Editorial standards
How we research this site. City data in, city sources cited.
These pages help people make legal and money decisions about buildings, so a wrong deadline is worse than no page. Here's who writes them, where every number comes from, and how to tell us when we're wrong. The same sources feed the free address search on the home page, and the company behind it is on the about page.
Who writes these pages
The ViolationWatch team at Violationwatch, Inc. writes and checks every page on nycbuildingviolationsearch.com. We're the same New York company that runs ViolationWatch building monitoring, at 433 Broadway, Unit 220. Pages don't carry personal bylines. The company stands behind them, and the corrections address below reaches the people who maintain them.
Where the data comes from
The live search and every count on this site come from the city's own published data. Nothing is scraped from third-party sites, and we don't store your searches.
| What | Source | How we use it |
|---|---|---|
| Address to building | NYC Planning GeoSearch | Turns the address you type into the building's BIN and BBL. |
| DOB violations | DOB Violations 3h2n-5cm9 | Live search, and the code counts on the DOB codes page. |
| ECB violations | DOB ECB Violations 6bgk-3dad | Live search: class, hearing status, penalty, balance due. |
| HPD violations | Housing Maintenance Code Violations wvxf-dwi5 | Live search: class, status, apartment, inspection date. |
| DOT sidewalks | Sidewalk Management Database – Violations 6kbp-uz6m, Sidewalk Dismissal Inspection Tracking p4u2-3jgx | Linked from the DOT page for looking up a sidewalk record. |
| OATH cases | OATH Hearings Division Case Status jz4z-kudi | Linked from the OATH page for checking a summons. |
| Citywide totals | ViolationWatch violation statistics | Aggregated from the datasets above, June 2026. Used for the big numbers. |
Where the rules come from
Every deadline, penalty and process on this site is checked against an official City source: an agency page on nyc.gov, a rule or form the agency publishes, or the law the agency cites. If we can't confirm something on an official source, we leave it out. When a rule has exceptions (HPD's Class C deadlines are the classic case), we list them instead of rounding them off. The sources we rely on most:
- DOB: Compliance (Enforcement) FAQ
- DOB: What is an OATH Summons?
- DOB penalty schedule, 1 RCNY §102-01 (PDF)
- DOB: Forms (Violation Dismissal Request)
- OATH: You Received a Summons, Now What?
- OATH: default rules, 48 RCNY §6-21
- FDNY: Violations
- DOT: Sidewalk repair and violations
- HPD: Clear Violations
How often it updates
- Search results are pulled live from NYC Open Data every time you search. The city refreshes these datasets daily, so a violation written today usually shows up by tomorrow.
- Counts and statistics on a page are snapshots. Each one says when it was pulled, such as "June 2026" or "inspections Sept 1 to Oct 21, 2026".
- Rules pages carry a "Last checked against nyc.gov" line with the date and the source we checked. When we recheck a page, that date changes. Last full review of this site: October 23, 2026.
Corrections
If something here is wrong or out of date, email hello@violationwatch.nyc with the page address and what you think is wrong, or call (347) 201-2336. We check it against the official source. If we got it wrong, we fix the page and update its checked date. A link to the city page that shows the right answer speeds things up.
Independence and disclosure
We're not neutral, and we'd rather say so. Violationwatch, Inc. sells ViolationWatch building monitoring ($9 a month per building after a 7-day free trial) and offers violation removal help, and pages on this site link to both. The free search works without either. We're not affiliated with the City of New York or any of its agencies, and nothing here is legal advice. The official records are always the agency's own systems, and every guide links to them.