Who owns my building? How to look up an NYC landlord

Most NYC rental buildings are owned through an LLC. The people behind it, and how they run their buildings, are usually in four public records.

Updated 2026-10-21

Start with the HPD registration

Owners of buildings with three or more apartments, and of one- and two-family homes the owner doesn’t live in, must register with HPD every year. The registration names the owner, often an LLC, along with a head officer and a managing agent and their business addresses. On HPD Online it is under the building’s registration. A building with no current registration is itself worth asking about.

Follow the LLC

An LLC’s filing with the New York Department of State usually shows only where to send legal papers, not who owns it. Two records do better:

• ACRIS, the city’s property records, has the deed and the mortgages. The people who sign them are often named.
• Who Owns What, from JustFix, groups buildings that share registration contacts, so you can see the owner’s whole portfolio and how those buildings are doing.

Check their record in housing court

HPD and tenants take owners to Housing Court over repairs and harassment. The HPD litigation dataset lists those cases by building, and a court finding of harassment is noted on the case. Marshals’ executed evictions are public too.

Look at recent years. HPD’s record goes back to the 1990s, and a case from 2011 says more about a past owner than about the one you would rent from now.

Check the city’s lists

• HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program takes on some of the city’s most distressed buildings each year and makes repairs when owners won’t.
• The Speculation Watch List flags rent-regulated buildings sold at prices that suggest the buyer may try to push tenants out.
• The Public Advocate’s Worst Landlords Watchlist ranks owners by open violations across their buildings.

What to ask before you sign

• Who manages the building day to day, and how do tenants reach them for repairs?
• The owner has cases in housing court. What were they about, and are they settled?
• Has the building changed hands recently?

What Pigeon shows

Pigeon’s Landlord score names the registered owner, the head officer and the managing agent, counts housing court cases and harassment findings from the past five years and evictions, adds up open violations across the owner’s other buildings, and says whether the building is on HPD’s worst-buildings program or the speculation watch list. It links to the building on Who Owns What, HPD Online and ACRIS.