New York City Tenant Resources

Tenant Research FAQs

Question: There is noisy and/or hazardous construction work being done on the property. Does my landlord have a permit for this?
Answer: You can find out which permits have been applied for and/or issued for each property in New York City through the Building Information Systems database on the Department of Buildings website: http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp. You can call 311 to make a complaint (if there's not a permit or there's a hazardous condition).

Question: Where may I obtain a Certificate of Occupancy for my building?
Answer: The Building Information System database on the Department of Buildings website allows you to view and download most Certificates of Occupancy:
http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp

Question: Are there any open violations on my apartment or building? What about violations on other buildings owned by my landlord?
Answer: Housing violations can be found on the New York Housing Preservation and Development Building Info Database: http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx
For help locating other properties owned by your landlord, see the next question.

Question: Does my landlord own any other buildings in New York City?
Answer: The ACRIS database on the Department of Finance website is searchable by owner name and contains a record for every property in the five boroughs: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/jump/acris.shtml

Additional comments from a NYC housing activist:
Question does not have such a simple answer because almost always landlords incorporate and an LLC owns a building, not an individual so while the contact person's name may be the same (in your case Croman) searching for Croman via ACRIS won't get a complete list. It's fairly difficult to get a comprehensive list. You may just want to put a note so that people know that just because they do an ACRIS search does not mean they will get an accurate list.

Question: Are there any environmental hazards in my neighborhood?
Answer: A map of environmental hazards can be found in each property record on the Property Shark database (free registration required): http://www.propertyshark.com/

Question: Are there any public works construction projects scheduled for my neighborhood?
Answer: A list of selected projects planned by the Department of Design and Construction can be found on the DDC Project Browser: http://www.nyc.gov/html/ddc/html/pbjump.html

Question: Are there any major developments planned for my neighborhood?
Answer: PlanNYC has a partial list of planned or in-progress development projects organized by neighborhood: http://www.plannyc.com/

Question: Where can I find out the taxable value of a property?
Answer: The NYC Property Information Database on the Department of Finance website contains several years of value and tax statements: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/jump/nycproperty.shtml

Question: How can I find out about current rent increases?
Answer: Check on the Rent Guidelines Board website http://www.housingnyc.com