How to Check a Building's Heat Complaint History

To see whether a building leaves tenants cold, count its heat and hot water complaints for each heat season (October 1 to May 31) and check how many turned into HPD violations or court cases. A building with a handful of complaints in one bad week is normal. A building with complaints every winter, Class C heat violations and an HPD heat case is telling you something.

All of this is public. Here is where to find it and how to read it without being misled by raw counts.

Where heat complaints come from

Tenants report no heat or hot water to 311 by phone, online or in the app, usually after telling the landlord. 311 passes the complaint to HPD. Both agencies publish the records on NYC Open Data:

• 311 Service Requests: complaint type HEAT/HOT WATER, with a descriptor of ENTIRE BUILDING or APARTMENT ONLY.
• HPD Housing Maintenance Code Complaints and Problems: the same complaints from HPD's side, with major category HEAT/HOT WATER, the apartment number when given, and a status message explaining how HPD closed it.

Complaints can be anonymous. HPD says that when a complaint is anonymous, the inspector picks an apartment at random to inspect.

Step by step: build a building's heat history

1. 1

   Pull complaints for the address

   Filter the HPD complaints dataset by BBL or address, then keep rows where the major category is HEAT/HOT WATER. Using BBL avoids missing complaints filed under a slightly different street spelling.
2. 2

   Group them by heat season, not calendar year

   A season runs October 1 to May 31, so January 2026 belongs with October 2025. Count complaints from Oct 1 through May 31 for each of the last three seasons. Hot water complaints in summer belong to no heat season, so count them separately.
3. 3

   Count complaints, not problems

   One complaint can have more than one problem row. Count distinct complaint IDs. Then count distinct dates too: 40 complaints on two freezing days is different from 40 complaints spread over 30 days.
4. 4

   Separate building-wide from single-apartment

   “Entire building” complaints point to the boiler or the heating system. “Apartment only” complaints can be a radiator, a valve or a draft in one unit.
5. 5

   Check what HPD found

   Read the status messages and look for heat violations (§ 27-2029) and hot water violations (§ 27-2031). A violation means an inspector measured a temperature below the legal minimum.
6. 6

   Check for heat cases in court

   Look at the Litigation tab on HPD Online, or the Housing Litigations dataset, for case type "Heat and Hot Water". See HPD litigation records.

What the HPD status messages mean

Most heat complaints close without a violation. That doesn't mean the complaint was false. Often the heat came back on before an inspector arrived. These are the most common closing messages we saw on heat complaints received in January 2026.

Heat violations and penalties

HPD issues a violation when the indoor temperature is below the minimum for the time of day: 68°F during the day when it is below 55°F outside, or 62°F at night. Heat violations cite Admin Code § 27-2029 ("provide an adequate supply of heat") and hot water violations cite § 27-2031. In the 2025–26 season, 26,354 heat or hot water violations were recorded with inspection dates between October 1 and May 31, and every one of them was Class C, immediately hazardous.

HPD's penalty schedule gives owners no time to correct Class C heat and hot water violations before penalties apply. For violations issued on or after December 8, 2023, penalties are $350 to $1,250 per day, and $500 to $1,500 per day for later violations. HPD may also charge a $200 inspection fee when a third or later inspection in one heat season finds a third or later heat violation (for hot water, the count runs per calendar year). If an owner still doesn't restore service, HPD's Emergency Repair Program can hire a contractor and bill the owner.

Court cases and the Heat Sensor Program

HPD can take an owner to Housing Court over heat. In the Housing Litigations dataset these are case type "Heat and Hot Water", where HPD seeks an order to restore heat plus civil penalties. HPD opened or was named in this many such cases per year:

Separately, under Local Law 18 of 2020 (amended by Local Law 70 of 2023), HPD picks 50 apartment buildings each year that consistently fail to provide adequate heat, based on heat violations over the previous two years and heat complaints from more than one unit. Those owners must install a heat sensor in each apartment, in a living room the tenant chooses, and the building stays in the program for four years unless it qualifies for early discharge. A building on that list has a documented heat problem. See our report on heat sensor and underlying conditions program buildings.

Compare the building with its neighbors

Raw counts favor small buildings and punish big ones. Before you judge, put the number in context.

• Divide by units. 60 complaints in a 300-unit building is 0.2 per unit. 20 complaints in a 10-unit building is 2 per unit. Use the unit count on the building page.
• Compare similar buildings nearby. Pick three or four buildings on the same block or in the same ZIP with a similar size and age. They had the same weather.
• Compare seasons. Citywide, HPD received 279,188 distinct heat and hot water complaints in the 2024–25 season and 340,196 in 2025–26. A colder winter lifts every building, so look at whether this one rose more than its neighbors.
• Watch the trend. Falling complaints after a boiler replacement is good news. Rising complaints under a new owner is not.

For citywide numbers and the ZIPs with the most complaints, see heat complaints in 2025–26 and heat complaint hot spots.

Questions to ask before you sign

1. Is heat central or controlled in each apartment? Who pays for it?
2. When was the boiler last replaced or serviced?
3. I saw heat complaints last winter. What caused them, and what was fixed?
4. Is there an open heat case or heat violation right now?

You can look up a building's HPD violations, including heat violations, on Roofy's building lookup. If you already live there and you're cold, use the heat season temperature checker and read what to do when there's no heat.