Most people buying in Manhattan are buying an apartment in a co-op or condo building, not a house, and that changes which records matter. The unit has its own history of alterations, but the building has a longer one, kept by two different city agencies, and a buyer usually needs both.
Two agencies, two records
The Department of Buildings holds the construction record: permits and job filings, inspections, the certificate of occupancy, and DOB and OATH/ECB violations. Manhattan uses the same two systems as every other borough, the Building Information System (BIS) for older filings and DOB NOW for current ones. Our Bronx guide walks through searching both by address or block and lot, and the steps are identical here.
HPD, the city's housing agency, holds the other half: how the building has been kept up. Every building of three or more apartments must register with it, co-ops and condos included, and its public site lists what tenants have complained about, what inspectors have cited and whether the owner has been taken to housing court. Our guide to reading a building's HPD record goes through that page line by line.
The two answer different questions. DOB tells you what work was approved and whether it was signed off. HPD tells you how the building has been run.
What to pull for a Manhattan apartment
- The building's certificate of occupancy, from DOB. It sets the legal use and the number of units. An apartment that does not exist on the CO, or a duplex the CO counts as two units, is a question for your lawyer before closing.
- Alteration filings for the unit. Renovations that moved plumbing, gas or walls are normally filed with DOB under the building's address by a licensed professional. Ask the seller for the job numbers rather than hunting through every filing on a large building.
- The building's open DOB and HPD violations. A few old minor items are normal in a large building. Open immediately hazardous HPD violations, an active vacate order, or a building in HPD's Alternative Enforcement Program are not.
- The landmark record, if there is one. Much of Manhattan sits inside historic districts. Exterior work on a landmarked building also needs a Landmarks Preservation Commission permit under Administrative Code § 25-305, a separate record covered in our Brooklyn guide, and its permit and violation searches work the same way for Manhattan addresses.
Why the building's record is your record
In a co-op you buy shares in the corporation that owns the building, so its violations, litigation and repair bills are, in a real sense, yours. In a condo you own the unit outright, but the common charges pay for the building's repairs. Either way, an open facade or boiler problem in the records today can become an assessment later. Ask the managing agent, through your lawyer, what each open item is and what it will cost to clear.
For the unit itself, a free Before Regret report on the address lists the checks that matter for a building of that age and the questions worth putting to the seller.
What Manhattan Is Permitting Right Now
New construction in Manhattan is almost entirely apartment buildings. Of the 1,170 housing units permitted in the borough so far this year, 2 are single-family houses; the rest, 1,168 units, are in multifamily buildings, up 5.2% on the same months last year. The record you pull for a Manhattan purchase is therefore nearly always the record of a building, which is why the HPD and landmark records above matter as much as the permits.
Source: US Census Bureau Building Permits Survey, county file, year to date through July 2026 against the same months of 2025. 100% of these units were reported directly by permit offices; the rest are Census estimates for offices that did not report.