How to Check Fire Safety Violations Before Renting in NYC

Four sets of city records carry fire safety information about a New York City building, and you can search three of them by address before you sign. HPD violations cover defective self-closing doors and missing smoke, carbon monoxide and gas detectors. DOB and ECB violations cover sprinklers, standpipes and fire alarms. OATH case records cover FDNY summonses. The FDNY's own file of Bureau of Fire Prevention violation orders on NYC Open Data closed in January 2019, so the standard advice to search it hands you a seven-year-old snapshot.

Search the building's records by address and you get HPD violations grouped by class, DOB violations, complaints and permits, ECB violations, and 311 complaints near the address, with no login.

Fire Safety Records a Renter Can Pull

Each set answers a different question, and two stop short of the present day. Work through them in order.

What Each File Covers

• HPD violations. Defective self-closing doors, missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, dated and searchable by address.
• DOB and ECB violations. Sprinkler, standpipe and fire alarm problems, plus unsafe building orders.
• DOB NOW permits. Live sprinkler and standpipe work, which tells you whether a system is being cut into while you move in.
• OATH case records. FDNY summonses with the charge, hearing result and penalty, searchable by house number and street.
• FDNY Business. The status of one summons or violation order, and it needs the record number.

HPD Violations for Fire Safety Conditions

HPD checks fire safety on every housing inspection it runs, whatever the complaint was about. The agency's procedure requires inspectors to check for properly functioning self-closing doors, and to look at any public areas they pass through, including hallways, stairways and building entrances, as well as apartment doors. That makes the violation file the densest fire safety record a renter can read.

Self-Closing Door Violations

Administrative Code 28-315.10 requires every door giving access to an interior corridor or a stair in a residential building of three or more units to be self-closing, or fitted with a device that closes it after it has been opened. Local Law 111 of 2018 set that requirement with a deadline of July 31, 2021. Housing Maintenance Code 27-2041.1 puts the duty to keep those doors in good repair on the owner.

A door that does not close and latch is a Class C immediately hazardous violation. The owner gets 14 days from service of the notice to correct it, and the civil penalty runs from $250 to $500 plus $250 for each day after the correction date. Local Law 111 originally allowed 21 days; the code now allows 14.

Two parts of 27-2041.1 change what an open record means. HPD has to re-inspect a self-closing door violation no later than 20 days after the correction period expires, whether or not the owner filed a certification. If the owner still has not fixed the door, HPD sends its own contractor and charges the cost to the property.

On September 25, 2026, 46,604 open Class C violations cited section 27-2041.1, and 36,113 of those were issued on or after January 1, 2024, on our reading of NYC Open Data. Self-closing doors are the largest single fire safety category in the open Class C file.

Smoke, Carbon Monoxide and Gas Detectors

Housing Maintenance Code 27-2045 is the live section for detectors. It requires the owner of a class A or class B multiple dwelling to provide and install one or more approved and operational smoke detecting devices and one or more approved and operational carbon monoxide detecting devices in each unit. The same section adds natural gas detecting devices on or before January 1, 2027, and lets the buildings commissioner push that date back by rule.

Read the condition on the record, not the section number printed next to it. Sections 27-2046, 27-2046.1 and 27-2046.2 all appear as repealed in the codified Housing Maintenance Code, and HPD violations still cite 27-2046.1 for carbon monoxide detectors. On September 25, 2026, 89,300 open violations carried that repealed citation, the most recent issued three days earlier.

Detector violations also sit in a different class than renters expect. Of open smoke detector violations, 76,506 are Class B and 4 are Class C. For carbon monoxide detectors it is 93,629 Class B and 19 Class C. Class B carries a 30-day correction window, so a missing detector rarely comes with the 24-hour deadline people assume. Four agencies can enforce 27-2045: HPD, DOB, FDNY and the health department.

FDNY Records and Where They Stop

FDNY issues four kinds of enforcement record: an FDNY Summons, a Criminal Court Summons, a Violation Order and a Vacate Order. Since September 7, 2021, basic information about existing violations and summonses has been viewable online through FDNY Business without a login. The lookup asks for the record number, which a prospective tenant does not have, so it serves owners checking their own cases.

The route that works by address is OATH, the city's administrative court, where FDNY summonses are heard. The OATH Hearings Division case file holds 956,133 Fire Department cases, with the house number, street, charge, hearing result and penalty on each row. FDNY brought 55,471 of them with a 2025 violation date. The largest 2025 charge categories were inspection and testing, at 15,694, and failure to prevent unnecessary or unwarranted alarms, at 15,087, with rooftop access and means of egress at 1,688.

An owner has 35 days from the date a summons is issued to correct the condition and get a Certificate of Correction to FDNY. After that the case goes to a hearing, which is why a summons carrying a hearing result tells you more than a bare count.

Know the FDNY datasets on NYC Open Data for what they no longer do. Bureau of Fire Prevention Active Violation Orders holds 52,406 rows dated January 2008 to January 2019, and its own description says the source database has been decommissioned. The bureau's inspection and building summary files, the second of which held sprinkler and standpipe counts by building, were last refreshed in March 2019. The FDNY Building Vacate List is current but small, at 357 buildings. Risk Based Inspections is the live one, with 463,669 fire company inspections through June 2026, recording that an inspection happened rather than what inspectors found.

DOB and ECB Records for Fire Systems

DOB and the Environmental Control Board cover fire protection hardware, and the volumes are small enough that a hit means something. DOB's sprinkler violation type carries 310 active records citywide out of 1,277 ever issued. Of 279,247 active ECB violations, 3,004 name a sprinkler, 671 a fire alarm and 123 a standpipe.

Permits matter for a different reason. Sprinkler and standpipe work takes a system out of service while it runs. On September 25, 2026, DOB NOW carried 7,348 unexpired sprinkler permits and 2,116 unexpired standpipe permits, out of 130,030 unexpired permits of every type. Read the work type and the expiry date, then ask what is out of service. The older DOB Permit Issuance file is a trap: its most recent issuance date is June 5, 2020.

Bad Records Versus Ordinary Ones

Volume alone tells you little, because most buildings carry something. On September 25, 2026, the city's 581,999 open Class C violations sat across 84,210 buildings. Open self-closing door violations sat in 19,257 of them, and 13,764 of those buildings had one or two. Only 459 had ten or more.

HPD's proactive program sets the baseline. Local Law 71 of 2022, passed after the Twin Parks fire in the Bronx, made HPD pick 300 buildings a year with DOB and FDNY as higher risk for a fire fatality. In the round from October 2024 to the end of May 2025, HPD reached 9,654 doors of 20,724 in scope, found about 70 percent working, and issued 2,937 violations. All but 11 of those 300 high-risk buildings got at least one. A cluster in one stair line says more than a single count, and other warning signs in building data weigh heavier still.

What the owner does next separates the two. Inside the proactive program, 2,221 of the 2,937 violations, or 75 percent, were certified as corrected by the deadline. Across all HPD inspections, roughly half of self-closing door violations get certified at all. HPD issued 72,714 self-closing door violations in fiscal 2025 and spent over $6.7 million that year repairing doors owners had not repaired. An open record reflects what somebody reported and an inspector saw, so treat a clean file as thin evidence rather than proof.

Door and Detector Checks at the Viewing

Take the record with you and test what it named. HPD publishes four checks for a self-closing door. Run them on the apartment door and on the doors to the stair and the hallway.

• Open the door fully, let go, and watch it swing all the way shut.
• Listen for the latch to click when it closes.
• Look for anything holding the door open, including a floor mat that slows the swing.
• Check that the door hangs square in the frame with no gap at the bottom, and that the hinges are intact.

DOB asks renters to confirm five more things on the walkthrough: smoke and carbon monoxide detectors in the apartment, two ways out in a fire, a window in every bedroom, no part of the apartment running off an extension cord, and no room locked with a padlock. HPD's page on self-closing doors sets out what the owner owes and what counts as a working door.

Landlord Duties After You Sign

Before a new tenancy starts, the owner has to replace any required detector that a previous occupant removed or disabled. Once you live there, 27-2045 puts the battery-operated devices inside your apartment on you: keep them in good repair, and replace any that go missing or stop working during your occupancy. If the owner supplies the replacement, you pay back up to $25 for a single-function device, $50 for a two-function combined device and $75 for a three-function one. Tampering with a required detector is unlawful.

For a door that does not self-close, tell the owner first, then file a 311 complaint under the category self-closing door. Once HPD issues a violation and the owner certifies the repair, the violation is deemed complied and closed 70 days after HPD receives that certification unless HPD re-inspects and finds the condition still there. A false certification on an immediately hazardous violation carries a penalty of $500 to $1,000. If repairs stall, the Legal Aid Society sets out your repair and service rights and the steps that follow a complaint.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you search FDNY violations by address?

Not on FDNY's own system. FDNY Business shows the status of a violation or summons without a login, but it asks for the record number. To search by address, use the OATH Hearings Division case file, which holds 956,133 Fire Department cases with the house number and street on each row, or pull the building's records through an address lookup that includes them.

Are self-closing doors required in NYC apartments?

Yes, in residential buildings with three or more units. Administrative Code 28-315.10 requires every door giving access to an interior corridor or a stair to be self-closing or fitted with a closing device, with a compliance date of July 31, 2021. That covers your apartment door, the stair doors and the building entrance. Housing Maintenance Code 27-2041.1 makes keeping them in repair the owner's duty.

How long does a landlord have to fix a broken self-closing door?

Fourteen days from service of the notice of violation. That is shorter than the 21 days Local Law 111 of 2018 first allowed, and shorter than the 21 days HPD gives for lead paint, mold and pests. HPD also has to attempt a re-inspection within 20 days of the deadline, certification or not, so you may see an inspector return to the same door.

What is a NYC ECB violation?

A summons issued by a city agency and heard at OATH, the city's administrative court, named after the former Environmental Control Board. DOB issues most of the ones that matter to a renter. Of 279,247 active ECB violations, 3,004 name a sprinkler, 671 a fire alarm and 123 a standpipe, so a fire system hit on this file is uncommon and worth a question.

Does my NYC apartment need a carbon monoxide detector?

Yes. Housing Maintenance Code 27-2045 requires the owner to provide and install one or more approved and operational carbon monoxide detecting devices in each unit of a class A or class B multiple dwelling, alongside smoke detecting devices. Natural gas detecting devices join the list on or before January 1, 2027, and the buildings commissioner can extend that date by rule.