To look up building violations in New York City, search the address in two places: HPD Online for housing conditions like heat, mold and pests, and the Department of Buildings' BIS and DOB NOW systems for construction, facade and mechanical violations. If a DOB summons carries a civil penalty, check OATH separately, since the fine and the underlying violation live in different records. Or search the address once in the Building Health X lookup, which pulls HPD, DOB and ECB records together for you.
Which System Holds Which Record
New York City does not keep one master violation database. Four systems split the work, and each one only shows what its own agency issued.
| System | Run by | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| HPD Online | Housing Preservation and Development | Housing code violations, complaints, property registration, charges and litigation, vacate orders |
| DOB BIS | Department of Buildings | Certificate of Occupancy, older and newer DOB violations, complaints, permit and inspection history |
| DOB NOW Public Portal | Department of Buildings | Newer filings and permits, plus safety violations for boilers, elevators, facades and a handful of other compliance types |
| OATH hearings search | Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings | The civil penalty attached to a DOB or ECB summons, and whether it was paid, dismissed or defaulted |
A building can show a clean record in one system while a real problem sits open in another. Checking only DOB NOW and skipping HPD Online, for example, misses every heat, mold or pest violation on the address, because HPD does not file into DOB NOW at all.
Searching by Address, BIN or BBL
Every one of these systems takes a street address as the simplest search. Two other identifiers come up once you start comparing records across systems. A BIN (Building Identification Number) identifies one physical building. A BBL (Borough-Block-Lot) identifies one tax lot, which can hold more than one building. DOB NOW's own violation search lets you look up a record by address, BIN or BBL, and the Public Portal FAQ confirms the same three options work for most violation types it carries.
Use the address for a first pass. Switch to the BIN once you need to confirm you are reading records for the correct structure on a lot with several buildings on it, which is common on larger sites and older row-house blocks.
HPD Online for Housing Conditions
HPD Online is the first stop for anything tenant-facing: no heat or hot water, leaks, mold, pests, lead paint and similar Housing Maintenance Code conditions. Search the address and the site returns complaints and violations, the building's registration record, any charges or litigation against the owner, block and lot information and active vacate orders. As of September 2025, HPD Online also shows violations issued to NYCHA buildings after a Housing Court judge ordered an inspection, which had not been part of the public record before.
Read the class next to each violation. HPD sorts them A, B or C by hazard level, with C reserved for the most urgent conditions, and the class system determines how fast an owner has to fix it. Then check whether the violation is open or closed. An open HPD violation is still an active record even if the condition has since been fixed but never certified, so read the status field rather than assuming open means untouched. The Class C conditions HPD issues most are worth knowing before you scan a building record.
DOB BIS and DOB NOW for Building Violations
DOB splits its own records across two systems, and this is where most lookups go wrong. BIS is the older Buildings Information System, and it still holds the deepest history: Certificate of Occupancy, older DOB violations, all 311-generated complaints, and permit and inspection records going back decades. DOB NOW is the newer platform, and it currently only carries DOB NOW filings plus a specific set of safety violations: boilers, elevators, emergency power, energy grade, facades, gas piping, parking structures, photoluminescent materials, retaining walls, retro-commissioning, sprinklers and structurally compromised buildings.
BIS still runs alongside DOB NOW. DOB's own Public Portal FAQ states that the Public Portal will eventually replace BIS, but only once every transaction type has fully moved over, and in the meantime "all BIS data is being maintained and continues to be available." Complaints are not in DOB NOW at all, and most OATH and ECB violations are still BIS-only records. Skip BIS and you skip the majority of a building's DOB history, not a small slice of it.
Practically, that means checking both. Search BIS first for the full violation and complaint history and the Certificate of Occupancy, then check DOB NOW for anything filed recently in the safety compliance categories above. If the summons in question involves a fine, move to OATH next, because DOB and OATH track two different obligations on the same citation.
OATH and ECB Records for the Fine
When a DOB inspector writes a summons, the civil penalty is adjudicated separately by OATH, the city's administrative court, under what older paperwork still calls the Environmental Control Board or ECB. The status shown in BIS or DOB NOW tells you whether the physical condition was corrected. It does not tell you whether the penalty was paid. A violation can read "resolved" on the building record while an OATH judgment for the fine sits open, and an unpaid judgment can convert into a lien that surfaces in a title search.
Search OATH's hearings records by summons number or address to see the hearing outcome, the penalty amount and the payment status. Treat a DOB record as only half the picture until you confirm the OATH side separately, and see how ECB summonses differ from a standard DOB violation if you are trying to tell the two apart on a report.
NYC Open Data for Bulk Lookups
The agency portals are built for looking up one address at a time. If you are comparing several buildings, or you want the underlying record rather than a formatted screen, NYC Open Data publishes the same information as downloadable datasets: HPD violations, DOB violations, DOB permits, ECB violations and more, each queryable through the Socrata API without an account. DOB itself points researchers there, noting on the Public Portal FAQ that "you can view all filings related to an address on the City's Open Data Portal." For a single address, the portals are faster. For a spreadsheet of several buildings, Open Data is the only practical option.
What to Check Before You Sign or Buy
DOB's own guidance for renters is blunt about the point of all this: verify that a unit is legal to occupy before you sign, not after. Beyond pulling the violation history, DOB's tenant guidance tells you to confirm in person that the apartment has working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, two ways out in a fire, a window in every bedroom for light and air, wiring that does not run off an extension cord, and no padlock on the door. None of that shows up in a violation search, so treat the records and the walkthrough as two separate steps, not one.
- Open Class C violations in HPD Online mean an urgent condition the city has not confirmed as fixed.
- A pending or defaulted OATH judgment means real money is still owed on top of any DOB status.
- An active vacate order in HPD Online or BIS means part or all of the building may not be legally occupiable right now.
- A high complaint count with few matching violations can mean inspectors could not get in, not that nothing is wrong.
Reconciling all four systems by hand takes four separate searches and a spreadsheet to compare them. Housing Court Answers publishes a directory of the city's lookup portals, which helps when you research an owner's other properties or an ongoing case.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Find Out If I Have Building Violations in NYC?
Search the address in HPD Online for housing conditions and in DOB BIS for building code violations, Certificate of Occupancy status and complaints. If DOB NOW shows a facade, boiler, elevator or similar safety filing, check that too. Search OATH separately if a summons carries a fine, since payment status is not shown on the DOB record itself.
Is DOB BIS Being Replaced by DOB NOW?
Not yet. DOB's own FAQ states the Public Portal will eventually replace BIS, but only once every transaction type has migrated, and BIS data continues to be maintained in the meantime. Complaints and most OATH or ECB violations still only appear in BIS.
What Is the Difference Between a BIN and a BBL?
A BIN identifies one physical building. A BBL identifies one tax lot, which can contain more than one building. Most city systems accept a street address for a basic search and let you switch to BIN or BBL to confirm you are reading records for the right structure.
Can I Look Up a Building I Do Not Own?
Yes. HPD Online, DOB BIS, DOB NOW and NYC Open Data are all public and searchable by address without an account or any relationship to the property.
Why Does a Violation Show Resolved When a Fine Is Still Open?
DOB and OATH track two separate obligations. DOB records whether the physical condition was corrected. OATH records whether the civil penalty was paid. A record can show the condition as resolved while the fine remains open at OATH, and that unpaid balance can eventually become a lien.
Is There a Faster Way to Check One Address Across All the Agencies?
Running four separate searches is the accurate way to do it manually, but a combined lookup that already reconciles HPD, DOB and ECB records for one property saves the repeat work, which is the fastest option if you only need one address checked.
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