How we know
NYC HPD enforces the Housing Maintenance Code against residential rental buildings. Every cited violation is logged with a class (A, B, or C), an issue date, a correction window, and a status that updates as the owner certifies correction or HPD re-inspects. Class A violations are non-hazardous (cosmetic / minor), Class B are hazardous (poses a health or safety risk if left uncorrected), and Class C are immediately hazardous — the most serious category, with a 24-hour correction window in most cases.
Two NYC-side surfaces expose the same underlying violation database with different access patterns. NYC HPD Online at https://hpdonline.nyc.gov is the building-by-building lookup interface — search by address or by BBL and see every violation against that property going back years. NYC Open Data publishes the entire violation table (dataset wvxf-dwi5) for bulk analysis and refreshes daily, typically within 24 to 48 hours of each new inspection. For a single-address question the HPD Online lookup is faster; for any cross-portfolio analysis, the Open Data export is the right tool.
For deeper definitional treatment of how Class A, B, and C are distinguished, what triggers each correction window, and how AEP (Alternative Enforcement Program) builds on chronic Class C accumulation, see the MetroDeeds glossary entry on HPD violation classes.
In depth
Step 1: Open NYC HPD Online
Open https://hpdonline.nyc.gov in any browser. There is no login required. The home screen offers a search box that accepts a property address (e.g., "123 Main Street") or a 10-digit BBL. The address parser is reasonably forgiving — borough names, ZIP codes, and minor formatting variations all parse correctly.
Step 2: Open the Violations tab
Once the building loads, navigate to the Violations tab. Each row is a single cited violation: violation ID, class (A / B / C), order number, certified-by date, original date, status (Open / Closed / Dismissed), and inspection notes. You can filter by class, by status, or by year. The column you typically care about is "Open" status — that's what reflects the current condition of the building, as opposed to historical citations that have been corrected.
Step 3: Read the patterns, not the totals
A building with thousands of historical Class C citations that have all been closed is in a different position than a building with hundreds of Class C citations currently open. Both numbers tell you something — historical accumulation flags a building with chronic conditions, while current open count reflects active hazard. Look at the date distribution: are the open violations clustered in the last 12 months (acute distress) or spread across years (chronic neglect)? Look at the class mix: is the building open on Class A cosmetic issues or on Class C immediately-hazardous conditions like no heat or vermin?
Step 4: Cross-reference NYC HPD registration
Click through to the building's HPD Registration tab. The registration names the head officer, corporate owner, or individual owner — the people personally accountable under NYC housing law for the conditions in the building. When the deed-named buyer is an LLC, the HPD registration is what connects the LLC to a real human. If you're researching an operator across many buildings, this is the bridge from "this address has X violations" to "the operator has Y violations across N properties."
What MetroDeeds adds on top
NYC HPD's public surface is excellent for one-building-at-a-time lookups. It is much weaker for cross-portfolio analysis: HPD does not roll violations up to the operator level, does not normalize by unit count, and does not rank operators against the rest of NYC. MetroDeeds does all three on the public Landlord Ripoff Watch. Every operator profile shows total open violations, the breakdown by Class A, B, and C separately, the per-unit rate, and a portfolio-level distress score (0–100) calibrated against the worst-performing 10% of NYC operators citywide. Click through to any operator and you get a one-page profile with the full building list, AEP enrollment counts, Speculation Watch flags, eviction execution rates, and shell-cluster detection — all for free, no signup required.
Pro and Scout+ users can also pull a building-specific landlord-intel report at /landlord-intel?bbl=… that joins HPD violations against ACRIS sale history, NYC DOF assessments, and 311 complaints into a single property-level view. The public Landlord Ripoff Watch is the right starting point; the gated landlord-intel view is the per-BBL deep-dive.
Frequently asked
Where do I look up HPD violations on a specific NYC address?
NYC HPD Online at https://hpdonline.nyc.gov is the official building-by-building lookup. Search by address or by 10-digit BBL, then open the Violations tab. The same data is available in bulk on NYC Open Data as dataset wvxf-dwi5.
What is the difference between Class A, B, and C violations?
Class A is non-hazardous (cosmetic / minor) with a 90-day correction window. Class B is hazardous (poses a health or safety risk) with a 30-day window. Class C is immediately hazardous — the most serious category, with a 24-hour correction window in most cases (or 21 days for certain lead-paint subcategories).
How do I see violations across an entire portfolio at once?
NYC HPD does not provide a portfolio-level view. The MetroDeeds Landlord Ripoff Watch rolls every open HPD violation up to the named operator that controls the building, normalizes by unit count, and breaks the result out as Class A, B, and C separately on every operator profile. The roll-up is public and free.
Are NYC HPD violations public?
Yes. Every cited NYC HPD Housing Maintenance Code violation is public both at https://hpdonline.nyc.gov (one building at a time) and at NYC Open Data (the full table, refreshed daily). The data is free.
How current is HPD violation data?
NYC HPD's public Open Data feed (dataset wvxf-dwi5) refreshes daily. New violations typically appear within 24 to 48 hours of the inspection that generated them. HPD Online is on the same data feed, so the building-level lookup reflects the same currency.