NYC Bed Bug Disclosure Law: What Landlords Must Tell You

Before you signed a vacancy lease, the owner owed you a completed state disclosure form setting out the bed bug history of your apartment and of the building for the year before. At a new lease and at every renewal since, an owner of a building with three or more apartments must either hand you or post in the building two more documents: a copy of the building's most recent bed bug filing to the city, and a health department notice on preventing, spotting and removing bed bugs.

Two sections of the Housing Maintenance Code do this work: 27-2018.1 sets the disclosure duties and 27-2018.2 the yearly filing that feeds them. The older 27-2018 is repealed, so a page citing it is out of date.

The Vacancy Lease Notice

Section 27-2018.1(a) requires an owner to furnish each tenant signing a vacancy lease "a notice in a form promulgated or approved by the state division of housing and community renewal that sets forth the property's bedbug infestation history for the previous year regarding the premises rented by the tenant and the building in which the premises are located."

The duty attaches to a vacancy lease, so a renewal does not trigger it, and the history covers the whole building rather than your apartment alone. The owner does not design the form either, since the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal promulgates or approves it.

That subdivision covers "housing accommodations subject to this code", reaching further than the filing duties below, which bind only an owner of a multiple dwelling, a building housing three or more families living independently.

Boxes on the DHCR Form

The state form is form DBB-N, Notice to Tenant, Disclosure of Bedbug Infestation History, footer code DBB-N (DHCR 10/10). DHCR published it in October 2010 under a memorandum describing 27-2018.1 as the law the Governor signed on August 31, 2010.

One page long, it takes your name, the premises, the apartment number and the lease date, then check boxes under the heading "Only boxes checked apply":

• No bed bug history in the past year in the building or in any apartment
• A building history in the past year, floors written in, with or without eradication measures
• An apartment history in the past year, with or without eradication measures

Both you and the owner or agent sign and date it. A checked building box with no eradication measures beside it says the owner knew about bed bugs on a named floor and left them.

The Annual Filing You Get With a Lease

Section 27-2018.1(c) gives an owner of a multiple dwelling a choice. At the start of a new lease and with each renewal lease the owner provides each tenant, or else posts in a prominent public location in the building, a copy of the most recent electronic form filed under 27-2018.2 and a notice approved by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about the prevention, detection and removal of bed bug infestations. HPD identifies that second notice as the Stop Bed Bugs Safely guide.

For the annual history, owners must distribute or post a copy of the most recent form they filed with HPD rather than their own summary. An owner who posts must keep a record that the copy went up within 60 days of the filing.

Digital Signs and the Posted Receipt

Since February 2, 2026, an owner who posts can put that receipt on a screen. HPD rule amendments effective that date allow a digital sign in the common area in place of printed signs for five notice requirements, and the bed bug chapter of its rules is one of them. An owner who takes the digital option must use it for all five. The sign needs bold letters of at least one quarter inch, a visible spot, and text in English and Spanish.

Contents of the Annual HPD Report

The filing behind all of this is short: section 27-2018.2(a) lists the street address, the number of dwelling units, the number of units that had a bed bug infestation during the previous year, the number where eradication measures were used, the number of those units infested again afterwards, and a certification that the form went to each tenant on renewal or on a new lease.

The statute says only "annually" and lets HPD set reporting cycles by rule, so the dates come from the agency. HPD requires filing between December 1 and December 31 for the previous year running November 1 through October 31.

HPD must publish the most recent form, with the date the owner submitted it, on its website within 30 days of receiving it, and does that through HPD Online. An owner may file an amended version at any time. Under a 2022 rule, only non-corporate owners without email or computer access may use paper, so a paper report from an LLC comes back rejected as noncompliant.

The DHCR Complaint When Nothing Arrived

Section 27-2018.1(b) sends you to Albany rather than to 311. On written complaint by the tenant, on a DHCR form, that the tenant was not furnished with the notice required by subdivision (a), DHCR "shall order the owner to furnish the notice". A signed disclosure is dated evidence of what the owner said about the building when you committed to the lease.

The annual filing has its own enforcement: HPD issues a violation to an owner who does not file. Neither section attaches a dollar penalty directly to a missing disclosure, though an owner who fails to file the annual report can be issued a violation, and the civil penalties in 27-2115(a) follow from that. Treat the paperwork as a record rather than as a payout.

Handing you the form discharges none of the owner's other obligations. The duty to keep your apartment free of bed bugs sits elsewhere in the code, and who pays for the treatment is a separate question.

The State Notice Duty for Neighboring Units

New York State added a duty the city regime never had. Real Property Law 235-j, "Duty to inform of bed bug infestation", requires a landlord who learns of an infestation in a unit to give written notice to the tenants immediately above, immediately below and immediately adjacent to that unit within 72 hours. For an infestation in a common area, the landlord posts notice in a conspicuous location accessible to all tenants on the same clock. That closes a gap in the city filing, which counts dwelling units and never records a hallway problem. The notice may not identify the infested unit or the tenant living in it.

The section arrived as Chapter 488 of 2024, signed on November 22, 2024 and effective thirty days later on December 22, 2024, demanding notice to every tenant within 24 hours. Chapter 77 of 2025, signed on February 14, 2025, narrowed it to the neighboring units and stretched the deadline to 72 hours, effective in the same manner as the original. The duty drops away while a court order, settlement or regulator agreement already binds the landlord to notice and remediation.

Limits of the Annual Filing

A zero on a filing can mean two different things and the form cannot tell you which. Owners must attempt to obtain each unit's previous-year history from the tenant or owner, and HPD's position when a tenant declines is that the owner must use best efforts. A tenant who treated an infestation quietly produces the same zero as a building that never had one.

The report is also an aggregate. Owners file one building-level history covering all units rather than a unit-by-unit record, so a count of three infested units tells you nothing about which three. Add the December window and the copy on a lobby wall can be eleven months old.

Read it against the rest of the record. A building's bed bug history spreads across HPD violations, 311 complaints and the filing, and you can search the building's records by address in one place. A clean filing next to a run of open pest violations is the combination worth asking about, and a disclosure says nothing about the quality of the pest control behind it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my landlord have to tell me about bed bugs?

Yes, in three situations. At a vacancy lease the owner furnishes the state disclosure form covering your apartment and the building for the previous year. At a new lease and each renewal, an owner of a building with three or more apartments gives or posts the most recent annual filing plus a health department notice. And a landlord who learns of an infestation notifies the units above, below and adjacent within 72 hours.

What is the NYC bed bug disclosure form called?

Form DBB-N, "Notice to Tenant, Disclosure of Bedbug Infestation History", published by the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal and carrying the footer code DBB-N (DHCR 10/10). The Housing Maintenance Code requires a form that DHCR promulgates or approves, which is why no city agency publishes it. Both you and the owner or agent sign it.

What happens if my landlord never gave me the disclosure?

You can complain in writing to DHCR, on a DHCR form, that you were not furnished with the notice. Section 27-2018.1(b) then requires DHCR to order the owner to furnish it. That gets you the document and a record of the owner's answer. The code attaches no fine to the missing notice, so the value of the complaint is the disclosure itself and dated proof that you asked.

Does a building have to file a bed bug report if it has no bed bugs?

Yes. HPD requires a filing from every multiple dwelling each year between December 1 and December 31, covering November 1 through October 31, whether or not the building had an infestation. Hotels file, and co-operatives and condominiums file. An owner who misses the window receives a violation, and filing costs nothing.

Does the disclosure help if I find pests after signing?

A completed form is useful evidence, because it is a dated statement by the owner about conditions when you signed. It does not settle the repair. If roaches turn up after you sign an NYC lease, the route runs through a written report to the owner and then a 311 complaint, and the same sequence applies to bed bugs.