HPD Online NYC: Check Building Violations & Owner

HPD Online is the city’s free public record of housing violations, complaints, registrations and litigation for residential buildings. Tenants use it to document conditions. Buyers use it to price risk. Owners use it to find out what is open against them before someone else does.

It is at hpdonline.nyc.gov and you do not need an account.

What you can search

Enter an address, or a borough with a block and lot. See how to find a BBL if you do not have one.

The building record then shows open and closed violations, tenant complaints, the property registration with owner and managing agent contacts, any charges for work the city performed, and any litigation HPD has brought.

Violation classes, and the clocks attached to them

Every violation is graded, and the grade sets how fast it must be corrected.

Class A, non-hazardous. Things like a missing sign or minor defects. Correction is generally required within about 90 days.

Class B, hazardous. Broken plaster, inadequate lighting, missing smoke detectors. Generally about 30 days.

Class C, immediately hazardous. No heat or hot water, lead paint, mold, bedbugs, rodents, no working smoke or carbon monoxide detector. These carry the tightest windows, from 24 hours to a few days depending on the condition, with heat and hot water fastest.

A wall of Class A violations on an older building is normal. A stack of open Class C violations is a different signal entirely, and it is the pattern a buyer or a prospective tenant should slow down over.

Buying, selling or transferring this building?

Open violations surface at closing. When the paperwork is ready, we notarize the deed and file it through ACRIS with the transfer tax forms.

See deed recording

How to read the record honestly

Look at open versus closed. A long history with everything closed suggests a building that gets maintained. A short history with everything open suggests the opposite.

Read the dates. Violations from fifteen years ago under a previous owner say little about the building today.

Watch for repetition. The same violation issued repeatedly is more meaningful than a single serious one, because it points at a condition nobody is actually fixing.

Check the complaints tab too. Complaints are what tenants reported. Violations are what an inspector confirmed. A gap between the two is informative in both directions.

Note the size of the building. Twenty violations across a hundred units is a different picture than twenty across four.

Registration is the part owners underestimate

Owners of multiple dwellings must register with HPD annually, listing the owner, head officer and managing agent with contact details. That registration is public, which is also why HPD Online is one of the better tools for identifying a landlord hiding behind an LLC. See how to find a property owner.

There is a consequence for letting it lapse that has caught owners out recently: a property with an expired registration cannot have violations dismissed or corrections certified until the registration is brought current. So an owner who fixed the condition but let the registration expire is stuck with the violation on the record anyway, accruing exposure, until they file.

If you own a building and have not checked your registration status this year, that is a ten minute job worth doing today.

Certifying a correction

Fixing the condition is only half of it. The owner must also certify the correction to HPD within the deadline for that class. Uncertified corrections leave the violation open on the record even though the work is done, and open violations affect sales, refinancing and litigation.

Certification requires a current registration, which is why the two issues are linked.

Why this matters at a closing

Open violations show up in title and due diligence. They can delay a sale, force an escrow holdback, or become a negotiated credit. Buyers should pull HPD Online alongside the Department of Buildings record and the ACRIS document list before committing.

Sellers benefit from pulling it first. It is far cheaper to clear and certify violations on your own schedule than to discover them a week before closing.

What HPD Online does not cover

Construction and building code matters live with the Department of Buildings, not HPD. Zoning questions belong to ZoLa. Ownership and liens live in ACRIS and Department of Finance records. And HPD covers residential buildings, so a purely commercial property will not appear the way an apartment building does.

Frequently asked questions

Is HPD Online free?

Yes, and no login is required.

How long do violations stay on the record?

Closed violations remain visible as history. The status changes, the record does not disappear.

Can a tenant report a condition anonymously?

Complaints are generally made through 311. What appears publicly is the complaint and its outcome rather than the complainant.

Do open violations stop a sale?

Not automatically, but they get negotiated, escrowed or cleared before closing, and Class C violations get the most attention.

How do I clear a violation?

Correct the condition, then certify the correction to HPD within the deadline, with a current property registration on file.

Complaints versus violations

The two tabs are frequently confused and they mean different things.

A complaint is what somebody reported, usually through 311. It may be accurate, exaggerated, or mistaken, and it may never have been substantiated.

A violation is what an inspector confirmed after visiting. That is a finding, not an allegation.

Read them together. Many complaints and few violations can mean a difficult building or a difficult reporting history. Few complaints and many violations suggests problems serious enough to be found without anyone calling. And a complaint with no corresponding violation is not proof that nothing happened, only that nothing was confirmed.

What tenants can do with this

The record is public and it is evidence. A tenant documenting a persistent condition can point to the violation history, the dates issued, and whether corrections were ever certified.

If a condition is dangerous and unaddressed, 311 is the route to an inspection, and the resulting violation becomes part of the permanent record. That record is what housing court, an attorney, or a future buyer will read.

What buyers and lenders read into it

Open violations complicate financing and sales. Lenders ask, title companies note them, and buyers use them to negotiate. Class C violations attract the most attention because of what they usually represent: heat, hot water, lead, mould or vermin.

Sellers benefit from pulling the record early. Clearing and certifying violations on your own timetable costs a fraction of what it costs a week before a closing, when the buyer holds the leverage and an escrow holdback is the compromise.

Registration is an annual obligation, not a one off

Owners of multiple dwellings register with HPD every year, and the registration must name a managing agent who is a natural person over eighteen residing in the city, or the owner if they live here. An out of state owner cannot simply list themselves.

Letting it lapse has consequences beyond a fine. An expired registration blocks violation dismissals and correction certifications, so an owner who fixed the condition still carries the violation on the record until the registration is current. It can also affect the ability to bring certain proceedings against tenants.

If you own a building and have not checked your registration status this year, that is a ten minute task worth doing today.

Class I violations and what the letters mean in practice

Beyond the A, B and C grading you may see references to immediately hazardous conditions escalated for faster action, and to violations that carry ongoing daily penalties until corrected.

The practical reading is simple. The grade tells you how fast the city expects it fixed and how seriously it is treated, not how serious it looked to the tenant. A leaking tap is a nuisance and a Class A. No heat in January is a Class C, and the clock is measured in hours.

Reading a building before you rent

Prospective tenants rarely check this and probably should. Pull the address on HPD Online before signing a lease.

Look for open Class C violations, repeated heat and hot water violations across several winters, and whether the property registration is current. A landlord who cannot be bothered to file an annual registration is telling you something about how the building is run.

Check the litigation tab too. HPD brings proceedings against owners who fail to correct, and a building with a history of those is not a building where a broken boiler gets fixed quickly.

HPD Online NYC: How to Check Building Violations & Registration