How to Read a NYC Violation Report (Without Knowing the Lingo)

A NYC building violation report looks like a wall of inspector shorthand: column headers like "ItemNum," "ClassCode," "VioStatus," code-section citations like "§27-2046.1 HMC." Each column carries information you need; none of it is written for a non-inspector to read. This guide decodes it field by field so you can scan a report and immediately tell which lines matter.

Anatomy of a violation row

Every NYC violation row, regardless of agency, has six fields that drive your decision:

1. Filed date — when the inspector wrote the violation.
2. Agency — DOB, HPD, OATH, or ECB. Each tracks a different category of risk.
3. Class / severity — the city's own grading of how dangerous the issue is.
4. Item / description — the actual problem, usually in code-section shorthand.
5. Status / lifecycle — open, cured, dismissed, defaulted, or in-progress.
6. Fine amount — what the OATH judgment costs (if it became one).

Field 1: Agency

See our quick agency reference for the full breakdown. Short version: DOB = construction/safety, HPD = housing-condition, OATH = the city court that adjudicates summonses from both. Each agency uses its own class system (DOB grades 1/2/3, HPD grades A/B/C, OATH uses dollar amounts).

Field 2: Class / severity

For HPD: A = non-hazardous, B = hazardous, C = immediately hazardous (full breakdown in our HPD class explainer).

For DOB:

• Class 1 — Immediate hazard. Includes vacate orders. Cure window is 24 hours. Fines $1,000+.
• Class 2 — Major. Cure within 30 days. Typical $250-$1,000.
• Class 3 — Minor / Lesser. Cure within 35-60 days. Typical $25-$250.

Field 3: Item / code section

This is the worst-readable column. Examples from real reports:

• § 27-2046.1 HMC: REPAIR OR REPLACE THE CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTING DEVICE(S)
• §27-2107 adm code owner failed to file a valid registration statement…
• (a) § hmc:file annual bedbug report in accordance with HPD rule…

The § prefix is a section reference to the NYC Administrative Code. HMC = Housing Maintenance Code (HPD's code book). (a) / (b) are sub-paragraph indicators. None of this matters to a non-lawyer — the human-readable problem is the bit AFTER the code reference. Our property reports auto-strip the leading code citation and translate code shorthand into plain English ("Repair or replace the carbon monoxide detecting device" instead of the §-prefixed original).

Field 4: Status / lifecycle

States you'll see, ranked from worst to best:

• Open / Active — issued, not yet cured. Counts in the open-violation total. Transfers with title at sale.
• Defaulted — landlord ignored the summons and OATH ruled against them. Becomes an unpaid judgment. Bad signal.
• In-progress — landlord acknowledged and is curing. The next status will be Cured (good) or Dismissed (also good).
• Cured-NoVerify — landlord self-certified cure but HPD didn't re-inspect. Mostly fine but soft.
• Cured / Closed — fixed and verified. The strongest "no longer a problem" signal.
• Dismissed — OATH ruled in the landlord's favor. Functionally equivalent to never-happened.

Field 5: Fine amount

Two things to look at:

• Per-violation amount. Most NYC violations carry $250-$1,500 fines. A $5,000+ fine on a single line means it's been compounded — the landlord defaulted and OATH stacked penalties.
• Building-wide unpaid total. This is what transfers to the next owner at closing. See the due-diligence checklist for thresholds.

Recurring filings (don't double-count)

Some NYC filings are annual requirements, not one-off violations:

• Annual bedbug report — every NYC building over 10 units. Filed even if there are zero bedbug incidents. A "cured" line every year is normal compliance, not a pest history.
• Annual energy benchmarking — Local Law 84. Buildings over 25,000 sq ft. Same pattern: annual filing, not a violation.
• Annual property registration — owner statement on file with HPD. Renewed every year.

A naive read of the agency portals will show 5-10 years of these recurring filings as if each were its own violation. Our property reports collapse them into a single row with "(N filings since YYYY)" so you don't get a false signal of "30 violations" when there are really three recurring administrative ones.

Putting it together

Walk through a building's report in this order:

1. How many open rows? Where?
2. What's the highest class on any open row? (Class C, DOB Class 1 = headlines.)
3. How big is the unpaid balance? Does it transfer with title?
4. Are recurring annual filings dragging the total up artificially?
5. Anything older than 5 years still open? (Stale items have leverage at closing.)

Five questions. Most NYC buildings answer all five in under 90 seconds once you know the columns. Run a real one to practice: search any NYC address →