How to Read NYC Property Records

Reading NYC property records comes down to separating the fields that carry a fact from the fields that carry a claim. The class letter, order number and inspection date describe what HPD recorded; a status or owner certification needs more context, and on September 26, 2026 the word Open sat on 2,864,021 HPD violations, of which 2,537,155 had a correction deadline that had already passed.

That is 88.6% of the open file. This page walks each record system a renter can reach, names the two or three fields inside it that change a conclusion, and states the trap. These fields are what a pre-lease record review rests on, and misreading one costs more than missing it. Every figure below comes from our own queries against NYC Open Data, run borough by borough and summed, retrieved September 26, 2026.

Vocabulary in the City Files

The same English word means different things in different files. Read the row for the file in front of you, not the row for the word you recognize.

HPD Violation Fields That Carry Weight

HPD's violation file is the Housing Maintenance Code Violations dataset, and each row is one condition an inspector wrote up in one apartment or one common area. Once you have pulled a building's violation list, four fields decide what the row means.

The class letter grades the hazard. Across the 2,864,021 open violations, class B accounts for 48.1%, class A for 23.5% and class C for 20.3%. The fourth letter, class I, holds 230,662 rows and trips up first-time readers, because it grades nothing.

The order number is the field to read next. Order 780 sits on 221,219 of those 230,662 open class I rows, which is 95.9% of them, and its text cites Administrative Code 27-2107 for an owner who never filed a valid registration statement. A class I violation usually means the owner skipped the registration paperwork rather than that the building is dangerous, and the same order bars that owner from certifying other violations. Order 765 is the other class I row worth knowing, at 3,062 open, and it cites 27-2142 for apartments HPD has vacated.

The two date fields are where most readers go wrong. The correct-by date is the deadline for the physical work. The certify-by date is the deadline for filing the paperwork, and it falls later. Of the open file, 93,078 violations are still inside their correction window and 233,788 carry no correction deadline in the data at all, which leaves the 2,537,155 already past the deadline.

The status field carries more than one word. NOV SENT OUT accounts for 1,707,961 open rows, 59.6% of the file, and it means HPD mailed the notice and nothing has happened since. FIRST NO ACCESS TO RE-INSPECT VIOLATION sits on 320,445 rows, which means HPD tried to come back and could not get in. The full list of HPD status strings runs to more than twenty values, and a row you have not read the status of is a row you have not read.

Reissued notices make up 362,853 open rows, 12.7% of the file, so a long list can carry the same condition written up twice. How many violations is too many is a threshold question, and the measured cut-offs for a high-risk building answer it. This page answers what the row says.

Certification and What It Proves

A certification is a form the owner or the managing agent files claiming the work is done. The filing may lead to closure without an HPD reinspection. Until an inspector goes back, certification records the owner's claim, not independent proof that the condition was fixed.

HPD's own FY25 Indoor Allergen Hazard Report puts a number on how often that word fails. Owners filed 35,870 certifications on pest violations in FY25. HPD later recorded 8,754 of them as false certifications, which is 24.4%, broken down as 4,654 on roaches, 3,728 on mice and 372 on rats. HPD brought 30 civil actions over false certifications that year. Where a pest problem persists, ask what pest control work the owner arranged and whether entry points were sealed.

The same report describes the gap that lets a weak certification stand. For mold violations, HPD's FY25 report describes a gap where the agency cannot get access to reinspect and 70 days pass from the date the certification arrived, after which the violation is treated as deemed complied. No inspector observed the condition, and the record reads closed.

Rejected certifications leave traces. INVALID CERTIFICATION is the current status on 48,921 open violations and FALSE CERTIFICATION on a further 10,872, so 59,793 open rows carry HPD's finding that the paperwork did not hold.

Code Sections Inside Violation Text

Violation paragraphs open with a code section, and renters reasonably treat that section number as the law. It is not always the law as it stands today.

Administrative Code 27-2046.1 covered an owner's duty to install and maintain carbon monoxide detecting devices in class A multiple dwellings and private dwellings. The codified Housing Maintenance Code prints that section as repealed, along with 27-2046 and 27-2046.2. The live duty moved into 27-2045, where subdivision b requires an owner of a class A multiple dwelling, a class B multiple dwelling or a private dwelling to provide and install approved and operational carbon monoxide detecting devices in each dwelling unit.

HPD's violation text has not caught up. Across the file, 407,382 violation records cite 27-2046.1, and 89,289 of those are open today. HPD issued 913 more notices citing it between September 1, 2025 and August 31, 2026, measured on the notice issue date. The underlying duty is real and the violation is enforceable, so none of this helps an owner. For a reader, a section number printed inside violation text is a label HPD's system produced rather than proof the section is in force. Check the section against the codified Housing Maintenance Code, never against the local law that enacted it, because an enactment shows the law as passed rather than as it now reads.

Complaint Records Against Violation Records

A complaint is a tenant saying something is wrong. A violation is an inspector agreeing. HPD publishes both, they sit next to each other, and they answer different questions.

Tenants filed 978,089 complaint problems in the twelve months to August 31, 2026, measured on the received date. By September 26, 2026 the status field read CLOSE on 966,886 of them, which is 98.9%. That word describes the state of HPD's ticket rather than the state of your kitchen.

The field that tells you what happened is the status description, a full sentence HPD writes into each record. On 276,300 of those problems, 28.2% of all of them, the closing sentence describes an inspection that did not settle the question, most often because HPD could not get in. Others say the conditions the inspector saw did not violate the housing laws HPD enforces, and others say violations were issued. Read that sentence before you treat a closed complaint as a settled question.

DOB and ECB Violation Fields

The Department of Buildings and the Environmental Control Board keep separate files from HPD, and both hide their status inside a code string rather than a status column.

In the DOB violations file the field to read is the violation category, and the closure signal is a single asterisk. Of 34,873 DOB violations issued from January 1, 2025 onward, 28,237 read V-DOB VIOLATION - ACTIVE and 6,548 read V*-DOB VIOLATION - DISMISSED. The two strings differ by one character. A renter scanning a column of them at speed will count dismissed violations as live ones.

ECB violations carry money, since they go to a hearing at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. Of 156,483 ECB violations issued from January 1, 2024 onward, 77,990 read RESOLVE and 78,493 read ACTIVE. RESOLVE describes the condition rather than the penalty, and 24,678 of those resolved rows, 31.6% of them, still show a balance due above zero. The hearing status field adds the other half of the story, and it reads DEFAULT on 33,494 rows, 21.4% of the file, meaning nobody turned up to contest the charge.

Deed Records in ACRIS

ACRIS holds the recorded documents: deeds, mortgages, satisfactions, assignments and transfer tax returns. The party transferring property is the grantor, the party receiving it is the grantee, and the money figure on the document is the consideration. The New York City Bar's guide to deeds to real property notes that a deed usually recites a nominal amount such as $10.00 rather than the real price, which is why a deed on an apartment building often shows $0.

Two limits matter before you conclude anything from a deed. The Department of Finance states that ACRIS covers Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn from 1966 to the present, and that Staten Island transfers still require a paper filing alongside the electronic transfer tax return. A Staten Island search that comes back empty reflects that coverage gap rather than the building's history. The published extract also stops at a cut-off date, which stood at August 31, 2026 when we pulled it, so a transfer from this month may not be there yet.

A grantee on an apartment building deed is usually a company, and a company name gives you an address for service and little else. Getting from that to a person runs through HPD's registration file and its named head officer, a different record with different fields.

PLUTO Building Fields

PLUTO is the Department of City Planning's tax lot file, and it is how every other record gets joined to a building. The key is the BBL, meaning borough, block and lot. Once you have a BBL, every city file above filters down to your address.

The current release is version 26v2, and it holds 172,485 lots with three or more apartments. Two fields on those lots mislead often enough to name.

Residential units and total units are different columns. On 32,324 of those 172,485 lots, 18.7% of them, the total unit count runs higher than the residential count, because the lot also holds stores, offices or other non-residential space. A building described as twenty units may hold eighteen apartments and two shops, and a violations-per-apartment calculation built on the wrong column will read low.

The owner name field comes off the tax roll rather than from a title search. LLC appears inside the owner name on 55,518 of those lots, 32.2% of them, and the field can lag behind a sale. Treat it as a lead, and confirm it against the deed and the registration.

Retrieval Dates and Backfill

Every count on this page carries a date because these files keep changing behind you. HPD and 311 add records for weeks after the event, so a count for a fixed window keeps climbing.

Open class C violations make the point in one day. That count read 581,999 on September 25, 2026 and 582,230 on September 26, 2026, a rise of 231 rows against a window that did not move. Any figure from a city file needs the window, the date field and the day it was run attached to it. Inspection date and issue date give different answers for the same twelve months, and a raw count without its retrieval date has already changed.

You can look up any NYC address and read these fields side by side, with no login, including HPD violations and complaints, DOB and ECB violations, permits, recorded sales, evictions, rodent inspections, bed bug filings and rent stabilization status.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find my building's BBL number in NYC?

The BBL is a ten-digit key: a one-digit borough code, a five-digit tax block and a four-digit lot, each padded with leading zeros. Borough 1 is Manhattan, 2 the Bronx, 3 Brooklyn, 4 Queens and 5 Staten Island, so block 660 lot 65 in Brooklyn reads 3006600065. Searching your address in any city building record returns the block and lot, and PLUTO carries the assembled BBL that every other file keys off.

What does a dismissed DOB violation mean?

Dismissed means the Department of Buildings accepted that the violation should not stand, either because the condition was corrected and certified or because the violation was issued in error. In the published data the signal is an asterisk inside the violation category, as in V*-DOB VIOLATION - DISMISSED. Of DOB violations issued from January 2025 onward, 6,548 read dismissed against 28,237 reading active, so the asterisk is worth looking for before you count.

Does ACRIS cover Staten Island?

No. The Department of Finance states that ACRIS searches property records and document images for Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn from 1966 to the present. Staten Island transfer tax returns go through ACRIS electronically, but the transfer also requires a paper filing, and Staten Island deeds are not in the searchable image set. An empty ACRIS result for a Staten Island address reflects that coverage gap rather than an absence of recorded sales.

What is an HPD violation certification?

It is a form the owner, managing agent or another party named on the property registration files to tell HPD the condition has been corrected. The filing may lead to closure without reinspection. For mold violations, HPD's FY25 report describes a deemed-complied route when it cannot gain access to reinspect and 70 days have passed since certification. On pest violations in FY25, HPD later recorded 8,754 of 35,870 certifications as false.

Why do two sources show different violation counts for the same building?

Three causes account for most gaps. The files backfill, so an older query returns a smaller number for the same window. The date field differs, and inspection date, issue date and status date all produce different totals. Reissued notices also duplicate a condition, and 362,853 open rows are flagged reissued. Compare counts only when both carry the same window, the same date field and the same retrieval day.