To find HPD emergency repair charges on a New York City building, search the address in HPD Online and open the Charges tab, then check the Department of Finance account balance for the same property. When an owner leaves an immediately hazardous violation uncorrected, HPD can send its own contractor, and the City bills the owner through the property tax account. HPD’s Emergency Repair Program page says a billed charge that is past due becomes a tax lien that bears interest and can be sold.
The charges reach far more buildings than the lien sale does. In HPD’s open data, emergency repair work orders created in 2024 led to $64.0 million in charges across about 11,500 tax lots, with a median of $477 per work order, by our count. Lots with $10,000 or more in charges sent to Finance in 2022 and 2023 were on the 90-day notice list for the 2025 lien sale about half the time (51.0%).
How to look up emergency repair charges on a building
- Open HPD Online, search the address, and select the Charges tab (the Building Charge Report).
- Read each work order. Open orders can still turn into charges; HPD says completed ones may be awaiting contractor payment or already transferred to Finance.
- Check the Department of Finance account for the same property: the account balance and the statement of account, where HPD charges are listed as Emergency Repair Program, Alternative Enforcement Program or Demolition charges.
- Compare the work orders with the building’s open HPD violations. Most emergency repairs follow a Class C violation or a DOB order.
- For questions about a charge, HPD’s charges and fees page gives phone numbers by work type and explains how to object.
HPD also notes that an owner cannot certify correction of HPD violations, request a dismissal inspection or ask for a violation reissuance while HPD-related charges are pending with Finance.
What gets billed
- The repair: work by HPD or its contractors on Class C violations and HPD orders, DOB orders and emergency declarations, certain elevator referrals and Health Department orders.
- Fees: the cost of the repair plus related fees.
- Attempts: HPD bills for initial steps taken to attempt a repair, even when the work cannot be completed.
- Contract pricing: HPD warns that procurement and wage rules can make its contractors significantly more expensive than a price an owner could get by fixing the condition on time.
What 2024 emergency repair work orders show
We downloaded HPD’s Open Market Order (OMO) Charges (work by outside contractors), the OMO invoices and Handyman Work Order (HWO) Charges (work by HPD staff) on October 24, 2026, and counted work orders created in 2024. These are our calculations. “Charge” is the charge amount in the invoice data, which adds HPD’s administrative fee and sales tax to the contractor’s bill.
| Work type (HPD code) | 2024 OMOs with a charge | Median charge | Total charged |
|---|---|---|---|
| General construction (GC) | 18,509 | $477 | $26.0 million |
| Lead abatement (DELEAD) | 3,827 | $192 | $7.9 million |
| Utility (UTIL) | 623 | $5,758 | $5.4 million |
| Plumbing (PLUMB) | 510 | $2,478 | $2.8 million |
| Asbestos (ASBEST) | 287 | $417 | $1.0 million |
| Heat (HEAT) | 182 | $675 | $1.3 million |
| Demolition (DEMOL) | 47 | $374,256 | $16.8 million |
| All work types | 24,334 | $477 | $64.0 million |
- About half were completed: of 26,996 OMOs created in 2024, 13,030 (48.3%) were closed as completed. Another 9,506 (35.2%) closed over access: no access, owner refused, tenant refused or refused access. 1,445 (5.4%) closed because the landlord complied.
- Failed access still costs money: 9,055 OMOs closed over access carried a charge, with a median of $159. Completed OMOs had a median charge of $1,080.
- Small HPD-staff jobs: 2,683 handyman work orders were created in 2024; 1,705 carried a charge, with a median of $38.
- Per building: the 11,494 lots with 2024 charges had a median total of $954. 5,667 (49.3%) reached $1,000 or more, the lien sale threshold for most rental and commercial buildings; 1,113 reached $10,000, and 54 reached $100,000.
From repair charge to the lien sale list
To see how charges line up with the lien sale, we totaled charges sent to Finance in 2022 and 2023 for each lot and checked the 2025 tax lien sale lists. Lots on those lists may also owe property tax or water charges, so this shows overlap, not cause.
| ERP charges sent to Finance, 2022–2023 | Lots | On 2025 90-day list | Lien sold in 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under $1,000 | 10,363 | 14.0% | 1.5% |
| $1,000 to $9,999 | 4,826 | 31.9% | 6.5% |
| $10,000 or more | 1,132 | 51.0% | 10.6% |
About 8.5% of the 2022–2023 invoices belong to work orders created before 2020 and could not be matched to a lot in the work order data we downloaded, so the lot totals are slightly low.
Checklist before you buy or lend on a NYC rental building
- HPD Online Charges tab read, including open work orders that have not been invoiced yet.
- Finance account balance and recent statements checked for Emergency Repair, AEP and Demolition charges.
- Open Class C violations listed, since those are what HPD repairs and bills.
- The building’s place on current and recent lien sale lists checked by borough, block and lot.
- Any charge the seller disputes tracked through HPD’s objection process, with a payoff or escrow agreed before closing.
For the violations behind these charges, see our HPD violations lookup. Our NYC tax lien sale list guide covers what happens once a lien is sold, and our property lien search guide covers other places.
Buildings with heavy emergency repair charges can also be selected for HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program; our NYC AEP buildings list guide shows how to check a building and what selection means.
Counts are our calculations from HPD Charge Data on NYC Open Data (Open Market Order Charges, OMO invoices and Handyman Work Order Charges, all updated October 23, 2026) and the Department of Finance Tax Lien Sale Lists, downloaded October 24, 2026. Work orders are counted by creation date; lots are matched by borough, block and lot. HPD pages checked October 24, 2026.