Court Opinion

ID: 9859359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 21:15:39.593554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:40:22.193256
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE HOENS,
dissenting.
Today, the majority of this Court holds that an occupant of a leasehold which has terminated, both by operation of law and by the terms of the lease agreement itself, is entitled to the protections of the Anti-Eviction Act, N.J.S.A 2A:18-61.1 to -61.12 (the Act). In my view, the majority has failed to adhere to and apply the plain language of the Act; has declined to analyze and appreciate the significance of the applicable legislative history of the Act; and has refused to recognize the impact of the time-honored principles of contract law on which the Act, the related federal statutes and regulations, and the lease itself depend.
In my view, the decision strays far from the obvious intent of the Legislature and has effectively both created life-long possesso-ry rights akin to ownership interests and then extended those rights to a new class of persons who were never intended to be the beneficiaries of the Act. More troubling, however, is that the *129majority has created rights so broad and so ill-defined that, in the end, this effort will do more harm than good. I, therefore, dissent.
I.
Although a complete factual recitation is unnecessary, the dispute before this Court, and the basis for my dissent, can only be understood in light of a few salient facts. As the majority notes, Bertha Guy first became a tenant in a building owned by Maglies in the 1970’s. It is unclear whether the terms of the original lease were written or oral, because Guy’s tenancy may well have preceded both the adoption of the Act in 1974, and the creation of the Section 8 voucher program, for which Guy first qualified in 1991.
As a result of Guy’s successful application for the Section 8 program, Maglies (not Guy) entered into a Housing Assistance Program (HAP) contract with the Department of Community Affairs (DCA), which administers the Section 8 program in New Jersey. At the same time, Maglies and Guy entered into a written lease agreement, using a form lease approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Taken together, those two contracts, the HAP contract and the HUD lease, fixed the legal obligations among the three contracting parties, namely, Maglies, DCA, and Guy.
In particular, DCA agreed to pay Maglies a portion of the monthly rent for the unit, based on the difference between its evaluation of Guy’s ability to pay and the regular rental amount then charged by Maglies, the landlord. Maglies agreed to accept rent from DCA and from Guy and he also agreed to be bound by the terms of the HUD-approved lease he had entered into with Guy, the tenant. Guy agreed to pay her portion of the rent and to abide by the obligations that the lease imposed upon her.
In 2001, Guy asked Maglies if her daughter Jennings could move into the apartment with her because Jennings needed her help. It is significant that Guy asked Maglies to allow her *130daughter to move in because it demonstrates that Guy recognized that she would be in violation of the terms of her lease if Jennings moved in without permission. It is also significant that, as evidence of Maglies’s agreement that Jennings could move in, he executed a new lease agreement with Guy. That agreement, however, like every earlier lease agreement, was between Maglies as the landlord and Guy as the sole tenant. The only difference was that the lease in 2001 listed Jennings as a member of the household who was permitted to reside there.
Neither that lease agreement, nor any other document, listed Jennings as a tenant and Jennings never signed a lease or any other agreement. Although the HAP contract, between DCA and Maglies, and the Section 8 voucher amounts, were thereafter adjusted to take into account the income that Jennings had, the rental amount for the apartment regularly payable to Maglies did not change. Guy and Maglies did not sign another lease and when the 2001 lease expired, the relationship became a month-to-month tenancy by operation of law.
The record reflects that Guy died on March 30, 2005, which was one day before the end of the lease term. When Guy died, Jennings did not become the executrix or administratrix of her estate. That role was filled by Rafhidah Ali, who is not a party to these proceedings. After Guy’s death, Maglies refused to accept rent from Jennings and declined to execute a new HAP contract that would have named her as the tenant, rather than as a family member permitted to reside in the apartment as an occupant under Guy’s HAP contract.
During the pendency of these proceedings, Jennings has continued to remain in the apartment, without having signed a lease and, therefore, without ever being bound to the terms of any contract ordinarily required of any other tenant. Moreover, because Jennings is in need of assistance from another adult to remain in any apartment, her adult daughter has moved into the apartment as well. It does not appear that Jennings asked Maglies for permission for her daughter to reside in the apartment with her. As a *131result, Jennings’s daughter’s status, as it relates to the lease, is neither as a tenant, nor as a permitted family member, nor as an authorized occupant.
II.
The majority recognizes that federal law and the rules governing Section 8 do not create tenancy rights, see ante at 120, 936 A.2d at 420-21. The majority, quite correctly, then turns to an analysis of state law principles for guidance as to the rights, if any, that are afforded to Jennings following the death of Guy. Ibid. Where I part company with the majority, however, is in the analysis of the Act and its intent concerning the rights, if any, of a surviving family member, and in the further issue of whether the Act, if it is silent, permits us to cloak Jennings with the rights that the Act accords specifically to tenants. In order to determine whether Jennings, at the time of her mother’s death, became a tenant or otherwise fell within the protections of the Act, I turn to an analysis of legislative intent based on the plain language and the legislative history which, in my view, is absent from the majority’s decision.
A.
I begin, then, with a consideration of the Act as the touchstone for my analysis. As in all of our efforts to interpret legislative intent, we begin with the words chosen by the Legislature itself, for if the language is plain and its meaning is clear, we are bound to interpret it and apply it as written. See, e.g., Daidone v. Buterick Bulkheading, 191 N.J. 557, 565-66, 924 A.2d 1193 (2007); Thomsen v. Mercer-Charles, 187 N.J. 197, 206, 901 A.2d 303 (2006); Merlino v. Borough of Midland Park, 172 N.J. 1, 9, 796 A.2d 203 (2002). If, on the other hand, the language is ambiguous or lends itself to more than one interpretation, the Court may look to secondary sources to aid in the interpretation of the Legislature’s intent. See, e.g., Daidone, supra, 191 N.J. at 565-66, 924 A.2d 1193; Ramapo River Reserve Homeowners Ass’n v. Borough *132of Oakland, 186 N.J. 439, 450, 896 A.2d 459 (2006); Cherry Hill Manor Assocs. v. Faugno, 182 N.J. 64, 75, 861 A.2d 123 (2004).
Applying these basic principles to the issue before this Court leaves no room for debate. The Act itself, in plain and unambiguous words, specifies those to whom its protections extend. That language is not broadly stated, but instead provides as follows: “[n]o lessee or tenant or the assigns, under-tenants or legal representatives of such lessee or tenant may be removed ... from any house, building ... or tenement leased for residential purposes ... except upon establishment of one of the following grounds as good cause....” N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1 (emphasis added). The Act, therefore, by its terms, applies only to one who is a lessee; a tenant; or an assign, under-tenant or legal representative of a lessee or tenant.
It is noteworthy that the Legislature did not define those terms as a pai't of the Act. Each, however, is a technical term well understood in our law and we must conclude that the Legislature intended to use these terms in their technical sense. See N.J.S.A. 1:1-1 (“Technical words and phrases, and words and phrases having a special or accepted meaning in the law, shall be construed in accordance with such technical or special and accepted meaning.”). Jennings does not meet the definitions for any of these terms, and neither she nor the majority suggests to the contrary. Utilizing a plain language analysis, therefore, Jennings is not entitled to any of the protections of the Act that apply to a tenant.
Notwithstanding that insurmountable obstacle to relief, Jennings argues that her status as an “occupant” or “surviving family member” entitles her to claim the benefit of the Act’s protections. This cannot be, however, because the Act itself includes references to occupants and family members, each of which is a status relevant for some other purpose but which, tellingly, the Legislature has not added within the language defining those to whom the Act’s protections extend.
*133For example, the Act grants certain of its protections to “disabled family members” who reside in units owned by other family members, see N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1, thereby explicitly expanding the Act’s protective scope to these individuals in certain defined circumstances.
On the other hand, the Act makes reference to occupants and to family members in several sections that explicitly give the landlord the right to evict, but never extends protection to these groups. For example, a tenant whose behavior, “continuéis] to be, after written notice to cease, so disorderly as to destroy the peace and quiet of the occupants or other tenants living in said house or neighborhood” may be evicted under the Act. N.J.S.A. 2A:18-61.1b (emphasis added). Moreover, the Act also permits eviction of a tenant who “knowingly harbors” a person who has committed a drug offense, a theft, an assault, or made a terroristic threat against the landlord or a member of his “family,” or a tenant who “permits or permitted such a person to occupy those premises for residential purposes____” N.J.S.A 2A:18-61.12n to -61.1q (emphasis added).
In each of these examples, the Legislature carefully distinguished the status of tenant from that of occupant or family member. In doing so, the Legislature demonstrated that it was cognizant of the separate meanings of the terms, the significance of which is inescapable. By its careful use of terms, the Legislature can only have meant to extend protection only to those- it precisely named. Therefore, consistent with our ordinary plain language analysis, because Jennings is not a tenant, a lessee, or an assign, under-tenant or legal representative of a tenant or lessee, she simply cannot claim the benefit of the Act’s protective reach.
B.
Overlooking the fact that this result must follow from a plain language analysis, the majority relies on the argument that the Act is “remedial legislation,” see 447 Assocs. v. Miranda, 115 N.J. 522, 529, 559 A.2d 1362 (1989), as the basis for its expansive *134reading of the Act’s intended scope. Nothing in the remedial purposes of the Act, however, supports the broad reading of the term “tenant” that the majority today embraces. Instead, to the extent that the concept of “tenant” was discussed at all, the Act adhered to the term’s traditional definition. Faithfulness to the Act’s intent, then, would dictate that we likewise utilize the well-understood meaning of the technical terms the Legislature has chosen.
Moreover, merely invoking the “remedial” mantra is insufficient to support the majority’s analysis. In fact, while relying on that label, the majority fails to recognize the significant legislative history bearing on the question of what it was, in actuality, that the Legislature intended to remedy when enacting this statute. That analysis demonstrates that the majority’s assumption that the Act can be used to create broad remedies beyond its stated scope is unfounded.
It is unquestionably true that the Act was intended to afford broad protections to tenants. But it is also true that the Act created a simple and efficient means for a landlord to evict a tenant where the landlord was privileged to do so. During the extensive hearings that led to the passage of the Act, numerous witnesses attested to problems facing both tenants and landlords because of the virtual absence of laws governing the rights of either. An analysis of the concerns that led to the Act’s passage demonstrates that the Act was designed to remedy more than simply the rights of tenants.
There is no doubt that, prior to the Act’s passage, tenants were largely without any rights. At the same time, in particular in our urban centers, housing was very scarce. New residential units were not being built and existing housing stock was falling into disrepair. See George Charles Bruno, New Jersey Landlord-Tenant Law: Proposals for Reform, 1 Rutgers-Cam. L.J. 299, 304 n. 26 (1969). As a result, tenants were subjected to rent-gouging, deplorable living conditions, and summary eviction, including eviction through self-help mechanisms. Id. at 302-05.
*135In 1969, the crisis affecting rental housing in New Jersey-prompted the Assembly to pass a resolution creating the New Jersey Landlord-Tenant Relations Study Commission (the Commission). See Assemb. Con. Res. 28 (1969). The Commission was charged with studying laws affecting tenants with an eye toward recommending changes to those laws as needed. See Public Hearing Pursuant to Assemb. Con. Res. 28 Before the New Jersey Landlord-Tenant Relationship Study Commission, vol. 1, 1 (1969) (statement of William Goldberg, Chairman, N.J. Landlord-Tenant Relationship Study Comm’n) [hereinafter Commission Hearings ].
In a series of hearings in November and December 1969, the Commission heard testimony from a variety of witnesses, including scholars, economists, attorneys and tenants’ rights advocates. Some of those witnesses pointed out that there were no statutes governing landlord-tenant relations, with the effect that, in large measure, only common law principles were operative. See id. at 43-44 (testimony of Prof. Gerald Gibbons). Those principles afforded landlords significant rights, including distraint, a form of extra-judicial self-help permitting landlords to seize the tenant’s possessions in lieu of rent, and the power of a landlord to take possession of a leasehold and summarily evict a tenant in default without notice. Id. at 43-45; see, e.g., Callen v. Sherman’s, Inc., 92 N.J. 114, 120, 455 A.2d 1102 (1983) (“Distraint of a tenant’s goods by a landlord may be the sole surviving relic of the early common law’s tolerance of self-help.” (citing Commercial Credit Co. of Baltimore v. Vineis, 98 N.J.L. 376, 120 A. 417 (Sup.Ct. 1923))). Indeed, the sole statute that had been enacted prior to 1969 protected landlords by giving them the right to evict a tenant summarily for cause, or on a few days’ notice for no cause, but gave no rights to the tenants whatsoever. See Commission Hearings, supra, at vol. 4, 71-73 (testimony of Fred Schmidt, Attorney, Camden Reg’l Legal Servs.) (explaining N.J.S.A. 2A:18-51).
*136At the same time, the common law afforded tenants no rights and few tenants had written leases to protect them against either summary eviction or onerous and arbitrary increases in rent. This imbalance resulted in a number of abuses. Some tenants’ rights advocates reported that tenants were being forced to live in deteriorating premises at high rents because the common law gave them no protections and because the housing shortage meant that they had nowhere else to go. Id. at vol. 4,10-14 (testimony of Dr. John Morrow, Chairman, Colony House Tenants Assoc.).
In urging the Commission to address this imbalance, tenants’ rights advocates presented a variety of proposals during the hearings. These suggestions included calls for the creation of a right of tenants to pursue a rent strike or for recognition of an implied covenant of habitability, id. at vol. 4, 31-32 (testimony of Peter Siegel, Director, Middlesex County Legal Servs.); arguments in favor of statutory protections for tenants, including recognizing the right of a tenant to demand a written lease, see id. at vol. 4, 111-13 (testimony of William Colantuono, Forest Hills Tenants Comm.); advocating for enactment of a statute requiring the state-wide use of a uniform lease, id. at vol. 2, 101 (testimony of Kellogg G. Birdseye); or imposition of a limit on the number of times in a year that a landlord would be allowed to raise the rent, id. at vol. 4,116 (testimony of Dennis Deverin).
In 1970, the Commission presented its interim report to the Governor and Legislature. N.J. Landlordr-Tenant Relationship Study Commission, Interim Report to the Governor and Legislature (1970) [hereinafter Interim Report \. The Interim Report identified “[f]lagrant abuses by some landlords, which have exacerbated existing tensions includ[ing]: insistence upon oppressive leases; refusal to tender written leases; issuance of notices to quit without cause; refusal to permit subleasing; unlawful distraint for rent; self-help evictions; inadequate or absence of notice in summary proceedings for possession; retaliatory evictions; excessive rental increases; inadequate maintenance, failure to return security deposits and other comparable conduct.” Id. at 2-3.
*137The Interim Report, however, was hardly one-sided, pointing out that not all of the problems in landlord-tenant relations could be blamed on landlords. Rather, during the hearings the Commission had also uncovered “a phalanx of tenant abuses, the most notable of which are lease-breaking, indiscriminate destruction of property, rule-breaking, vandalism and rent skips, retaliation in the form of rent strikes and other concerted action (often in response to legitimate and justifiable rent increases).” Id. at 3.
As part of the Interim Report, the Commission recommended that then-existing statutory protections for tenants against retaliatory evictions, see N.J.S.A. 2A:170-92.1, be amended to provide protections for organized activity by tenants, that the self-help remedies available to landlords be abolished, and that the jurisdictional limit of the small claims court be raised to a level sufficient to make that forum available for tenants seeking return of security deposits. Interim Report, supra, at 7-8. The Commission also proposed changes to give landlords greater ability to secure financing for improvements that would reduce landlords’ reliance on rents and thus ease the housing crisis. Id. at 8. Finally, the Commission proposed an ambitious agenda of further work in its effort to address the continuing problems of landlord-tenant relations. Id. at 5-6, 41.
The bill that eventually became the Act was included among nearly a dozen bills jointly considered in 1974. During hearings on these bills, witnesses echoed the continuing concern about the severe housing crisis, the lack of sufficient protections for tenants and need for substantial reform. Tenants’ rights organizations called for legislation that would entitle tenants to the protections that a written lease agreement would afford as a solution “to the crucial problem of the privilege given a landlord to arbitrarily evict a tenant.” Public Hearing on Assembly Bills 58, 232, 284, 940, 943, 946, 947, 951, 953, 954, 1048 and 1060 (Landlord-Tenant) Before the Assernb. Commerce, Industry & Professions Comm., 39 (1974) [hereinafter 1974 Hearings] (testimony of Sylvia Aranow, President, N.J. Tenants Org.); see also id. at 51 (testimony of *138Eileen Martini, Legis. Counsel to the Mayor of Jersey City) (“[T]here are many aspects of the landlord-tenant relationship that are in further need of legislation, including and most particularly the right of a landlord to evict a tenant with no reason being given.”).
Not all of the witnesses supported the proposed bills. Some witnesses condemned all of them as being “blatantly anti-property owner” and an unnecessary overreaction to a few bad landlords. See Public Hearing on Assembly Bill Nos. 54, 151, 152, 160, 165, 212, 1071, 1072, 1535, 1536, 1557, 1610, 2122, and Senate Bill No. 429 Before the Assernb. Revision & Amendment of Laws Comm., 6 (1978) [hereinafter 1973 Hearings ] (testimony of Albert Rubin, N.J. Assoc, of Realtor Bds.). Those witnesses asked the Legislature not to so alter the balance in favor of tenants’ rights that the housing crisis would be further exacerbated through wide-spread decisions by existing landlords to convert properties to nonresidential uses. See ibid. Other witnesses cautioned against creating avenues for abuse by tenants who might want to avoid signing renewal leases but who would be able to continue in possession without any right of the landlord to evict. 1974 Hearings, supra, at 4 (testimony of Sam Herzog, Apartment House Council). They warned that some of the language might place “the tenant ... virtually in a position to confiscate the unit.” Ibid. Those witnesses also urged the Legislature to expand the grounds on which a landlord would be permitted to evict a tenant, so as to recognize additional “[vjalid and totally reasonable causes for removal....” Ibid.
Significantly, although granting broad protections for tenants, the Act that was eventually passed also included many of the proposed additional grounds for eviction urged by the landlords. See Assemb. No. 1586, L. 1974, c. 49 (1974) (enacted). In the end, the Act protects both tenants and landlords and creates a careful balance between the rights and remedies available to each. See ibid. Simply referring to the Act, as the majority does, as “remedial” without recognizing that the Legislature sought to *139remedy abuses of both landlords and tenants, in my view, threatens to upset the Legislature’s carefully struck balance.
C.
In enacting this broad protective legislation, the Legislature did not define, or even consider, the terms that are central to the dispute now before us. Throughout the lengthy series of hearings that gave rise to the eventual passage of this Act, witness after witness simply referred to tenants and to landlords, all in apparent agreement as to what these commonly-understood terms mean. Indeed, the only reference to how one might define a lessee or a tenant can be found in a brief statement concerning the language about the scope of the Act’s coverage. One of the staff attorneys for Newark Legal Services testified as follows:
[T]here is a legal distinction ... a lessee is a party who has made a contract with a lessor, namely, a landlord, to rent premises. A lessee becomes a tenant when he takes occupancy of the premises. So every tenant is a lessee, whether it is through a written or oral lease, but every lessee is not a tenant. A tenant, we thought, refers to someone who is in occupation of premises through a lease agreement. But a lessee doesn’t have to be in occupation.
[1974 Hearings, supra, at 74A (testimony of Phillip Steinfeld, Staff Attorney, Newark Legal Servs.).]
Not only is this the sole reference to the meaning of the terms tenant and lessee, it is also the only mention of the intended scope of the protections afforded by the terms of the Act.
Although the Act, as originally adopted, did not include specific legislative findings supporting a liberal construction, the Act’s purposes were described in the Sponsor’s statement:
At present, there are no limitations imposed by statute upon the reasons a landlord may utilize to evict a tenant. As a result, residential tenants frequently have been unfairly and arbitrarily ousted from housing quarters in which they have been comfortable and where they have not caused any problems. This is a serious matter, particularly now that there is a critical shortage of rental housing space in New Jersey. This act shall limit the eviction of tenants by landlords to reasonable grounds and provide that suitable notice shall be given to tenants when an action for eviction is instituted by the landlord.
[Assemb. No. 1586, L. 1974, c. 49, supra, Sponsor’s statement.]
More recently, in adopting the 1986 amendments to the Act, the Legislature added a series of specific findings that reiterated the Act’s essential purpose, finding as follows:
*140It is in the public interest of the State to maintain for citizens the broadest protections available under State eviction laws to avoid such displacement and resultant loss of affordable housing, which, due to housing’s uniqueness as the most costly and difficult to change necessity of life, causes overcrowding, unsafe and unsanitary conditions, blight, burdens on community services, wasted resources, homelessness, emigration from the State and personal hardship, which is particularly severe for vulnerable seniors, the disabled, the frail, minorities, large families and single parents.
[N.J.S.A. 2A: 18-61.la.]
Although the amendments in 1986 were designed to address displacements of tenants caused by conversion of rental units to condominiums and the like, the continuing expression of concern for tenants and their rights is not without significance. However broad the Act’s language, however serious the problems that led to its passage, and however wide its embrace of tenants and their rights may be, the Act’s essential focus is and has been from the outset, on tenants. That focus, to the exclusion of any mention of rights of “occupants” or “surviving family members” is telling.
As broad as one’s view of the remedial purposes of the Act may be, nothing in the legislative history overcomes the impact of the plain language and nothing suggests that the Legislature intended that the Act’s scope would be expanded beyond its carefully selected terms. On the contrary, the legislative history suggests that Jennings falls outside of the Act’s protections. To the extent that the Legislature considered the definitions of the categories relevant to this dispute, the language it chose affords Jennings no relief.
III.
I dissent for a further reason, based on concepts central to the Section 8 program itself. As the majority notes, the Section 8 program only provides a funding source for tenants who meet its eligibility criteria based on rental amounts for units in which they reside. See 42 U.S.C.A. § 1437f(c); 24 C.F.R. § 982.514. The Section 8 program neither creates nor affects leasehold rights, which are governed solely by operation of state law. See ante at *141118-20, 936 A.2d at 420-21 (citing and discussing Carter v. Meadowgreen Assocs., 268 Va. 215, 597 S.E.2d 82, 84 (2004), cert. denied, 544 U.S. 963, 125 S.Ct. 1727, 161 L.Ed.2d 606 (2005), and Evans v. Franco, 93 N.Y.2d 823, 687 N.Y.S.2d 615, 710 N.E.2d 261, 262 (1999)).
What the majority overlooks, however, is plain language in the federally mandated lease and in the applicable regulations that prohibits the creation of rights in favor of anyone other than a tenant. More to the point, the terms and provisions that embody those prohibitions are obvious to Section 8 participants. All HAP contracts require the landlord, at least initially, to enter into a written lease with the tenant that lists the members of the household or family. Each such lease must include and incorporate the terms of a HUD-approved form called the Section 8 Addendum. U.S. Dep’t of Housing and Urban Dev., Form HUD-52641-A, Tenancy Addendum (2007) [hereinafter Addendum]. The Addendum not only sets forth numerous rights and responsibilities of tenants and landlords participating in the Section 8 program, many of which mirror various provisions of our landlord-tenant law, but it also includes other terms relevant to this dispute.
Significantly, the Addendum defines each of these critical terms and incorporates, as a result, the following definitions into each lease:
Family. The persons who may reside in the unit with assistance under the program.
Household. The persons who may reside in the contract unit. The household consists of the family and any PHA-approved live-in aide.
Lease. The written agreement between the owner and the tenant for the lease of the contract unit to the tenant. The lease includes the tenancy addendum prescribed by HUD.
Tenant. The family member (or members) who leases the unit from the owner. [Addendum, supra, at 4-5, ¶ 17.]
Therefore, by virtue of the inclusion of the Addendum, each lease by its terms draws a sharp distinction between a tenant, who *142is a signatory to the lease, and members of the family or household who merely are permitted to reside in the leased premises. Likewise, the HAP contract between the DCA and a landlord, echoes this language. See U.S. Dep’t of Housing and Urban Dev., Form HUD-52641, Housing Assistance Payments Contract (2007) at 5, ¶ 12. Although the HAP contract refers to “the family” for purposes of defining permissible occupants and persons covered by the payment of Section 8 funds, see id. at 7, ¶¶ 3, 5, it also contains the Addendum’s definitions of “family” and “household” that are separate from and not dependent on the definition, or status, of “tenant,” see id. at 10, ¶ 17.
Furthermore, the federal regulations governing the Section 8 program specifically provide that nothing in the HAP agreement confers any third-party beneficiary status on a family member as it relates to the lease contract. See 24 C.F.R. § 982.456. Instead, the applicable regulation provides as follows:
(b) (1) The family is not a party to or third party beneficiary of the HAP contract. Except as provided in paragraph (b)(2) of this section, the family may not exercise any right or remedy against the owner under the HAP contract.
(c) The HAP contract shall not be construed as creating any right of the family or other third party (other than HUD) to enforce any provision of the HAP contract, or to assert any claim against HUD, the PHA or the owner under the HAP contract.
[Id. § 982.456(b)(1), (c).]
Taken together, these provisions emphasize the sharp distinction drawn between rights enjoyed by tenants and the lesser status of family members or permissible occupants. Nowhere in the federal regulations or federally-mandated agreements is there a suggestion that a family member has the rights reserved by statute and contract to a tenant. On the contrary, cloaking Jennings with those rights creates precisely the sort of third-party beneficiary status that the federal program expressly forbids.
IV.
I reach a result different from the majority in this matter for yet another reason, quite separate and apart from this analysis of *143legislative intent and federal mandates. Regardless of one’s interpretation of the Act and the federal mandates, the fact remains that a lease is a contract and its terms are governed by contract principles. Those well-settled principles include several that, in my view, are relevant.
Central to our ordinary rules of contract construction is our faithful adherence to the principle that we enforce contracts in accordance with their terms. We do not supply terms to contracts that are plain and unambiguous, nor do we make a better contract for either of the parties than the one which the parties themselves have created. See Kampf v. Franklin Life Ins. Co., 33 N.J. 36, 43, 161 A.2d 717 (1960) (“Courts cannot make contracts for parties. They can only enforce the contracts which the parties themselves have made.”); Graziano v. Grant, 326 N.J.Super. 328, 342, 741 A.2d 156 (App.Div.1999) (“[I]t is not the function of the court to make a better contract for the parties, or to supply terms that have not been agreed upon.”) Therefore, if the contract into which the parties have entered is clear, then it must be enforced by this Court without regard to whether we would have made a different agreement had we been asked.
The contract in this matter is indeed clear. The lease is a specific form of contract because of the inclusion of the Addendum and because of the overlay of the Act’s protective scope. The combination of those factors creates a possessory interest in the premises which is akin to a life estate. That life estate runs in favor of the tenant who is a signatory to the lease and operates only as long as the tenant does not violate any of the covenants in the lease or the requirements of the Act. However, a life estate is just that, and it terminates at the end of the protected life. It does not pass through an estate nor by operation of law. The majority’s reasoning, however, would extend that life estate to a family member, creating a virtual interest in fee in the property owned in fee by another. Taken to its logical extension, it would never end. I see no basis in the law for such a result.
*144Attempting to apply contract principles to this dispute points out another shortcoming in the analysis of the majority, because at the time of Guy’s death, Jennings was not a party to any contract. She was not a signatory to the lease or to the HAP contract. Although it is true that her income was utilized for purposes of calculating the amount of the Section 8 subsidy that the tenant’s household would receive, that calculation did not alter the amount of rent that Magües received and certainly did not make Jennings a party to any contract. Rather, in 2001, when Guy asked Magües for permission to allow her daughter Jennings to live with her in the apartment, she became, by operation of law, a member of that household whose income was relevant for Section 8 calculations.
More to the point, the very fact that Guy recognized that she needed permission for Jennings to reside in the apartment demonstrates that Guy knew the consequences of letting her daughter live there without her landlord’s permission. Simply put, this lease, between Guy and Magües, like all residential leases, creates reciprocal legal obligations between the landlord and the tenant. Among those is the agreement that the tenant is prohibited from allowing others to occupy the unit unless specified on the lease as tenants, as occupants, or, in the case of a Section 8 contract, as members of the household. Listing Jennings on the lease did not create a legal relationship between Jennings and the landlord; rather, it only prevented Magües from evicting Guy for permitting one not authorized by the lease to occupy the residence.
The record suggests that when Guy asked Magües for permission to let Jennings live in the apartment, she also asked him to add Jennings to the lease as a tenant, which he refused to do. Guy surely knew the significance of the difference in status between a tenant, who has a right to enforce the lease and a right to claim the benefits of the protections of the Act, and a member of the household, an occupant, or a family member, who has no such rights.
Guy had no right to demand that Jennings be listed as a tenant, and Magües, at the time, had no obligation to enter into a *145contractual relationship with her. And the record also reflects that after Guy’s death, and in connection with a separate Section 8 application, Jennings demanded that Maglies sign a new lease with her, which demand he refused because he believed that she is simply not an appropriate credit risk. Nothing in the Act suggests that Maglies, by agreeing to allow Jennings to occupy the premises while Guy was the tenant, gave up his right to refuse to extend the status of tenant to Jennings for reasons that would permit him to decline to rent to anyone else.
In effect, the majority decision extends a unilateral option to a tenant’s co-habitating family members. The landlord receives no reciprocal obligations or other consideration in exchange for that option, but he is now required to “hold open” the tenancy to a tenant’s surviving family. Those family members, who have given up nothing for the right to this option, are of course unbound and free to either accept the opportunity and assume the tenancy or simply walk away.
This result was not intended or foreseeable to Guy or Maglies at the time they entered into the lease contract. Indeed, this situation could not have been foreseen because Maglies rejected Guy’s lesser request to add Jennings as a tenant, who, under that circumstance, would then at least bear return obligations to Mag-lies. By giving Jennings the right to assume and enforce the lease, the majority breaks new ground by vesting third-party contractual rights in an unintended beneficiary. Contra N.J.S.A. 2A:15-2 (“A person for whose benefit a contract is made ... may sue thereon in any court____”); Broadway Maint. Corp. v. Rutgers, the State University, 90 N.J. 253, 259, 447 A.2d 906 (1982) (“The contractual intent to recognize a right to performance in the third person is the key. If that intent does not exist, then the third person is only an incidental beneficiary, having no contractual standing.”).
V.
The question for me, then, is what support is there for the majority’s decision today? Stripped to its bare essentials, the *146majority has created a new status, found nowhere in the Act or in the contract and, apparently, never before contemplated by any landlord or tenant. The majority does so by making what I perceive to be two fundamental analytical errors. First, the majority confuses the unprotected, permissive status of occupant with the protected status accorded to a tenant, doing so in contravention of the clear terms of the lease and in violation of the Act and the federal regulations relating to third-party family members who occupy the space. Second, the majority misper-ceives the requirement of Section 8 that any family member who has an income must contribute to the rent so as to reduce the available housing subsidy, equating that obligation with a legal relationship between that person and the landlord, even though the Addendum itself precludes that result.
By using these two flawed bases for its analysis, the majority creates a new status, variously described as a “tenant-equivalent,” ante at 112, 936 A.2d at 416, a “surviving family member occupant who has lived continuously on the premises with the landlord’s consent and identification on the lease and who has contributed to the household’s tenancy obligations, aided by a Section 8 voucher,” ante at 122, 936 A.2d at 422, a person who “may be able to show that she was the functional equivalent of a co-tenant,” ante at 123, 936 A.2d at 422, “a surviving Section 8 family member, who may be — in substance if not in form- — the functional equivalent of a co-tenant,” ante at 125, 936 A.2d at 424, and “the substantial equivalent of a contributing residential co-tenant,” ante at 125, 936 A.2d at 424.
Apart from those descriptions, the status the majority creates to clothe Jennings with all of the protections that the Act reserves to tenants is not defined. Indeed, the lack of definition as to who other than Jennings qualifies for the full protections of the Act creates a broad new category that, it would appear, includes every occupant and family member listed on every lease. At the same time, the majority dismissively refers to Maglies’ entirely lawful and contractually accurate description of Jennings as an occupant *147as “self-serving labeling” which is not, in their view, “controlling.” Ante at 122, 936 A.2d at 422.
Little more can be said. In an apparent effort to aid Jennings, who in the end is no different from thousands of other family-members of tenants, the majority today vests in all persons living in rental units who are not themselves signatories to any lease agreement, who are merely permissive occupants, and who have no legal obligations whatsoever to the owners of those premises, the fullest protections of the Act. In the end, the breadth of that analysis will operate to the detriment of tenants far more than it will impact on landlords.
Because the majority has potentially elevated every occupant to the status of tenant, in the future landlords may feel compelled to reject any tenant who proposes to reside in premises with others who would not be independently suitable as tenants. Thus, the spouse with a bad credit history, the family member with a prior minor criminal offense, the elderly mother-in-law, and thousands of others in similar circumstances will, as a practical matter, disqualify an otherwise acceptable tenant from being able to enter into a lease contract. Landlords will look with new eyes at those least able to bargain for themselves and their families, rejecting potential tenants for entirely permissible reasons and without recourse. Sadly, the result may well be exactly the ones that the Act’s framers sought so hard to avoid — increasing the shortage of available rental housing, particularly in urban centers, heightening the reluctance of landlords to rent to tenants with large families, and fueling the choice by residential landlords to remove properties from the available stock of housing entirely.
Because the majority’s analysis is flawed, because the status the majority today creates is found nowhere in the Act, in the contract, or in ordinary principles that have governed landlord-tenant relationships for decades, because that flawed analysis stands every previously well-settled contractual relationship involving tenancies on its head, and because the breadth of the majority’s ruling is limitless, I dissent.
*148Justice ALBIN joins in this opinion.
For reversal and remandment — Justices LONG, LaVECCHIA, WALLACE and RIVERA-SOTO^.
For affirmance — Justices ALBIN and HOENS — 2.