The 12 agency sources in a complete NYC building record
Each of these agencies maintains an independent enforcement and administrative record. They do not consolidate. A problem that shows up in one may be invisible in the others — and invisible in a standard title search.
DOB NOW
Dept. of Buildings — Current System
Active permit filings, job applications, permit issuances, examiner objections, stop-work orders, and filing status flags including holds.
BIS
Dept. of Buildings — Legacy System
Pre-DOB NOW permit history. Older buildings have decades of filings in BIS only. Many active permits still live here.
ECB / OATH
Environmental Control Board
Enforcement violations issued by DOB, FDNY, and other agencies. Unpaid penalties become liens. Defaults from missed hearings are enforceable judgments.
HPD
Housing Preservation & Development
Housing code violations, heat and hot water complaints, elevator certifications, and rent registration records for residential buildings.
FDNY
Fire Department of New York
Fire inspection records, violations, certificate of occupancy records, and fire protection system compliance history.
ACRIS
City Register — Deed & Mortgage Records
Ownership chain, deed transfers, mortgages, UCC filings, and easements. The primary source for beneficial ownership tracing.
Loft Board
NYC Loft Board
Interim Multiple Dwelling (IMD) registrations. Loft Board jurisdiction applies independently of DOB and survives ownership transfer.
DOF
Dept. of Finance
Property tax class, assessed value, tax liens, and exemption status. LL97 penalty estimates are calculated against DOF energy benchmarking data.
FISP / LL11
Façade Inspection Safety Program
Five-year cycle inspection reports for buildings taller than six stories. Unfiled or UNSAFE cycles generate automatic DOB penalties.
LL97
Local Law 97 — Carbon Compliance
Annual carbon emissions limits for buildings over 25,000 SF. Penalty exposure ($268/MT excess CO2) runs to six figures for non-compliant large buildings.
311 / DOB
Complaint History
Service requests and complaints filed by tenants, neighbors, and inspectors. A high complaint volume signals active enforcement attention at the address.
PLUTO
NYC Citywide MapPLUTO
Zoning, lot dimensions, building class, residential units, floors, and gross floor area. The authoritative source for land use and development potential.
What a complete due diligence pull reveals — and a title search misses
Active permit holds. A permit can be legally issued and actively renewed while simultaneously sitting in OnHold-NoGoodCheck status — meaning it cannot be amended, supplemented, or signed off. This hold does not appear in title; it is only visible in DOB NOW filing status. A new owner who files work under an affected job inherits the hold.
OATH default judgments. When a property owner misses an ECB hearing, an automatic default is issued. Three missed hearings produce three separate default judgments — each individually enforceable as a lien. These do not require a court proceeding and survive transfer of ownership if not discharged before closing.
LL11 penalty exposure. Automatic DOB penalties for unfiled or missed façade inspection cycles accumulate regardless of whether the current owner was responsible for the original failure. Cycles 8 and 9 penalties at a single mid-size building can exceed $400,000 in auto-generated amounts before any remediation credit.
False statements on permit applications. NYC Admin Code §28-211.1 prohibits false statements on DOB permit applications. Violations surface exclusively on the ECB enforcement record — not in the permit file, not in title, and not in a standard DOB search. A Class-1 ECB violation for a false filing carries enforcement consequences independent of the underlying permit.
Loft Board jurisdiction. Buildings registered as Interim Multiple Dwellings (IMD) with the NYC Loft Board are subject to Loft Board approval requirements that are entirely independent of DOB. A proposed residential conversion that clears DOB review may still require Loft Board consent — and existing tenants in an IMD building have protected legal status that survives ownership transfer.
Declared cost vs. apparent scope mismatch. DOB permit applications require a declared job cost. Declared costs that are dramatically below apparent scope — common in mechanical and renovation permits — can indicate a pattern of underreporting that affects how violations and penalties are calculated if enforcement occurs.
How BuildNYC assembles the record
BuildNYC indexes all twelve agency sources — DOB NOW, BIS, ECB, HPD, FDNY, ACRIS, Loft Board, DOF, FISP, LL97, 311, and PLUTO — updated daily from city data feeds. Every building record is cross-referenced by BIN (Building Identification Number) and BBL (Borough-Block-Lot), so findings from each agency are tied to the same property regardless of how the address is formatted in each system.
A due diligence report is not an automated export. Each report is prepared by BuildNYC's research team, cross-referencing findings across all agency sources, identifying interactions between findings (a permit hold that explains an enforcement action; a Loft Board registration that affects a proposed conversion), and presenting the complete record in a structured memorandum with citations to the underlying government record for every finding.
Reports are delivered within 48 hours of receiving the address or BIN. Price: $2,500 per property.