HPD Inspection

[jrnnyc]

Thanks for the postings regarding the community seminars. I attended the 11/05 session on answering a petition. It was very helpful and offered confirmation that I had answered everything and dotted my i's and crossed my t's effectively. There is another session on 11/16 which will focus on HPD Inspections.

The challenge? My apartment will be inspected 11/15.

Can anyone offer information on what I can expect? Does the LL or his super have to be or have the RIGHT to be present? Will the inspector look at everything or only those items listed on my request? Any tips on how to be good and prepared?

As always, I'm eternally indebted,

JRN

[Cranky Tenant]

Had an HPD inspection several years ago. From what I remember it only took five or ten minutes. Most of the time was spent going over my list of complaints and verifying the room where each violation was located.

Inspectors (2) pretty much stuck to the list with one exception. They asked when was the last time the LL had painted the entire apartment. When I responded "never" they added paint and plaster apartment to the list.

Neither the LL or super were present.

Almost forgot - they also pointed out a number of other violations that weren't on my list including an illegally constructed wall and a suspended ceiling. Since they felt correcting these would require extensive work, they didn't add them to the list but simply verified the ceiling needed to be repaired.

<small>[ November 10, 2004, 01:23 AM: Message edited by: Cranky Tenant ]</small>

[Anna]

The general rule is that the special HC-HPD inspectors will only write violations for the items on your list plus a few fire-hazard violations (e.g.: your smoke detector, bikes + other items in common halls, padlocked roof or boiler-room doors). If the HC inspectors are overwhelmed and you get a regular HPD inspector, he might violate everything whether it is on your list or not.

Ask questions, write down everything he mentions, look up the code, check the results on nyc.gov/hpd for a few days, then call 311 and report everything he saw but was 'not allowed' to violate because he is a special HC inspector and must stick to the list. Bring photos of the un-violated hazards to court.

Always bring the first-after-inspection and the latest violation lists from nyc.gov/hpd to court: HPD removes violations as soon as LL self -certifies that things were corrected. You should receive a copy of cert: if even one item is false, immediately notify HPD.

The judge has access to the whole database and to the limited portion posted on nyc.gov/hpd, if her computer or network is down, you will have a list to show him. Also: some judges love to turn on their computers, others hate it.