New York City enforces building conditions through two agencies that owners routinely confuse. Getting them straight matters, because a DOB violation and an HPD violation live in different systems, carry different penalties, and clear through completely different processes. We have watched owners spend months trying to resolve one using the procedure for the other.
We've covered HPD violations in depth elsewhere. This is the other half.
Two agencies, two codes
HPD — the Department of Housing Preservation and Development — enforces the Housing Maintenance Code. Its concern is whether the building is a decent place to live: heat and hot water, leaks, mold, pests, peeling paint, broken windows, inoperative fixtures. Most HPD violations originate from a 311 complaint by a tenant, followed by an inspection. They're sorted into Class A (non-hazardous), Class B (hazardous), and Class C (immediately hazardous).
DOB — the Department of Buildings — enforces the Building Code and the Zoning Resolution. Its concern is the structure itself and how it's legally used: was the work permitted, is the occupancy legal, is the building structurally sound, and have the mandated periodic inspections been filed. DOB violations originate from inspections, complaints, audits, and — importantly — from your own failure to file something.
The practical distinction: HPD asks whether the apartment is livable. DOB asks whether the building is legal.
A building can carry a full slate of both at once. Clearing every HPD violation does nothing for an open DOB case, and vice versa.
ECB / OATH violations: the ones with a hearing
DOB issues more than one kind of violation, and the distinction that costs owners the most money is whether the violation carries a hearing.
ECB violations — named for the former Environmental Control Board and now adjudicated by the OATH Hearings Division — come with a hearing date and a monetary penalty. Resolving one requires two separate things:
- Correcting the condition and filing a Certificate of Correction with DOB
- Resolving the case at OATH — appearing, or otherwise disposing of it — and paying any penalty imposed
Owners fail at this in both directions. Some fix the condition, file nothing, and assume the matter is closed. Others fix the condition, file the certificate, and skip the hearing.
Skipping the hearing is the expensive one. Failing to appear generally results in a default, and a default typically carries the maximum penalty for that violation class — often far more than what a contested or timely-cured case would have cost. It's the single most avoidable expense in this entire area, and it happens constantly, usually because the notice went to an address the owner no longer monitors.
Keep your registered contact information current with the city. A violation you never learned about still defaults.
The severity classes
ECB violations are graded, and the grade drives your timeline and your exposure:
Class 1 — Immediately hazardous. Illegal occupancy, structural danger, work creating immediate risk, and similar. Highest penalties, shortest windows, most urgent response required.
Class 2 — Major. Serious but not immediately dangerous.
Class 3 — Lesser. The lowest tier.
A Class 1 violation is not something to work through at ordinary speed. It should be the day's priority.
What Brooklyn owners actually get cited for
Across the multifamily stock we manage and the buildings owners bring us during diligence, the recurring categories are:
Work without a permit. The clear leader. Someone — often a prior owner — renovated, added a bathroom, reconfigured rooms, finished a basement, or altered egress without filing. It surfaces years later, frequently when new work requires a permit and DOB reviews the record.
Illegal conversion / occupancy contrary to the certificate of occupancy. Usually an extra dwelling unit, very often in a basement or cellar. Treated as immediately hazardous, and rightly so — these units typically lack legal egress, adequate light and air, ceiling height, or fire separation. People have died in them. Penalties are severe, they can recur, and the cure is usually physical restoration of the legal configuration, not paperwork.
Failure to maintain the building. Deteriorating facades, loose parapets and lintels, spalling masonry, unsafe stoops and railings. Note that this can be cited on buildings well under the FISP height threshold — being exempt from the facade filing program does not exempt you from maintaining the facade.
Failure to file required periodic inspections. Boilers, elevators, gas piping, facades. This one deserves emphasis: the missing filing is itself the violation. Your boiler can be in perfect condition and you can still be cited for never filing its inspection report. A meaningful share of the DOB violations we see on otherwise well-run buildings are pure paperwork failures on equipment that was fine.
How to clear one
The general sequence:
Identify precisely what you have. Pull the property's record and determine whether each item is an ECB/OATH violation with a hearing or a non-ECB DOB violation, what class it is, what the cure requires, and what deadlines are running.
Correct the underlying condition — properly. If the original problem was unpermitted work, the cure usually requires permitted work, which means filing with DOB and possibly involving an architect or engineer. Fixing unpermitted work with more unpermitted work compounds the problem.
File the Certificate of Correction with the required documentation.
Resolve the hearing if there is one. Appear or dispose of the case. Do not default.
Confirm the record actually cleared. Verify the violation shows as resolved rather than assuming it did. Items sit open on property records for years because nobody checked.
Because DOB's forms, portals, fee schedules, and penalty amounts change over time, verify current specifics directly with the Department of Buildings and, for anything involving illegal occupancy or a contested hearing, with counsel.
Why this belongs in your diligence file
Violations attach to the property. When a building sells, the open items come along, and the new owner is the one the city looks to.
Which makes the DOB record a priceable item at purchase, not a discovery afterward. Before buying a Brooklyn multifamily building, pull both the DOB and HPD records, confirm the actual unit count matches the certificate of occupancy, and treat any open illegal-conversion case as a material issue rather than a formality. An unresolved conversion case or a stack of unfiled inspection reports is real money — either the seller cures it or the price reflects it.
Open violations also constrain you going forward. They surface in title work, they make lenders nervous, and they can complicate getting permits for work you actually want to do.
How we handle it
Compliance management across our portfolio starts from the premise that the cheapest violation is the one that never gets issued — which mostly means filing the periodic inspections on time, doing work under permits, and keeping the building's registered contact information current so notices actually arrive.
For violations that do land, the work is unglamorous: pull the record, classify each item, calendar every deadline including hearing dates, scope and price the corrective work for the owner, engage the right licensed professional where a filing requires one, and confirm the record cleared afterward rather than assuming.
If you've inherited a building with an unclear violation history, or you're looking at a Brooklyn property and want the record reviewed before you commit, schedule a property consultation.
This guide is general information for property owners, not legal advice. Violations involving illegal occupancy, contested hearings, or potential structural issues should be handled with qualified counsel and licensed professionals.