To check whether a New York City building is in HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP), search HPD’s list of Buildings Selected for the Alternative Enforcement Program on NYC Open Data by address, BBL or BIN. Each row shows the round, the selection date, the current status (AEP Active or AEP Discharged) and the discharge date. HPD picks about 250 rental buildings each year around January 31 based on open violations per unit and emergency repair charges, and owners who do not fix conditions within four months face building-wide inspections, an Order to Correct and fees of $500 per unit.
By our count of that list, 4,387 selections have been made since 2007 (3,666 distinct buildings), and 862 buildings were still active in October 2026. Fewer recent buildings leave early: about half of the buildings selected in 2017 through 2022 were discharged within 150 days, compared with 25% to 36% of those selected in 2024 through 2026.
| Item | What we found |
|---|---|
| Where to check | HPD’s AEP building list on NYC Open Data (updated October 1, 2026) |
| Selections so far | 4,387 in 19 rounds; 3,666 distinct buildings; 598 picked more than once |
| Active now | 862 buildings with 17,809 units; 202 of them were selected before 2020 |
| Discharged within 150 days | About 50% for 2017–2022 rounds; 25.2% (2024), 36.4% (2025), 34.0% (2026) |
| Fees if not discharged early | $500 per unit at the building-wide inspection, $500 per unit six months later, capped at $1,000 per unit |
| Unpaid charges | Billed through the Department of Finance; past-due amounts become a tax lien |
How to check if a building is in AEP
- Open the AEP building list and filter by BBL (borough, block and lot), BIN or street address. A building can appear in more than one round, so read every row.
- Read current_status. “AEP Active” means the building is still in the program; “AEP Discharged” comes with a discharge date.
- Check HPD Online for the same building’s open violations and the Charges tab, where AEP repair work orders appear alongside emergency repairs.
- Check the Department of Finance statement of account. HPD’s charges and fees page says AEP fees and repair charges are billed there and become a tax lien if past due.
- If a building is active, ask the owner for the AEP Order to Correct, the list of required system replacements and the status of each.
How HPD selects AEP buildings
HPD’s Year 17 report to the City Council (July 2024) lists the criteria used since Round 9:
- 15 units or more: 3 or more open class B and C violations per unit issued in the past five years, and $2,500 or more in paid or unpaid emergency repair charges in the same period.
- 3 to 14 units: 5 or more open B and C violations per unit, and $5,000 or more in emergency repair charges.
- Qualifying buildings are ranked by emergency repair charges billed in the past five years, and no more than 25 buildings with fewer than 6 units can be selected.
- If fewer than 250 qualify, HPD fills the round from buildings with 6 or more units and 4 or more open B and C violations per unit.
- Buildings with an HPD or HDC rehabilitation loan are excluded.
What happens after a building is selected
The owner has four months to get the building discharged. According to the Year 17 report, that requires correcting all heat and hot water violations, all class C mold violations and at least 80% of class B mold violations, at least 80% of pest violations and at least 80% of all other B and C violations; paying outstanding HPD charges or entering a payment agreement with Finance; and filing a current property registration. HPD then monitors the building for a year.
After four months, HPD inspects the building from roof to cellar and issues an AEP Order to Correct, which can require replacing building systems such as the roof, heating plant, wiring or waste lines, or an integrated pest management plan. HPD can do the system work itself if the owner does not, and bills the cost through the property tax account. Later discharge comes from complying with the order, the building being vacant for a year, appointment of a 7A administrator, HPD finishing the work, or a third-party transfer.
AEP fees and charges
HPD’s charges and fees page lists these AEP fees, all billed by Finance:
- Building-wide inspection fee: $500 per unit on the date of the inspection and again every six months, up to $1,000 per unit in total. For a 21-unit building, the median size in the 2026 round, that is $10,500 at the inspection and up to $21,000 overall.
- Complaint inspection fee: $200 for a complaint inspection that results in a class B or C violation.
- False certification fee: $100 for each reinspection after a certification of correction when HPD finds a violation was not corrected.
- Repair and system replacement costs: billed separately, plus administrative fees. HPD’s report says it had spent over $62.2 million on AEP repairs, utilities and system work through January 2024 and imposed $27.3 million in fees.
What 19 rounds of AEP data show
We downloaded the AEP building list on October 24, 2026 and grouped buildings by selection year. These are our calculations. “Discharged within 150 days” uses the discharge date and allows a few weeks past the four-month period for processing; it is a proxy for early discharge, not HPD’s own count. The two-year column is shown only for rounds that have had two full years.
| Selected in | Discharged within 150 days | Discharged within 2 years | Still active (Oct 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 50.0% | 73.2% | 30 of 250 |
| 2018 | 50.4% | 76.0% | 31 |
| 2019 | 58.8% | 71.6% | 36 |
| 2020 | 5.6% | 70.8% | 39 |
| 2021 | 43.6% | 58.0% | 58 |
| 2022 | 50.0% | 66.8% | 63 |
| 2023 | 32.0% | 50.8% | 105 |
| 2024 | 25.2% | 43.6% | 132 |
| 2025 | 36.4% | — | 124 |
| 2026 | 34.0% | — | 139 |
- Early exits dropped after 2022. HPD’s own report flagged the same trend: initial-period discharges fell from 164 buildings in Round 13 to 99 in Round 16 (2023). The 2020 round, selected weeks before the pandemic shutdown, had almost none.
- Buildings got bigger. The median selected building had 6 units in 2015 and 21 units in 2024 and 2026. In the 2026 round, 65.2% of buildings had 15 or more units.
- Many stay for years. Active buildings have been in the program a median of 3.7 years, and 467 of the 862 active buildings were selected more than three years ago.
- Discharge is not always the end. Of buildings discharged from rounds selected before 2022, 21.8% were selected again in a later round, in line with HPD’s statement that more than 80% are not.
We also matched HPD’s Open Market Order data, which flags outside-contractor work orders done under AEP. Of the 750 buildings selected in 2021 through 2023, 234 (31.2%) had at least one AEP work order during their time in the program, with a median awarded total of $4,699 per building. Award amounts are contract values, not the final charge, which adds HPD’s fees and tax. In 2024, HPD created 1,262 AEP work orders worth $3.3 million in awards, most of them general construction (919), followed by lead (88), utilities (70) and plumbing (68).
Checklist before you buy, lend on or rent in an AEP building
- Every row for the building in the AEP list read, including earlier rounds and discharge dates.
- The AEP Order to Correct and its required system replacements requested, with the status of each.
- Open class B and C violations counted in HPD Online, especially heat, hot water, mold and pests.
- HPD charges and AEP fees on the Finance statement of account checked, along with any payment agreement.
- The property checked against current tax lien sale notices.
- For tenants: HPD Online complaints and violations for your unit, and the AEP community coordinator contact from HPD.
AEP work orders show up as charges, so see our HPD emergency repair charges guide for how those are billed. For the violations behind a selection, use our HPD violations lookup, and our NYC tax lien sale list guide covers what happens when charges go unpaid.
Counts are our calculations from HPD’s Buildings Selected for the Alternative Enforcement Program (updated October 1, 2026) and Open Market Order Charges (updated October 23, 2026) on NYC Open Data, downloaded October 24, 2026. HPD pages checked October 25, 2026.