jQuery Forum

jQuery Validation has an option called errorPlacement, and several other error message options that can help you.  Check them out at

http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Validation/validate#toptions

Ok, here's a shot at it. The code below is mostly from some working Validation code, but the errorPlacement is something I have not use and not tested. The errorContainer and showErrors options are not needed if you only show the error message at the HTML element. I left them in to show how these and other options are used.  I'm pretty sure appendTo will put the error message next to something, but I'm unsure about the arguement inside appendTo.  You may need to try some things and read about appendTo and errorPlacement.  Here goes - good luck

    $("#rentDataInput").validate({  //this command line must come before the valid() command
        //debug: true,  //generates Firebug messages and prohibits Submit when true
        errorContainer: "#messageBox2, #messageBox3",
        showErrors: function (errorMap, errorList)
            {
            $("div #messageBox1").html("Your form contains " + this.numberOfInvalids() + " error(s).");
            if ( this.numberOfInvalids() > 0 )
                {$("div #messageBox1A").html( "Review required entries and any red message about limits to characters used.")}
                else {$("div #messageBox1A").html( " ")}
            this.defaultShowErrors();
            },
        rules:{ // whatever your rules are for validating each element }
        errorPlacement: function(error, element) { error.appendTo( element.parent("#element_9_1") ); }
});