HPD Vacate Orders: Why NYC Buildings Get Emptied

Most HPD vacate orders follow fires. Of the 8,925 Orders to Repair/Vacate in HPD's dataset since 2012, 4,811 list fire damage as the main reason, 3,473 list illegal occupancy and 641 list habitability. Fire orders are also lifted fastest. Orders for illegal occupancy and habitability usually stay in place for years.

What a vacate order is

HPD issues an Order to Repair/Vacate when a property is uninhabitable. Its orders page lists conditions such as lack of essential services, lack of proper exits, and fire damage. An order can cover a whole building or only some units, and HPD says occupants may have to leave whether their unit is legal or illegal. People forced out may be eligible for relocation help, including temporary emergency housing through HPD. To lift an order, the owner must fix the conditions and request a dismissal inspection, and cannot let anyone move back in before HPD dismisses it; HPD says re-occupying a vacated unit early can bring civil penalties of at least $5,000 per unit. The Department of Buildings issues its own vacate orders too; this dataset covers HPD orders. For what to do if it happens to you, see displaced by a fire or vacate order.

Why orders are issued

From 2012 through 2024, HPD issued roughly 450 to 650 vacate orders a year. 2025 broke that range with 729 orders, driven by fire: fire damage orders jumped from 333 in 2024 to 488 in 2025. The pace has held in 2026, with 723 orders through October 11, including 478 for fire damage.

The three reasons look very different. Illegal occupancy orders almost always cover part of a building (3,438 of 3,473 are partial) and average about 1.4 units each. Habitability orders are the opposite: 436 of 641 empty the entire building. Fire orders fall in between and account for 67% of all units ever vacated in the data.

Units displaced each year

Orders that took effect in 2025 covered 2,181 units, the most in any full year of the data. Orders from the first nine and a half months of 2026 already cover 2,441. A unit count is not a count of people, and the dataset does not record how many residents each order displaced.

By borough

Brooklyn (2,785) and the Bronx (2,604) have the most orders, and the Bronx has the most units vacated (7,481). The mix differs by borough. Queens has more illegal occupancy orders (1,385) than any other borough, more than twice its fire orders. In Manhattan, 86% of orders are for fire damage.

How quickly orders are lifted

Fire orders are the most likely to end. Among fire orders that took effect from 2012 through 2024, 48% were rescinded within a year and 64% within three years. For rescinded fire orders, the median time from effective date to rescission was 200 days.

Illegal occupancy and habitability orders rarely end quickly. Only 12% of illegal occupancy orders and 11% of habitability orders from the same years were rescinded within a year. Even among those that were eventually rescinded, the median time was 557 days for illegal occupancy and 754 days for habitability. Of the orders still in effect, 2,690 took effect more than five years ago. An order that stays open may mean the unit was never fixed, or that it was taken out of use and no one asked HPD to dismiss the order. The data cannot tell those apart.

Who pays for relocation

According to HPD's dataset description, Local Law 159 of 2019 lets HPD be reimbursed for relocating occupants after vacate orders issued by HPD, the Fire Department, the Department of Buildings and other agencies, and unpaid charges become a tax lien on the property. HPD's orders page adds that for orders issued on or after September 14, 2021, the charges are billed by the Department of Finance, and past-due charges accrue interest and can be sold or foreclosed on like other tax liens. HPD's payments under the law were $2.2 million in 2022, $6.4 million in 2024 and $7.1 million in 2025. In 2025, $3.8 million of that was tied to Department of Buildings vacate orders and $3.3 million to HPD orders. Through 2026 so far, payments total $5.8 million.

The full table

What the data can and cannot tell you

Check a building

Before you rent, look up the address on Roofy's NYC building lookup and read our guide to vacate orders. If a listing is a basement or cellar unit, read basement and cellar apartments in NYC first. Our 10-minute building check covers what else to look for.