The Building Health X NYC Rental Due-Diligence Checklist

Work an NYC rental in four passes: pull the building's public record before you book a viewing, test the physical conditions while you are standing in the apartment, settle the money and the rent status before you sign, and collect the documents the owner owes you at signing. Four of those documents carry legal force under the New York City Housing Maintenance Code, and most renters never learn they exist.

Start with the public-record checks you can do before signing. An unresolved safety violation or a run of heat complaints warrants a question before you pay a deposit. The viewing is for what the records cannot show: the hot water, windows, exits and signs of leaks.

Before You Book a Viewing

Four questions get answered from your phone, for free, before you spend an afternoon on a place you will not take. None of them need the landlord's cooperation.

1. Get the address with the apartment number, then pull the record. A broker who gives you the block but not the number is the first bad answer. With the full address you can search the building's records and read HPD violations, complaints, registration and legal actions, DOB violations and permits, ECB violations, ACRIS sales, executed evictions, rodent inspections, bed bug reports, rent stabilization status and nearby 311 complaints. Across buildings with three or more apartments, the September 2026 citywide baseline is 30.1 HPD violations per 100 apartments, 9.2 of them Class C, and 45.3% of buildings with none at all. Eight or more open Class C violations puts a building in the worst tenth of the city, and the other measured warning signs each carry a number of their own.
2. Check the registration, then read its end date. An owner of a multiple dwelling of three or more units must file HPD's annual property registration by September 1 every year, and so must the owner of a one or two unit house where neither the owner nor the owner's immediate family lives. An unregistered owner cannot certify violations, cannot ask HPD to dismiss one, and cannot bring a court action to recover the apartment for nonpayment of rent. On September 26, 2026 the file held 203,887 records covering 203,811 buildings: 130,689 buildings carried a registration for the year that closed September 1, 2026, and 23,560 had already filed for the year running to September 1, 2027. Read that gap before you panic, because in the weeks after the deadline the file shows expired end dates waiting on HPD to process a renewal. No registration at all for a building with three or more apartments is the answer that should stop you.
3. Read the bed bug filings for the building. Owners of multiple dwellings file a bed bug report with HPD once a year, listing how many apartments had an infestation, how many had eradication work, and how many were infested again afterwards. HPD has to publish each filing within 30 days of receiving it. For the reporting year that ran November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, the latest closed cycle, owners filed 115,014 reports covering 109,005 buildings, and 2,990 of those filings, 2.6%, reported at least one infested apartment. A clean filing is the ordinary result, which is what makes a building's bed bug filing history worth reading across more than one cycle. No filing at all tells you nothing, and the owner still owes you a notice at signing.
4. Read two winters of heat complaints if you move in between October and May. Heat season runs October 1 to May 31. From 6am to 10pm the apartment has to reach 68F when it is below 55F outside, from 10pm to 6am 62F whatever the weather, and hot water has to run at 120F between 6am and midnight, every day of the year. The citywide rate in September 2026 is 125.7 heat complaints per 1,000 apartments, so complaints exist almost everywhere and the pattern carries more than the count. A building's heat complaint record across two seasons tells you whether the boiler failed once or fails every January.

At the Viewing

You get one unhurried look before you commit money. Open the camera on your phone and work through four things while the agent talks.

1. Detectors, two ways out, and a window in every bedroom. The Buildings Department tells prospective renters to confirm smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, two ways to exit in a fire, a window in every bedroom, power that does not come from an extension cord, and no padlock on the room, and to verify that the building can be occupied as the owner presents it. Any of those five missing is a stop rather than a negotiating point.
2. Run the hot water and open every window. Turn on the hot tap in the kitchen and the bathroom and leave both running while you look around. The 120F floor applies every day of the year, between 6am and midnight. Open every window meant to open, then look behind the toilet and under the sink for staining that means a slow leak somebody painted over.
3. Photograph the conditions HPD writes up. Visible mold in a room is a violation in its own right under section 27-2017.3 of the Housing Maintenance Code, graded by how much of the room it covers, with mold on tile or grout excluded. Roaches, mice or rats in the apartment or a common area are immediately hazardous under section 27-2017.4, and the owner gets 21 days from service to correct it. Photograph what you see with the date on, because the same photograph is what you attach to a complaint later.
4. Ask when the apartment was last painted. In occupied units in a multiple dwelling the owner has to repaint or re-cover walls and ceilings every three years, and more often when a contract or another law requires it. Owner and tenant can defer that by up to two more years, but only by an agreement made no earlier than a month before the three years run out, and it cannot form part of the lease. A landlord who wants the deferral in your lease is asking for something the code does not allow.

Documents an Owner Must Hand You at a Vacancy Lease

This is the part almost nobody asks for. At a vacancy lease on a multiple dwelling, the Housing Maintenance Code puts four documents in the owner's hands and requires them to end up in yours. Ask for all four by name in one email, before you pay anything, and keep the reply.

The bed bug history notice. Section 27-2018.1 requires the owner to furnish every tenant signing a vacancy lease with a notice, on a form the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal promulgates or approves, setting out the property's bed bug infestation history for the previous year, for your apartment and for the building. If you did not get one, complain in writing to DHCR on its own form and DHCR orders the owner to furnish it. The same section makes the owner give you, or post in the building, a copy of the most recent annual filing plus a health department notice on preventing and detecting bed bugs.

The turnover certification. Before anyone reoccupies a vacant unit in a multiple dwelling, section 27-2017.5 requires the owner to remediate all visible mold and pest infestations and any underlying defect that caused them, and to clean and vacuum any carpeting and furniture the owner supplies. The owner then has to certify that in writing to you, the incoming tenant, on a form HPD promulgates. That certificate is part of the owner's pest-control duty. In the twelve months to September 25, 2026, filtered on the date HPD issued the notice, HPD issued 38,238 visible mold violations under section 27-2017.3 and 63,739 roach, mice and rat violations under section 27-2017.4. When we pulled the file on September 26, 2026, 21,525 of those mold violations and 41,672 of those pest violations were still open. Ask for the certificate rather than reading fresh paint as proof.

The lease notice of owner and tenant obligations. Section 27-2017.2(c) requires every lease offered to a tenant or prospective tenant of a multiple dwelling to contain a conspicuous, HPD-approved notice of what the owner owes you and what you owe the owner on indoor allergen hazards, in English and the city's covered languages. A lease with no such notice in it is a lease the owner did not build to code.

The indoor allergen pamphlet. Section 27-2017.2(c) also makes the owner give you the pamphlet the health department produces under section 17-199.7. That is the two-agency fact sheet titled What Tenants Should Know About Indoor Allergens, which sets out the owner's duty to keep the home free of pests and mold, what tenants do, and when to call 311. Under section 27-2017.6(d) HPD leaves a copy at the apartment at the time of an inspection and has to make the pamphlet available to any member of the public who asks, so you can get hold of it without the owner.

One rule covers all four. Any agreement waiving the protections in this article is void, and an owner who asks for one commits a misdemeanor. The article does not reach an owner-occupied co-op or condo unit, or a NYCHA apartment.

Money and Rent Status Before You Sign

Two of these four rules arrived after most rental checklists were written.

1. Get the itemized fee disclosure, and ask who hired the broker. Since the FARE Act took effect on June 11, 2025, a landlord's agent cannot charge a prospective tenant a fee, and that includes the listing agent. Every fee you have to pay must appear clearly in the listing, and the landlord has to give you an itemized written disclosure of all fees before lease signing, which you then sign. A broker who found the apartment for the landlord and then asks you for a month's rent is asking for something the law took away.
2. Measure the deposit and the application fee against their caps. A security deposit is limited to one month's rent, and a landlord cannot take last month's rent and a deposit. The most a landlord can charge for a credit and background check before you sign is $20. Anything above either number is a stop.
3. Get the rent stabilization answer in writing. The building record shows the rent stabilization status on file for the address, so you go into the conversation knowing what the city holds. Ask the owner or agent by email either way. An answer in an email is evidence later, and an answer at a viewing is nothing.
4. Ask for the Good Cause Eviction notice. Since August 18, 2024 a landlord has had to give tenants a notice stating whether the Good Cause Eviction law applies to the home, and offering a new lease is one of the triggers. It is a state form under Real Property Law 231-c. Ask for it by name alongside the four code documents.

Signing Day and the First Week

Everything you agreed to out loud stops existing the moment you sign, unless you wrote it down.

1. Put the promised repairs in a signed rider, with dates. One line per repair, one date per line, signed by whoever signs the lease for the owner. Two things cannot go in: a painting deferral cannot form part of a lease, and an agreement waiving the indoor allergen protections is void.
2. Photograph every room before the furniture arrives. Dated photographs of the floor, the window frames, the cabinet under the sink and the bathroom ceiling are what you compare against on move-out day. Put your first repair request to the landlord in writing, because the written request starts the record behind your repair and service rights, which cover the apartment and the public areas of the building.
3. Learn the clocks before you need them. Once HPD issues a violation the owner gets 90 days on a Class A, 30 days on a Class B and 24 hours on a Class C, with 21 days for mice, roaches and rats, 21 days for immediately hazardous mold, 14 days for self-closing doors, and 24 hours from posting for heat and hot water. On a mold or pest complaint HPD inspects within 30 days and serves the notice within 10 days after that.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I check before signing a lease in NYC?

Work it in order. Pull the building's HPD and DOB record and its registration first, because that decides whether the viewing is worth your afternoon. Check detectors, two exits, bedroom windows and hot water in the apartment. Then check the fee disclosure and the deposit, and collect the four documents the code requires at a vacancy lease.

What documents is my landlord required to give me at lease signing in NYC?

At a vacancy lease on a multiple dwelling, four: the bed bug infestation history notice under section 27-2018.1, the turnover remediation certification under 27-2017.5, the notice of owner and tenant obligations that 27-2017.2(c) requires inside the lease itself, and the health department's indoor allergen pamphlet under 17-199.7. Since August 2024 a landlord offering a new lease also has to give the Good Cause Eviction notice.

What happens if my building is not registered with HPD?

Registration is annual, due September 1, for any multiple dwelling of three or more units and for one and two unit houses where neither the owner nor the owner's immediate family lives. An unregistered owner cannot certify violations, cannot ask HPD to dismiss one, and cannot bring a court action to recover the apartment for nonpayment of rent. The civil penalty runs from $500 to $5,000, scaled by the building's size.

Is my landlord required to give me a bed bug disclosure?

Yes, at every vacancy lease. Section 27-2018.1 requires a notice on a form the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal promulgates or approves, covering the previous year's bed bug history for your apartment and for the building. If the owner did not furnish it, complain to DHCR in writing on its own form and DHCR orders the owner to hand it over. In the 2024 to 2025 filing cycle, 2,990 of 115,014 reports listed at least one infested apartment.

Who pays the broker fee in NYC now?

Whoever hired the broker. Since the FARE Act took effect on June 11, 2025, a landlord's agent, including the listing agent, cannot charge a prospective tenant a fee. Every fee you do have to pay has to be disclosed clearly in the listing, and the landlord has to give you an itemized written disclosure of all fees before you sign. Credit and background check fees are still allowed, capped at $20.