasonable time.” The panel read the statute’s “or” as separating two methods of cure, the tenant’s own liquid payment and payment through a program or charity. It reasoned that the duty to cooperate with an organization that “has committed to pay” would not work if only cash in hand counted. It relied on the Anti-Eviction Act’s remedial purpose, 447 Assocs. v. Miranda, 115 N.J. 522 (1989) (Act is remedial legislation deserving liberal construction), and on legislative history showing that an earlier version of the bill required landlords to accept any method of payment, including personal checks, before the Legislature narrowed the tenant’s methods and added the separate duty to cooperate. S. Cmty. & Urban Affs. Comm. Statement to S. 3124 (June 3, 2019).
3. The duty to cooperate is mandatory. “The Stack Amendment imposes a mandatory duty to cooperate, not a discretionary one.” The panel added: “A landlord may not use a nonpayment action to obtain possession for unpled lease disputes while simultaneously refusing to provide the tax documentation necessary for charitable organizations to process the rent tendered to cure the arrears.”
4. The judgment was vacated. The tenant told the court at oral argument that she no longer sought to return. The panel directed the trial court to vacate the judgment of possession and dismiss the eviction. In a footnote, it said the landlord’s post-appeal request to dismiss its own case was improper because the trial court lacked jurisdiction while the appeal was pending, R. 2:9-1(a), and that even without a pending appeal, it would be improper for a landlord to seek dismissal after obtaining a judgment of possession and using it to evict. The opinion cites R. 2:9-1(a)(3) for the jurisdictional point, a second citation error. The appellate court’s supervision and control pending appeal come from R. 2:9-1(a) itself; the rule’s enumerated exceptions to that control are not its source.

Because the opinion is published, it binds trial courts statewide. Unpublished Appellate Division opinions do not. R. 1:36-3.

What the Stack Amendment Now Requires of New Jersey Landlords

Treat a written commitment from a bona fide charity, received within the three business days, as rent tendered. Cooperate with the organization’s process, including providing a W-9. Do not reject a tender for reasons outside the nonpayment complaint. What a landlord may still do is narrower than most assume, but it is not nothing.

Why a Nonpayment Case Cannot Carry Other Lease Disputes Under New Jersey Law

A nonpayment complaint seeks possession for one reason, and a timely cure ends it. A landlord that also wants the unit back because the tenant refused new lease terms or broke other rules must plead that ground under the Anti-Eviction Act, with its own notices. The end of a lease term is not, by itself, a ground for eviction.

The Anti-Eviction Act lists the grounds on which a residential tenant may be removed. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1. A landlord may not evict or refuse to renew a covered tenancy without one of them. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.3(a). A tenant’s refusal, after written notice, to accept reasonable changes to the lease at the end of its term is a separate ground, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1(i), and it carries its own notice requirements, N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.2. Owner-occupied buildings with no more than two rental units are the main exception to the Act. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1.

Calling a tenant a holdover does not change that. In Warner Village, the landlord’s stated objection after the tender was the tenants’ refusal to sign new lease terms. It had sued only for nonpayment, the tenants cured, and the nonpayment case could not deliver possession for a dispute it never pleaded. A landlord with more than one grievance should decide at the start which grounds to plead and serve the required notices for each.

What the Stack Amendment Decision Means for Tenants and Charitable Organizations

A commitment letter should be in writing, reach the landlord within the three business days, state the amount, and say when funds will issue. A tenant can combine a personal payment with commitments to reach the full amount, as the tenants here did. Every request the landlord ignores, including a W-9 request, should be documented.

Charitable organizations should expect landlords to ask questions now that their letters carry legal weight. A letter that names the tenant, the unit, the amount, the expected payment date, and any conditions will be harder to reject. Conditions invite argument, as discussed below. If the landlord refuses to cooperate, the statute gives the tenant an order to show cause. N.J.S.A. 46:8-49.3(a).

Where the Warner Village Stack Amendment Decision Is Open to Challenge

The result rests comfortably on the landlord’s refusal to cooperate. The holding that a promise is a payment rests on weaker ground. It strains the statute’s text, adds a “reasonable time” condition the Legislature did not write, and leaves landlords without an answer when the promised funds never arrive.

The statute’s timing words apply to every method of payment

The statute requires a landlord to accept “a rent payment made within the three business day period,” and then lists the ways it may be made: cash, certified check, money order, “or through” a program or charity. The timing words come before the list and govern all of it. The panel read the disjunctive “or” as separating two kinds of payment and then reasoned that “[b]ecause payment will be through a rental assistance program or bona fide charitable organization, it is clear the statute recognizes a payment may not be made within three business days.” That does not follow. “Or” separates who pays and how. It does not change when.

The Legislature also used “has committed to pay” in the sentence about cooperation and not in the sentence about payment. A landlord will argue that the difference was deliberate. The panel’s answer is that a cash-in-hand rule would leave the cooperation sentence with nothing to do. There is a middle reading the opinion does not consider. Cooperation means helping the program pay within the window: providing a W-9, accepting its method of payment, answering promptly. A landlord that obstructs that process cannot hold the tenant to a deadline the landlord caused the tenant to miss. That reading decides this case the same way without turning a promise into a payment.

“Reasonable time” has no source and no limit

The holding is conditioned on funds being “issued within a reasonable time.” The statute contains no such phrase. The opinion does not say how long a reasonable time is, who decides, or when. The Catholic Charities letter in this record estimated that its check would be mailed in ten to fifteen business days. A landlord that holds a unit vacant for three weeks on a charity’s promise carries the cost of the wait.

A promise, followed by dismissal with prejudice

Once the rent is paid, the cure provision requires the landlord to notify the court within two business days, and the court must dismiss the nonpayment action with prejudice. N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16a. If a written commitment is a payment, that machinery suggests the case must be dismissed with prejudice before any money arrives. If the money never comes, the landlord has lost its judgment and must start over. Whether a dismissal premised on an unpaid commitment can be reopened, and on what showing, is a question the opinion does not reach. A motion to vacate the dismissal order under R. 4:50-1, particularly subsections (c) (if the tenant misrepresented the commitment), (e), and (f), would be the obvious vehicle. For landlords, this is the largest practical risk the decision creates.

Conditional and stale commitments

One commitment promised payment only if the tenants were restored to possession and no other money was owed. The other reaffirmed a letter written three months before the lockout. The panel counted both without discussing the conditions or the timing. A landlord can fairly ask whether a commitment conditioned on facts outside its control is a commitment “to satisfy the amount due.” The tenant’s answer is that restoration follows any cure, and that the combined tender here exceeded the judgment.

Who counts as a bona fide charity

The statute says “bona fide.” The definition the panel cited reaches any person who is, “or holds himself out to be, established for any benevolent, philanthropic, humane, social welfare, public health, or other eleemosynary purpose.” N.J.S.A. 45:17A-20 (definition of “Charitable organization”). That is broad. The opinion does not say what a landlord may ask for to confirm that an organization is genuine before treating its letter as rent. Asking for an IRS determination letter or similar proof of status is a reasonable step. Refusing to engage is not.

Government programs and the ten-day window

The holding speaks only to bona fide charitable organizations. The same sentence in the statute covers federal, State, and local rental assistance programs, and the reasoning applies to them at least as strongly, but the case did not involve them, so the court did not say so. The panel also said it was “persuaded” that the trial court erred in treating the tenant’s later application as time-barred, without explaining why. The ten days after a lockout during which the Special Civil Part retains jurisdiction to hear a tenant’s application, N.J.S.A. 2A:42-10.16, remain a trap for both sides.

What New Jersey Landlords Should Do Now Under the Stack Amendment

Most of the risk in this decision can be managed in the office before a case reaches court. Respond to assistance offers in writing, plead every ground you rely on, and treat the three business days after a lockout as a period when someone is watching the mail and the inbox.

1. Answer assistance offers before you file. If a charity or program offers to pay, respond in writing and provide the W-9. In Warner Village, the refusal came before the complaint was filed.
2. Plead every ground you rely on. If the problem is lease terms or conduct, serve the notices that ground requires. A nonpayment case resolves nonpayment and nothing else.
3. Watch the three business days. After a lockout, designate one person to receive tenders and commitment letters, and calendar the deadline.
4. Confirm commitments in writing. Ask the organization for its status, the amount, the date funds will issue, and any conditions. Keep the exchange.
5. Do not re-let during the window. Be cautious while a timely application or appeal is pending. Re-renting did not end this case.
6. Get advice before reporting a commitment as payment. The statute requires notice to the court within two business days after the rent is paid, followed by dismissal with prejudice. How to report a tender that includes commitments instead of funds is unsettled.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Stack Amendment in New Jersey

Does a New Jersey landlord have to accept rent from a charity after a lockout?

Yes. The Stack Amendment requires a landlord to accept rent paid within three business days after a lockout, including payment through a bona fide charitable organization or a government rental assistance program. Under Warner Village Realty Group v. Crawford, a charity’s written commitment made within that window counts as payment if the funds are issued within a reasonable time.

Is a charity’s commitment letter enough, or must the money arrive within three days?

The letter is enough if it is a written commitment from a bona fide charitable organization, delivered within the three business days, and the funds are issued within a reasonable time. The Appellate Division rejected the argument that payment requires cash in hand. It did not define how long a reasonable time is.

Can a landlord refuse to give a rental assistance charity a W-9?

Doing so puts the judgment at risk. The Stack Amendment requires landlords to cooperate with a program or charity that has committed to pay. In Warner Village, the landlord’s refusal to provide a W-9 was part of the non-cooperation that led the court to vacate the judgment of possession.

Can a landlord evict for other lease problems in a nonpayment case?

No. A nonpayment case seeks possession for nonpayment, and a timely cure ends it. Other grounds, such as refusing reasonable new lease terms, must be pleaded under the Anti-Eviction Act with the notices that ground requires. The expiration of a lease is not, by itself, a ground for eviction.

Does re-renting the apartment end the tenant’s appeal?

Not necessarily. In Warner Village, the landlord re-rented the unit, and the Appellate Division decided the appeal anyway because the issue was important and likely to recur while evading review. The court vacated the judgment of possession even though the tenant no longer sought to return.

Does the Stack Amendment cover rental assistance from a government program?

Yes. The statute requires landlords to accept payment made through a federal, State, or local rental assistance program and to cooperate with a program that has committed to pay. Warner Village addressed charitable organizations, so whether a program’s written commitment is itself a payment technically remains open. Cooperating with the program’s process is required either way.

What happens if the charity never pays after the landlord accepts its commitment?

The decision does not say. The court conditioned its holding on funds being issued within a reasonable time but did not define that period or explain the landlord’s remedy if payment never comes. Because the statute directs dismissal with prejudice once rent is paid, landlords should get advice before reporting a commitment to the court as payment.

Contact The Law Office of Rajeh A. Saadeh, L.L.C.

Nonpayment cases look routine until a tenant tenders something other than cash. After Warner Village, how a landlord answers a charity’s letter, what it pleads, and when it re-lets can decide whether a judgment of possession survives. We represent property owners, managers, and tenants in landlord-tenant matters, from the complaint through appeal.

Call The Law Office of Rajeh A. Saadeh, L.L.C., to schedule a consultation. Bring the lease and any renewal offers, the rent ledger, the complaint, the judgment of possession, the warrant of removal and order for orderly removal, any notices served on the tenant, and every communication with the tenant or with any charity or rental assistance program, including W-9 requests and commitment letters. We serve clients throughout New Jersey, including Somerset, Middlesex, Morris, Hunterdon, and Monmouth Counties, and on appeal.

This post is general information about New Jersey law. It is not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Attorney advertising.