NYC Immediately Hazardous (Class C) Housing Violations by Year

Class C violations, the ones HPD calls "immediately hazardous," have roughly tripled in a decade. HPD recorded 278,184 Class C violations from inspections in 2025, up from 90,911 in 2015. The count peaked in 2024 at 297,762 and dipped in 2025. The Bronx has had the most Class C violations of any borough every year since 2022.

What a Class C violation is

HPD inspectors sort every Housing Maintenance Code violation into a hazard class: A (non-hazardous), B (hazardous) or C (immediately hazardous). A fourth class, I, is for information orders, such as HPD Orders to Repair and Vacate Orders, and the dataset notes that Class I violations are generally issued administratively rather than after an inspection. The most common one is an owner's failure to register the building. The class sets the clock. According to HPD, owners get 24 hours to correct most Class C conditions, 14 days for self-closing doors, and 21 days for lead-based paint, window guards, mold, mice, cockroaches and rats. Heat and hot water violations get no correction period at all. Class B allows 30 days and Class A allows 90.

For a tenant, a Class C violation is the record that says an inspector saw something dangerous: no heat, no hot water, a lead paint hazard, a broken self-closing door, an infestation. Read our guide to HPD violation classes for what each class means in practice.

The trend: Class C grew faster than everything else

From 2015 to 2018, Class C counts stayed between about 91,000 and 105,000 a year. In 2019 they jumped to 168,200, a 60% increase in one year, while Class B fell. In 2020 every class dropped. After that, Class C climbed every year to 297,762 in 2024, then fell 6.6% to 278,184 in 2025.

Class C grew faster than the other classes, so its share of all violations rose too. It was 16.5% of violations in 2015 and 30.3% in 2025. Class B is still the largest class, at 364,224 in 2025.

This year looks similar to last. From January 1 through October 11, 2026, HPD recorded 204,597 Class C violations, compared with 208,558 in the same stretch of 2025, a change of -1.9%.

Which boroughs drive the increase

Every borough had more Class C violations in 2025 than in 2019. The Bronx went from 57,020 to 107,653 (89% more). Brooklyn had more Class C violations than the Bronx in 2019, but the Bronx passed it in 2022 and has stayed ahead. Queens grew the most in percentage terms, from 13,415 to 31,973, although it still has fewer than half as many as the Bronx.

How many are still open

Of the 278,184 Class C violations from 2025 inspections, 82,100 (29.5%) were still marked open in the dataset on October 12, 2026. An open status means HPD has not recorded the violation as closed. It does not always mean the condition is still there: an owner may have fixed it without certifying the repair, or HPD may not have reinspected yet. See HPD violation status codes and how owners certify corrections.

The full table

What the data can and cannot tell you

Check a building

Citywide totals tell you the direction. A single building's record tells you what you are signing up for. Look up any address on Roofy's NYC building lookup to see its HPD violations by class, or browse the buildings with the most violations. If you are apartment hunting, use our 10-minute building check. To see which specific conditions show up most often, read the 25 most common HPD violations.