Who Must Register a Building With HPD, and What If You Don't?

Every New York City residential building with three or more units, and every one- or two-family house where neither the owner nor the owner's immediate family lives, has to register with HPD every year by September 1. The fee is $13, and it is not paid to HPD: the Department of Finance bills it on the property tax statement of account. Those rules are on HPD's Register Your Property page, and so is the consequence that makes this filing matter more than its price.

I represent buyers and sellers across all five boroughs, and if I could check only one HPD item on a building before a sale, it would be this one. The reason is in HPD's own words: a building without a valid registration is ineligible to certify violations or request a dismissal. Every other open item on the record waits behind it.

Below: who has to register, when and how, what makes a registration valid, what happens when it is missing, and what to do around a sale. Building Check shows registration violations for an address alongside open HPD and DOB violations.

Who has to register

That last row matters for families. An inherited two-family where nobody in the family now lives becomes a building that has to register. The inherited property guide covers the rest of what an executor handles before a sale. And an owner who used to register a one- or two-family and now lives in it files HPD's "Private Dwelling, Not Required to Register" form to come off the list.

When to register

• Every year, between May 21 and September 1.
• As soon as you buy a residential property that meets the criteria.
• Whenever ownership changes or the information on a valid registration changes, such as a new managing agent.
• Within 5 days of a change in the owner's address, the corporation's officers, an officer's address, or any of the managing agent's information. Updating a registration has no filing fee.
• Within 8 days of designating a new managing agent when the current one dies, is declared incompetent by a court, or moves out of New York City.

What makes a registration valid

HPD's rule has two parts, and both have to happen: the $13 payment to the Department of Finance, and a properly completed registration form received by HPD. Owners can create and update the form in HPD's Property Registration Online System, known as PROS, but they still print it, sign it and mail it. The owner and the managing agent both sign and date it.

The managing agent has to be a natural person over 21 who lives in the city or regularly attends a business office in it. An owner or corporate officer who meets that test can be the managing agent. If the owner is a corporation, the form lists anyone owning more than 25 percent of it. HPD says it will notify the owner by mail or email once the form and payment are processed; if nothing arrives within 2 to 4 weeks, check HPDONLINE or PROS to confirm the registration is valid.

One practical reason to keep it current: HPD mails Notices of Violation to the last validly registered owner's managing agent, or to the owner if there is no agent. A stale registration means violation notices go to the wrong address, and their correction deadlines run anyway.

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What happens if you do not register

Local Law 71 of 2023 amended section 27-2107 of the Administrative Code, effective December 8, 2023. According to HPD's register page and its penalties and fees page:

A detail worth knowing if you read HPD's site closely: the FAQ further down the same register page still describes failure-to-register penalties of $250 to $500. The figures above are the amended ones, in effect since December 8, 2023, that HPD's penalties page and the Local Law 71 notice at the top of the register page both state.

The chain is the real cost. An unregistered building cannot certify a fixed violation, so its violations stay open; it cannot file the bedbug report, so it picks up another; and it cannot request a dismissal to clear the older ones. The HPD violation classes guide and the bedbug report guide each start from the assumption that the registration is valid, because nothing in either works without it.

How the registration violation clears

This one is the simplest on the list. HPD says that if you receive an Order to register, you register to remove it, and once the registration is valid HPD removes the violation administratively with no further action from the owner. On HPD's Dismissal Request application it appears as order number 780, among the violations with no physical condition to inspect.

Registration and a sale

• Before listing. Confirm the registration is valid, then certify or clear everything else. That order is the only one HPD's rules allow.
• After closing, the seller. An owner who sold can ask HPD to invalidate their last registration with HPD's Application to Invalidate Registration, which stops registration notices arriving for a building they no longer own.
• After closing, the buyer. Registration is due as soon as a buyer takes title to a property that requires it.
• If you need proof for court. A certified copy of a registration costs $8.

Do not confuse this with rent registration. Buildings subject to rent stabilization also register the building and its apartments with New York State Homes and Community Renewal every year by July 31, a separate filing with its own penalty of $500 per unregistered unit for each month it is late. Rent-regulated buildings do both. If you are selling a building with tenants, the guide to selling with a tenant in place and the small multifamily guide cover the buyer's view, and the net proceeds calculator and a home valuation cover the numbers.

This is general information, not legal advice. Who must register, deadlines, the $13 fee, validity rules, managing agent requirements, common mistakes, the consequences of not registering, invalidation after a sale, certified copies and the HCR rent registration note are from HPD's Register Your Property page; the amended civil penalties are from that page and HPD's Penalties and Fees page; order 780 is from HPD's Dismissal Request application, all read September 23, 2026. Confirm current requirements with HPD's Registration Assistance Unit before relying on them.