Free NYC HPD Violations Lookup by Address
Enter any NYC address and get the building's full HPD violation record — the Class A/B/C breakdown, what's still open, and when each violation was issued — pulled from the official city record in one query. No signup for your first lookups.
Works with a street address or a 10-digit BBL. First queries free, no signup required.
✓ Data synced daily from NYC Open Data · last audit matched 51,187 records against the live city record with 0 contradictionsWhat you get — real example
132 West 169th Street, Bronx (BBL 2025180028) — 6-story, 25-unit multifamily, built 1931:
| Record | Count | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| HPD violations, total | 132 | Full Housing Maintenance Code history on record |
| Currently open | 100 | Uncorrected as of the data vintage — the headline risk number |
| Class C (immediately hazardous) | 21 | Heat, hot water, lead paint, vermin — 24-hour correction class |
| Class B (hazardous) | 68 | 30-day correction class |
| Class A (non-hazardous) | 40 | 90-day correction class |
| Class I (orders) | 3 | Administrative orders, e.g. vacate orders |
What HPD violations tell you about a building
HPD (the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development) enforces the Housing Maintenance Code in residential buildings. When an inspector documents a condition — no heat, a leak, vermin, broken locks — it becomes a violation on the building's permanent public record, classified by severity: Class A (non-hazardous), Class B (hazardous), Class C (immediately hazardous), plus Class I administrative orders. The record is one of the most honest signals available about how a building is actually run: listings and rent rolls are marketing, but the violation history is what city inspectors found when they showed up.
Two numbers matter most: the open Class C count (urgent conditions the owner hasn't fixed) and the age of open violations (chronic neglect shows up as years-old, still-open records). And remember: violations attach to the property, not the owner — if you buy the building, you inherit them. HPD is also only one of three violation systems; DOB and ECB violations live in separate databases with separate (and monetary) consequences.
Who uses this check
- Renters — see how a landlord actually maintains the building before signing a lease or handing over a deposit.
- Buyers & investors — pre-offer due diligence: open violations are inherited liabilities and negotiating leverage.
- Attorneys — pull the violation posture in seconds during intake, before committing to the full agency-by-agency pull.
This check is one item on the complete NYC pre-offer due-diligence checklist — violations are where most people start, but liens, litigations, and rent-stabilization status round out the risk picture.
FAQ: NYC HPD Violations Lookup
How do I look up HPD violations for a NYC building?
Enter the building's street address (or its 10-digit BBL) above and the lookup returns every Housing Maintenance Code violation HPD has recorded against that property: the class breakdown (A, B, C and I), which violations are still open, when they were issued, and the inspector's description of each condition. The data comes from NYC Open Data's Housing Maintenance Code Violations dataset (wvxf-dwi5) — the same record HPD itself publishes — mirrored and synced on a daily cadence. The free manual alternative is HPD Online (hpdonline.nyc.gov), which works one building at a time and requires you to interpret the raw record yourself. The advantage of querying by BBL is precision: street addresses are free text in city systems, so address-string searches can miss records or pull in a neighbor's building.
What do HPD violation classes A, B and C mean?
HPD classifies every Housing Maintenance Code violation by severity. Class A is non-hazardous — think a missing sign or a minor leak — and generally carries a 90-day correction window. Class B is hazardous — for example, no smoke detector, broken public-door locks, or vermin — generally with a 30-day window. Class C is immediately hazardous — no heat, no hot water, lead-based paint, rodent infestation — and generally must be corrected within 24 hours; the City can step in, do the work through its Emergency Repair Program, and bill the owner. There is also Class I, which covers administrative orders such as vacate orders. For a buyer or renter, the Class C count is the headline number: a building carrying many open Class C violations has conditions the law treats as urgent that the owner has not fixed.
Is this HPD violations lookup really free?
Yes. Your first lookups are free with no signup, and a free account currently gets you 10 queries a day — enough to compare several buildings or run a deeper follow-up on one. The underlying data is public record, and the project is open source (code on GitHub), so you can also self-host it or verify exactly how the numbers are produced. We make the public record usable in one query instead of several city websites; we don't paywall the record itself. If you need more volume or a timestamped report you can hand to an attorney or partner, that's the paid tier we're building — but checking a building before you rent, bid, or litigate costs nothing.
Do HPD violations transfer to the new owner when a building is sold?
Yes. Violations attach to the property — identified by its Borough-Block-Lot (BBL) — not to the person who owned it when the violation was issued. When you buy a NYC building you step into the seller's shoes: open HPD violations, their correction obligations, and any related Emergency Repair Program charges come with the deed. That is why the violation check belongs in pre-offer due diligence, while the price is still negotiable, rather than after contract signing when discovering a hundred open violations becomes your problem at the closing table. A heavy open-violation load is also a negotiating lever: documented conditions the seller must cure, or a justified price reduction. Run the lookup before you offer, and have your attorney verify anything material directly with HPD before closing.
How current is the violation data, and how do I know it's accurate?
The violations mirror syncs from NYC Open Data on a daily cadence, and every answer is stamped with its data vintage so you know exactly what you're reading. Accuracy is checked, not assumed: an automated weekly audit cross-checks a sample of our records against the live city record, field by field, and flags any contradiction. The most recent audit (June 12, 2026) matched 51,187 HPD violation records against the city's published data with zero classification contradictions. Two honest caveats: city source systems themselves lag real-world events — an inspection from yesterday may not be in any public dataset yet — and a small share of records show status differences against the live record at any moment because closures propagate on the city's schedule. We surface the record; conditions on the ground are what an inspection is for.
Should I check HPD violations before renting an apartment?
Yes — it is one of the fastest free checks a NYC renter can run, and it tells you how the landlord actually maintains the building, regardless of how good the listing photos look. Look at three things: the open Class C count (immediately hazardous conditions like no heat or lead paint that haven't been fixed), whether open violations are recent or years old (chronic neglect shows up as old, still-open violations), and the volume relative to building size — 40 open violations in a 10-unit building is a very different story than 40 in a 200-unit complex. Heat and hot-water violations in winter months are a particularly telling pattern. Check the buildings you're comparing before you hand over a deposit; it takes one query each.
Data source: NYC Open Data “Housing Maintenance Code Violations” (wvxf-dwi5), published by HPD, synced daily. NYC Property Intel surfaces and flags public records; it is not a title search, an appraisal, an inspection, or legal advice. Verify with the source agency and your professionals before you transact.