How to check violations on a NYC property

New York City does not keep property violations in one register. Different agencies enforce different codes, and each runs its own system with its own history, its own search form and its own idea of what counts as "open". A building with a clean DOB record can have a dozen open HPD violations, and a building with nothing in HPD can be facing an OATH hearing next week.

That is why owners are so often surprised. The violation was published weeks ago in a system nobody had a reason to open. Nothing was hidden; it was just somewhere else.

The list below is every system worth checking for a typical residential or mixed-use building, in the order that finds problems fastest.

Start at the top. HPD and DOB account for most of what owners are actually chasing.

Vacate orders issued by FDNY are published as an annual dataset; FDNY-issued summonses are adjudicated at OATH and appear there.

Allow twenty minutes the first time. Have the street address and, ideally, the BIN or BBL — some systems will not find a building from the address alone.

1. 1

   Find the building identifiers

   Look the address up in DOB BIS or on the city map to get the BIN (a seven-digit Building Identification Number) and the BBL (Borough, Block and Lot). A tax lot can hold several buildings with separate BINs, and searching the wrong one returns a clean record for a building that is not yours.

2. 2

   Check HPD Online for violations and complaints

   Search by address. Look at open violations by class, and at complaints, which are separate records — a complaint can be closed while the violation it produced stays open. Note the correction and certification dates on anything open.

3. 3

   Check the DOB property profile

   The BIS property profile lists DOB violations, ECB violations, complaints, permits and any active stop-work order. Read the violation list and the ECB list separately; they are different things and the page shows both.

4. 4

   Check DOB NOW for recent filings

   Work filed in the last several years will be in DOB NOW rather than BIS. If you only check BIS you can miss a live permit, an expired one, or a filing somebody made against your building without telling you.

5. 5

   Check ECB Ticket Finder for money owed

   A summons that was never answered becomes a default with a penalty attached. Ticket Finder shows the status and balance for ECB summonses by address or by summons number.

6. 6

   Check OATH for hearings

   If a summons is live, there is a hearing date or a decision. This is the record that tells you whether a deadline is about to pass.

7. 7

   Check 311 for complaints in progress

   A 311 complaint often precedes an inspection. Seeing one before the inspector arrives is the difference between fixing a condition and being cited for it.

That a record is new

Nothing notifies you. Every system is a search you have to run, and none of them has a reason to tell you something changed since last time.

That a violation was dismissed

Status language differs by agency, and a record can vanish from a feed rather than being marked resolved. Absence is not the same as dismissal.

Which building on the lot it belongs to

Address searches are forgiving; building identifiers are not. On a multi-building lot the same address can return different results depending on which BIN the system picked.

What it will cost

Penalty amounts depend on the charge, the class, whether it is a first offence and whether a hearing was missed. The lookup shows the record, not the exposure.