NYC Housing Maintenance Code: Violations, Complaints, and Repairs

The NYC Housing Maintenance Code is the set of minimum standards every residential building in New York City must meet for heat, hot water, pest control, lead paint, structural repair, and the dozens of other conditions that make an apartment livable. It lives in Title 27, Chapter 2 of the New York City Administrative Code, and it gives the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) authority to inspect buildings, issue violations, and fine owners who let problems linger. It also gives you, as a tenant, a direct path to force repairs through 311, HPD, and Housing Court.

Most of the code’s weight falls on multiple dwellings, meaning any building with three or more families living independently.¹ One- and two-family homes still have to be kept in good repair, but an owner of a small home can shift certain maintenance duties to a tenant in a written lease, which is not allowed in a multiple dwelling.² The city code also works alongside the New York State Multiple Dwelling Law; where the city is stricter, the city rule controls, and where the state is stricter, the state rule prevails.³

What Your Landlord Is Required to Provide

Heat and Hot Water

Heat season runs October 1 through May 31. Between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., the owner must keep your apartment at 68°F or warmer whenever it is below 55°F outside. Between 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., the minimum is 62°F indoors regardless of the outdoor temperature.⁴ That overnight minimum catches people off guard, because there is no outdoor trigger.

Hot water is year-round, 24 hours a day, at a minimum of 120°F at the tap. If a tub or shower has an anti-scald valve that caps the temperature at 120°F, the minimum for that fixture drops to 110°F.⁵

A separate cooling obligation takes effect June 1, 2030 under Local Law 23 of 2026, requiring owners to be able to cool a designated primary sleeping room to no more than 78°F from June 15 through September 15 when a tenant elects coverage.⁶ Until then, there is no code-based right to air conditioning.

Lead Paint

In any building built before 1960 where a child under six lives, the owner is required to assume the paint contains lead and act accordingly. Peeling paint has to be addressed immediately by an EPA-certified contractor. As of January 1, 2025, owners of these buildings also have to proactively abate lead paint on door and window friction surfaces and make floors smooth and cleanable by July 2027. If a child under six moves in after that date, the owner has three years from the move-in to complete abatement.⁷

Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms

The owner installs and maintains both smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors in every unit, and replaces them when they reach the end of their manufacturer-listed useful life. You can test the alarm and swap batteries, but the duty to have working, properly placed detectors is the owner’s.⁸

Pests and Mold

Owners must keep buildings free of pests and, when infestations happen, use integrated pest management: sealing holes and cracks, fixing leaky plumbing, HEPA-vacuuming debris, and adding door sweeps. Pesticides, when needed, can only be applied by a New York State–licensed professional.⁹ Owners also owe every tenant a written notice disclosing the building’s bed bug history for the prior year.¹⁰

Mold cannot be painted over. The owner has to identify and fix the source of the moisture (leaking pipe, defective masonry, water infiltration) and then remove visible mold using methods approved by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.¹¹

Locks, Window Guards, and Self-Closing Doors

Every apartment entrance door in a Class A multiple dwelling needs a heavy-duty latch, a heavy-duty deadbolt (keyed outside, thumb-turn inside), and a chain door guard.¹² Self-closing doors in hallways and on units opening onto interior corridors have to actually self-close; a broken one is an immediately hazardous violation with a 14-day correction window.¹³

In buildings with three or more apartments, approved window guards are required in every unit where a child age 10 or younger lives, and in common-area windows throughout the building. Any tenant can also request window guards for any reason, with or without a child in the home.¹⁴

General Repair

The owner of a multiple dwelling has to keep the entire premises in good repair, and that duty cannot be pushed onto tenants by contract.¹ Roof, foundation, walls, plumbing, yards, courtyards: all of it falls on the owner.

Violation Classes and What They Cost the Landlord

When an HPD inspector confirms a code violation, it is placed in one of three classes based on severity, each with its own correction window.

Class A (non-hazardous): minor peeling paint, missing house number. The owner has 90 days to correct before civil penalties apply.
Class B (hazardous): broken entrance-door lock, defective plumbing. 30 days to repair.
Class C (immediately hazardous): no heat, lead paint hazards, non-functioning self-closing door. Most Class C conditions must be fixed within 24 hours. Lead paint Class C violations get a 21-day correction period.

Penalties for violations issued on or after December 8, 2023 run on both a base amount and a daily rate while the condition goes uncorrected:¹⁵

Class A: $50 to $150, plus $25 per day.
Class B: $75 to $500, plus $25 to $125 per day.
Class C in buildings with five or fewer units: $150 to $750, plus $50 to $150 per day.
Class C in buildings with more than five units: $150 to $1,200, plus $150 to $1,200 per day.
Class C lead paint: $250 per day, up to $10,000.
Class C heat and hot water: $350 to $1,250 per day for a first violation, $500 to $1,500 per day for repeats.
Class C self-closing doors: $250 to $500, plus $250 per day.

How to File a Complaint

Try the landlord, managing agent, or superintendent first, and put the request in writing so you have a record. If nothing happens, file a complaint by calling 311, through 311 Online, or on the 311 Mobile app.¹⁶

Preparation decides whether the complaint moves. For heat, keep a log with the date, time, indoor temperature, and outside temperature for each reading, and record entries as they happen rather than reconstructing them later. For visible problems like mold, leaks, or damage, take clear photographs. You can look up your building’s registered owner and past violations through HPD Online.¹⁷

After you file, HPD will try to reach your building’s managing agent to warn them a violation may issue, and will try to call you to confirm whether the problem was fixed. If it was not, or HPD cannot reach you, a uniformed code enforcement inspector will come to the building to inspect in person.¹⁸

When HPD Does the Repair Itself

If an owner blows the correction deadline on an immediately hazardous violation, HPD’s Emergency Repair Program can send city contractors to fix the condition. The repair cost and administrative fees get billed to the owner through the Department of Finance, and if the owner does not pay, the charges become a tax lien on the property that accrues interest and can eventually be sold or foreclosed on by the city.¹⁹

Taking Your Landlord to Housing Court

If HPD complaints have not produced results, you can file an HP Action in Housing Court and ask a judge to order repairs directly. File at the clerk’s office of the Housing Court in the county where the apartment sits. You will complete an Order to Show Cause, a Verified Petition that lists every defective condition room by room, and an inspection request form. The filing fee is $45, and a fee waiver is available for tenants who cannot afford it.

The clerk then schedules an HPD inspection and sets a return date about ten days out. Most HP Actions resolve on the return date with a consent order that sets deadlines for specific repairs and consequences for missing them. If the landlord ignores the order, you can come back to the same case for contempt and daily civil penalties. If the landlord does not show up, the judge can still order repairs.

Rent Reductions Under the Warranty of Habitability

Separate from the maintenance code, every residential lease in New York carries an implied warranty of habitability: a promise that the apartment is fit for human habitation and free of conditions dangerous to life, health, or safety. The warranty exists even if your lease doesn’t mention it, and any clause trying to waive it is void.²⁰

Its practical power is in money. A court can reduce your rent to reflect the diminished value of the apartment while the conditions existed, and it does not need expert testimony to calculate that reduction, which makes it workable for tenants representing themselves. If you are already getting a rent reduction from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal for the same conditions, the court award will be offset by that amount so you are not paid twice.²⁰

Protection From Retaliation

New York law bars landlords from retaliating against tenants who make good-faith complaints about health and safety conditions, whether the complaint went to the landlord or to a government agency like HPD. A landlord cannot serve an eviction notice, refuse to renew your lease, or impose an unreasonable rent increase because you reported violations.²⁰ The protection applies to all tenants except those in owner-occupied buildings with fewer than four units.

If the landlord takes any of those actions within one year of your complaint, the law presumes retaliation. The landlord then has to prove the eviction, non-renewal, or increase was based on a legitimate reason unrelated to your complaint, and if they can’t, the case gets dismissed. Document the date of every complaint you make, because that date is what triggers the presumption.

1
NYC Open Data. NYC Housing Maintenance Code
2
NYC Administrative Code. NYC Administrative Code Title 27 – CONSTRUCTION AND MAINTENANCE
3
New York State Multiple Dwelling Law. New York State Multiple Dwelling Law
4
American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2029 – Minimum Temperature to Be Maintained
5
New York City Housing Preservation & Development. Heat and Hot Water Information
6
The City of New York. Local Law 23 of 2026
7
New York City Housing Preservation & Development. Lead-Based Paint
8
Housing Preservation & Development. Bulletin to Property Owners – November 2024
9
NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Guide to Local Law 55 of 2018 Integrated Pest Management Practices
10
NYC Health. Bedbugs: Information for Tenants and Building Owners
11
American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2017.1 – Owners Responsibility to Remediate
12
American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2043 – Locks in Dwelling Unit Doors
13
American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2041.1 – Self-Closing Doors
14
NYC Health. Window Guards
15
New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Penalties and Fees
16
New York City Housing Preservation & Development. Report a Quality or Safety Issue
17
NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development. HPD Online
18
NYC311. Apartment Maintenance Complaint
19
New York City Housing Preservation & Development. Emergency Repair Program (ERP)
20
New York State Senate. New York Real Property Law 235-B – Warranty of Habitability