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Buying a NYC building with open violations

Last reviewed Oct 6, 2026 · Buying, selling and financing

You can, and people do routinely. The point is to know exactly what you are taking on: violations follow the building, so open HPD and DOB records, unresolved summonses, unpaid charges and expired authorisations become yours at closing unless the contract says otherwise.

The search to run before you are committed

Do this early. The findings change what the building is worth, and they are much easier to negotiate before a contract than after.

  1. Establish the building identifiers

    Get the BIN and the BBL, and find out how many buildings sit on the lot. A clean search against the wrong BIN is the most dangerous possible result, because it looks like good news.

  2. HPD: open violations by class, and the complaint history

    Count the open Class C violations first — they indicate conditions the city considered immediately hazardous. Then read the complaint history, which shows patterns a snapshot of violations does not.

  3. DOB: violations, ECB summonses, and open jobs

    Open jobs filed and never signed off are a recurring surprise. So is an old violation that will block the first permit you file after closing.

  4. OATH: unresolved summonses and defaults

    Defaults carry penalties and can become debts attached to the property. These are the items most likely to be invisible to the seller as well, because the summons went somewhere nobody reads.

  5. Expiries, not just violations

    DEP boiler authorisations and, for oil-heated buildings, the state petroleum bulk storage registration. These produce no city violation when they lapse and are routinely missed.

  6. Keep watching through to closing

    Diligence is a photograph. New records are published daily, and a violation issued between contract and closing is still a violation you inherit.

What tends to matter most in negotiation

Open Class C violations
Immediately hazardous conditions. Lenders dislike them and they often have to be cleared or escrowed before closing.
Emergency repair charges and liens
Charges already incurred are money owed on the property rather than work to be done. They need to be identified and allocated explicitly.
Illegal conversions and unpermitted work
The most expensive category, because legalising work after the fact can cost far more than the violation suggests and may not be possible at all.
Open jobs without sign-off
An unfinished filing can block your own future work at the building.

Common questions

Do open violations transfer to the new owner?

The violations are against the building and remain after a sale. Who bears the cost of resolving them is a matter for the contract, which is why they are identified and negotiated before closing rather than discovered after.

Will a lender refuse to finance a building with open violations?

Many will lend, with conditions. Serious open violations commonly result in an escrow, a holdback or a requirement to clear specific items before funding. The practical effect is delay and cost rather than outright refusal.

How far back should I look?

For open items, status matters more than age — a violation from 2008 that is still open is a live problem. For patterns, several years of complaint and violation history tells you how the building has been run.

Can I make the seller clear the violations?

That is a negotiation and a question for your attorney. What this page can tell you is that you need the complete list before the negotiation, not after.

Official sources

Rules and figures change. Check anything you are about to act on against the agency itself.

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