Looking Up NYC Housing Court Cases by Address

No, not directly. New York's court system searches Housing Court cases by party name or index number, not by street address. You can still get an address-level view of a building's court history through two city datasets HPD publishes separately from the courts: its Housing Litigations records and its executed evictions file. Search the address at the Building Health X building lookup and it pulls both for you in one report.

The Court's Address Search Gap

WebCivil Local is the New York State court system's free search for Civil Court cases, including Housing Court, across the five boroughs. It lets you search by index number, party name, attorney or firm name, or judge. There is no address field. If you know the exact name a landlord uses, whether a person or an LLC, you can pull up every case filed under it. If all you have is a street address, WebCivil Local has no way to run that search.

eTrack is a separate free service from the same court system, and it is easy to confuse with a search tool because of the name. It only sends email alerts and appearance reminders for a case you already know about and have added to your account. It does not help you find a case in the first place.

NYSCEF, the state court's electronic filing system, expanded its mandatory e-filing requirement to landlord and tenant cases citywide in all New York City Civil Courts effective February 23, 2026, under a memo from the Chief Administrative Judge's office posted at nycourts.gov. That is a real, recent change, and it means more Housing Court paperwork now exists in electronic form from the start. It does not add an address search. NYSCEF's own case search still works by index number or party name, the same as WebCivil Local, so the honest answer to this question has not changed even though the filing process behind it has.

WebCivil Local also has a coverage limit worth knowing before you rely on it. Law library research guides to the system note that most disposed civil cases, meaning ones a judge has already decided, stay visible online after the fact, but landlord-tenant cases are the exception: they tend to drop off the public index within about two weeks of the last court appearance once closed. An older Housing Court case that has fully wrapped up may already be gone from the online system even when you have the exact party name. That does not mean the case never existed, only that you will need its index number, from a source such as an eviction record, an HPD litigation row, or paperwork you already have, to ask the clerk's office directly.

Searching WebCivil Local by Party Name

If you have a landlord's name, whether from a lease, a rent receipt, or the building's HPD registration, WebCivil Local at the state court system's iApps site is the direct route. Enter the name and choose whether to search by exact match or a partial match, since an LLC's registered name on court filings does not always match the name printed on a lease. If the landlord's name is common, narrow the results by county, since housing matters run through the borough's Civil Court. If you do not know the landlord's legal name yet, tracing the building's owner through HPD registration and ACRIS will usually get you the name WebCivil Local needs.

HPD's Housing Litigations Data

HPD publishes its own Housing Litigations dataset on NYC Open Data, separate from the court's case index, and it is organized by building rather than by party name. Each row lists a case type, the date it opened, its current status, the respondent named in the case, and the building's BBL, so you can query it directly by address or BBL without knowing who the landlord is. Across the whole dataset, going back to when HPD started recording it, Tenant Action is the largest case-type category by a wide margin, followed by Heat and Hot Water, a dedicated category for the single most common complaint. Tenant Action/Harassment, the smaller harassment case type, comes next, ahead of narrower categories such as access warrants, False Certification, and 7A, where a court appoints an administrator to run a severely distressed building. A single address can carry rows in several of these categories at once if the building has a long enforcement history.

"Tenant Action" and "Tenant Action/Harassment" in this dataset are HP actions, the case type tenants file themselves to force repairs or stop harassment, with HPD joining as a party. This page keeps that part short since a separate post covers how an HP action works, what it costs, and what the case types mean on a building's record in full. What matters here is that this dataset, not the court's own search, is how you see those cases by address rather than by name.

The Evictions Dataset's Narrower Slice

A related but separate city dataset lists only evictions a marshal has executed, going back to 2017. It will not show a case that is still open, one that settled before an eviction happened, or a tenant who moved out on their own. It answers a narrower question than this one: whether a marshal removed someone from that address, rather than whether the address saw any Housing Court activity at all. The building lookup pulls this file too, and a separate post walks through how to read that dataset and judge the count against a building's size, so this page will not repeat those numbers.

Limits of the HPD Litigation Data

Neither dataset gives you the full case file the way WebCivil Local or NYSCEF would if you had a name. HPD's litigation data tells you a case type, an open date and a status, not the substance of what happened in court, and it only covers cases HPD itself brought or joined, not every landlord-tenant dispute filed at that address. A nonpayment case a landlord brought against one tenant, with HPD nowhere in it, will not appear in HPD's dataset at all, and neither will most holdover cases, where a landlord seeks to end a tenancy for a reason other than unpaid rent. For that kind of case, a party name and WebCivil Local remain the only real search path, which is exactly why tracing the landlord's legal name matters before you start.

Your Own Court History and RPL 227-f

The address-search gap runs in your favor as a tenant, too. Real Property Law section 227-f bars a residential landlord from refusing to rent to you because you were involved in a past or pending landlord-tenant case, whether the landlord sued you or you sued the landlord, and regardless of the outcome. A landlord who denies an application for this reason can face a civil penalty of $500 to $1,000 per violation, which the state Attorney General enforces. If you think a landlord looked up your own history and used it against you, the Legal Aid Society's housing help intake is a starting point, and you can search your own name in WebCivil Local the same way a landlord would to see what is on file.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is There Any Way to Search NYC Housing Court Cases by Street Address?

Not through the court's own tools. WebCivil Local and NYSCEF both search by party name, index number, attorney or judge, with no address field in either system. For address-level results, use HPD's Housing Litigations dataset or the building lookup, which query HPD-related cases by BBL instead, though that only covers cases HPD itself brought or joined.

What Is the Difference Between WebCivil Local and NYSCEF?

WebCivil Local is the search tool for case status, party names and calendars across New York City's local civil courts, including Housing Court. NYSCEF is the electronic filing system that now handles the documents themselves for most landlord and tenant cases as of February 2026. You may need to check both depending on what you are trying to find.

Can I Find Out If a Building Has Had Eviction Cases Before I Move In?

You can see executed evictions, meaning cases that ended with a marshal removing someone, through the city's evictions dataset or the building lookup. You will not see eviction cases that are still pending or that settled without a marshal ever coming, since neither of those appears in an executed-eviction record.

Do I Need the Landlord's Exact Legal Name to Search WebCivil Local?

You need a close match. Try the name on your lease first, then the LLC name from the building's ACRIS deed or HPD registration if the lease name does not turn up results, since landlords sometimes lease under a management company name that differs from the entity that sues or gets sued in court.

Can a Landlord Refuse to Rent to Me Because I Sued a Previous Landlord?

No. Real Property Law section 227-f prohibits denying a rental application because of a past or pending Housing Court case, regardless of who filed it, who won, or how it ended. A landlord who breaks this rule can face a civil penalty of $500 to $1,000 per violation, and you can report it to the New York State Attorney General, who enforces the law.