Under New Jersey law, most rentals need a current lead paint inspection. Skip it and you risk fines, lawsuits, and a property you can't legally rent. We do the inspection, issue the certificate, and hand you the paperwork your municipality wants. Statewide. Usually within a week.
Most NJ rentals built before 1978 fall under the state's lead-safe certification rules, tightened in 2021 under P.L. 2021, c. 182 (N.J.S.A. 52:27D-437.16). Property owners are required to inspect at tenant turnover or every three years, fix anything that turns up, and submit the certificate to their municipality.
Miss it and you face fines, blocked rental registrations, and tenant lawsuits that can run into six figures. That's the part most owners already know.
Here's the part that gets skipped: a lot of NJ inspectors charge $300 to $600 per unit and book 4-6 weeks out. For a property manager with 20 doors on a cycle, that math is brutal. We built Side by Side to fix both problems.
Address, units, bedrooms, tenant contacts. Ninety seconds in the form.
NJ decides visual or dust wipe. We check, then send appointment times and a firm price.
Deposit confirms it. Most properties scheduled within 5-7 business days.
A certified NJ Lead Inspector at your property. Wipe samples leave for the lab the same day.
Lead Safe or Lead Free. If anything needs correcting, we send a clear list and come back.
One company, start to finish. Inspection. Lab. Certificate. No back-and-forth between three vendors.
New Jersey sets the rule based on the property's age, condition, and how recent any prior testing was. We check the state's criteria for your specific address before scheduling so you know which test applies, what it costs, and how long results take.
The inspector looks for deteriorating paint and lead hazards. Results same day.
The inspector collects wipe samples from windows, floors, and surfaces. Samples go to a certified lab. Results typically 5-7 business days. If your property needs a wipe test, we handle the lab coordination. You don't need to ship anything or talk to a lab tech.
The certificate is the headline. The report behind it is what protects you. Every Side by Side inspection produces a written lead based paint inspection report your municipality, your owner, and your attorney can all read the same way.
Room-by-room findings, the surfaces we checked, the method used, and the result for each. Where NJ calls for lead paint testing on dust wipes, the certified lab results come attached with every sampling location noted. Photos of any deteriorated or chipping paint are included and dated.
The report lands on one of two outcomes. Lead Safe: no current hazards, certificate issued. Or a hazard list: the exact items to correct before we re-inspect. No vague "you have a problem" language. You get the rooms, the surfaces, and the fix.
A lead based paint inspection report is not a one-time form. It is the record that proves you tested on schedule, the baseline for your next three-year cycle, and the document that ends a tenant dispute before it starts. We archive yours and hand you a clean copy you can forward to an owner without redacting a thing.
When a lender, a buyer's attorney, an NGO board, or a municipal official reviews a lead certificate, the first question is whether the inspection was done by an objective, state-certified third party, not the property owner and not a crew that profits from the repairs. Side by Side is that independent inspector.
We are a NJ DCA and DOH certified Lead Inspector and Risk Assessor. Our inspection is an arms-length assessment: we test, we document, and the result stands on its own. If corrections turn up, you're free to hire any contractor to make them. The report doesn't change based on who does the work.
A third-party lead paint inspection removes the conflict of interest that makes a report easy to challenge. Lenders financing a multi-family deal, attorneys clearing a sale, and NGOs answering to a grant all want a neutral certificate. An independent inspection is what holds up when someone pushes back.
Most NJ lead inspectors charge $300 to $600 per unit. We charge $125 to $150. Lower price doesn't mean cut corners. It means a tight crew running inspections at volume, with lab logistics worked out and no inspector-broker margin sitting in the middle. The same certification, the same report, half the price.
Bulk pricing for portfolios of 5+ units. Ask. For the full breakdown of what drives lead paint inspection cost up at other shops, including lab fees and multi-unit rates, read the full post.
The $125 to $150 per unit covers the on-site inspection by a certified NJ lead inspector, all dust-wipe sampling where the state requires it, certified lab analysis, and the written report with your Lead Safe or Lead Free certificate. No separate lab invoice, no trip fee, no per-sample surcharge.
Most of the $300 to $600 you see quoted around New Jersey is structure, not testing: an inspector-broker margin, lab fees billed on top, single-operator scheduling that charges for windshield time, and per-unit rates that never drop for volume. Strip those out and the real cost of a lead paint inspection in NJ is a fraction of the sticker.
We inspect statewide. Demand is heaviest in the older housing stock, South Jersey row homes, the Camden / Trenton / Newark / Jersey City rental belts, and the multi-family corridors in Essex, Hudson, Bergen, Union, and Mercer counties. We work them all.
Camden County, Gloucester, Burlington, Salem, Cumberland. HQ is in Gloucester City; this is our backyard. Fastest scheduling.
Mercer County (Trenton), Middlesex, Monmouth. Common multi-family inspection work.
Essex County (Newark), Hudson County (Jersey City), Bergen, Union, Passaic (Paterson). Older urban stock with the highest lead exposure risk.
If your property is anywhere in New Jersey, we can get to it.
If you run 10, 50, or 200 doors, your problem isn't finding an inspector. It's finding one who can keep up. Most NJ inspectors are one-person operations booking weeks out. We're set up for portfolio scale, with bulk pricing, scheduled rotation cycles, and photo-documented records you can drop into owner reports without rebuilding them.
If you're a PM trying to keep pace with your renewal cadence, we should talk.
RRP certified to issue Lead Safe / Lead Free certificates.
Half what most NJ inspectors charge. Bulk on portfolios.
PMs with portfolios get priority slots.
Inspection, lab, certificate, remediation if needed.