NYC HPD Deadline: September 1, 2026

1. HPD registration lapse: no nonpayment case, and the rent claim can be stayed

The Housing Maintenance Code is explicit. While a registration is missing or invalid, the owner is barred from recovering possession for nonpayment, and the court may stay any proceeding to recover the rent itself. A nonpayment petition has to plead the registration number and attach the receipt.

The registration has to name people, not just an entity. These are required:

• A corporate owner registers its officers and every person holding more than 25 percent.
• A partnership registers its general partners and every limited partner over 25 percent.
• Every multiple dwelling names a managing agent who is a natural person over 21, resident in the city or keeping a city office.
• A non-owner-occupied one- or two-family house names a natural person in the city to receive HPD's notices, orders, and summonses.
• A post office box is not an address. The city does not accept a registration that gives one.

Since Local Law 71 of 2023, a registration with false information is invalidated, not corrected. HPD's own examples:

• The building's address given as the owner's or agent's address, when nobody works or lives there.
• A superintendent listed as the managing agent.

An invalidated registration counts as no registration from the date of the finding, and draws its own penalty.

• The lossWhile the registration is lapsed, you cannot take a tenant to court for unpaid rent. The tenant still owes it, but you cannot collect through the court until you refile, and the judge can hold the rent claim back for the same months. Count the months lapsed and multiply by that building's rent. That is the number.
• The penalty
  • Failure to filefive units or fewer$500 to $1,500
  • Failure to filemore than five units$1,000 to $5,000
  • False informationon the statement$750 to $5,000
  HPD has issued Failure to Register violations since the 2025 cycle closed.
• What else stopsNo certification of correction, no Code Violation Dismissal request, and automatic disenrollment from eCertification on August 31 for any building not refiled by then.

2. HPD certification of correction: reinspection, audits, and the Certification Watchlist

Certifying a correction used to close a violation. It now opens an audit. HPD audits certifications by reinspection inside the 70 days a certification takes to become final.

The audit runs from the record, not from a complaint. The certification you file electronically is the trigger; HPD selects from its own data and sends an inspector to verify it. A certification the inspector cannot confirm does not close the violation. The violation stays open, it keeps accruing the per-day civil penalty its class carries, and a false-certification penalty is added on top.

• 2019Local Law 117 requires HPD to audit at least 15 percent of class C certifications by reinspection and report the results to the Council every March.
• 2023Local Law 71 sets a civil penalty for each false certification, creates the Certification Watchlist, and lets HPD refuse to treat a certification as complied, without an inspection attempt, for buildings with a record of false ones.
• 2024HPD attempts reinspection on 88,627 class C certifications, 69 percent of all filed, and completes 75 percent of the attempts. 33 percent of audited certifications are found false; for pest violations, 53 percent.
• 2025The first Watchlist is published in January. HPD reinspects nearly 63 percent of certified class C violations during the year.
• 2026The second Watchlist is published in February. For a building on it, no certification of a hazardous or class C violation closes without at least two reinspection attempts.

• The penalty
  • Non-hazardousclass A, per false certification$50 to $250
  • Hazardousclass B, per false certification$250 to $500
  • Class Cper false certification$500 to $1,000
  • Reinspection feeAlternative Enforcement Program buildings, each visit that finds the work not done$100
• What it means for a managerA certification is now a statement HPD tests. The vendor's invoice is not proof; the reinspection is. Anything certified off a work order that was never closed out is a false certification waiting for its audit.

3. HPD charges on the DOF property tax bill, and the tax lien sale

When HPD does the work itself, the cost does not come as an invoice from HPD. It is billed by the Department of Finance on the building's Statement of Account, beside the property tax, and it is collected the way property tax is collected.

• What is billed this way
  • Emergency repairsclass C conditions HPD corrects itself, at the city's contractor rates
  • Alternative Enforcementper unit, every six months, to $1,000 per unit$500
  • Relocationtenants rehoused after a vacate order
  • Inspection feesthird heat, hot water, or repeat-complaint inspection$200
• If it is ignoredThe charge becomes a tax lien bearing interest. The Department of Finance sells liens to a trust; in its own words, the lien sale "can be a first step toward foreclosure."
• What it means for a managerA violation nobody saw, because the notice went to an out-of-date registration, becomes HPD's repair, then DOF's charge, then a lien on the owner's building, without passing through your office once.

The systems this runs on: Yardi, AppFolio, Buildium, HPD PROS, eCertification, DOF

A registration is filed in one city system, a certification in another, and the charge lands in a third, while the work order that should tie them together sits in your property management software. Greenstar reads each of these in place and connects them. It works with any property management system that holds your buildings, units, and work orders, among them Yardi Voyager, AppFolio, Buildium, Rent Manager, MRI, RealPage, and Entrata, and with the city's own portals. If your system is not named here, ask; most that can export the data will work.

• HPD PROSThe Property Registration Online System, where the annual registration is prepared and the $13 fee is billed through DOF. Greenstar reads each building's registration status and end date and queues the refiling for your signatory before August 31.
• HPD eCertificationWhere certifications of correction are filed for eligible violations, and which disenrolls any building whose registration lapses. Greenstar holds a certification until its work order is closed and photographed, then files it from your own account.
• HPD OnlineThe public record of every open violation, its class, and its certification status, building by building. Greenstar polls it on a 24-hour cadence and ties each violation to the unit, vendor, and work order in your property management system.
• DOB NOWWhere boiler, elevator, gas piping, and facade filings and their open items live. Greenstar reconciles each against the vendor invoice and flags the filing window before it closes.
• DOF Statement of Account and CityPayWhere HPD repair charges, program fees, and the registration fee are billed and paid. Greenstar reads each building's statement, attributes every HPD line to its violation, and reports it to the owning entity before it ages into a lien.
• Yardi, AppFolio, Buildium, Rent ManagerYour work orders, vendors, units, and owner statements. Greenstar reads them through each system's export or API, never holds your logins, and writes nothing back without your approval.

HPD compliance automation for property managers

Each of these is a record the city already publishes, building by building: the registration and its end date on HPD Online, every open violation and its certification status, every charge on the DOF Statement of Account. Greenstar reads those records on a schedule and turns them into the work your office does before the date, instead of the letter that arrives after it.

• Registration watchPolls HPD Online for every building's registration status and end date on a 24-hour cadence, flags a statement that names a superintendent as agent or a building address as an office, and queues the refiling in PROS for your signatory before August 31.
• Certification ledgerReconciles every certification you file against the work order and photos behind it, holds anything with no closed work order, and tracks the 70-day reinspection window so a false certification is caught in your office, not in HPD's.
• Charge reconciliationReads the HPD charges on each building's DOF Statement of Account, ties each to the violation and vendor that produced it, and produces the monthly statement for each owning entity before a charge ages into a lien.

Every filing goes out from your own HPD and DOF accounts in your own name. Ask whether your portfolio's systems are supported.

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