What an ECB violation is: an agency's notice, heard at OATH.
The agencies: the flow, HPD, DOB, OATH/ECB, 311
An ECB violation is a notice an agency wrote, most often DOB, that is heard and decided at OATH sitting as ECB. Of the 166,164 matters on the OATH/ECB docket since September 30, 2023, 35,162 ended in a default judgment because nobody appeared to contest the notice, 21.2%.
See what is open on one building.
What OATH/ECB is
OATH, the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings, is the city's own tribunal for agency-issued notices. Sitting on building and construction matters, it operates as ECB, the Environmental Control Board. OATH/ECB does not inspect buildings, does not decide what counts as a violation, and does not maintain a building or housing code of its own. DOB writes the notice; OATH/ECB is the room where that notice gets tested.
Treating OATH/ECB as a separate enforcement agency alongside HPD and DOB is the single most common error in this category. It is a venue, not an agency: the outcome recorded there describes whether the issuing agency's case held up, not a new finding of its own.
What happens at a hearing
Once DOB serves a notice, the matter is scheduled for a hearing. Whoever the summons names can appear and contest it, admit it, agree to a penalty with the agency, or not show up at all. If nobody shows up, a default judgment is entered without a contested hearing ever taking place.
| Hearing status | Matters |
|---|---|
| Found in violation a hearing was held and the judge found the person or company cited in violation | 46,569 |
| Decided by default nobody appeared to contest the notice, and a judgment was entered anyway | 35,162 |
| Hearing pending a hearing date is on the calendar and has not yet concluded | 21,870 |
| Dismissed the notice did not hold up and the matter was dismissed | 15,361 |
| Cured a violation finding, with proof of correction accepted afterward | 11,926 |
| In violation (POP) a violation finding, with proof of posting accepted afterward | 11,782 |
| Admitted the party cited admitted the violation rather than contest it | 11,029 |
| No status recorded no hearing outcome is recorded in our copy of the dataset | 9,949 |
| Settled by agreement the party cited agreed to a penalty with the agency rather than contest it | 2,516 |
28.0% of matters end with a violation finding after some form of hearing. 13.2% have a hearing date that has not yet concluded.
After a finding
A violation finding is not the end of the case. Whoever was cited can still file proof that the condition was corrected, and DOB records whether that proof was accepted.
| Certification status | Matters |
|---|---|
| Certificate accepted the party cited filed proof of correction and DOB accepted it | 59,055 |
| No compliance recorded no proof of correction is on file for this matter | 43,928 |
| No status recorded no certification status is recorded in our copy of the dataset | 37,453 |
| Cure accepted the party cited corrected the condition within the cure period, avoiding a penalty | 11,926 |
| Not needed (dismissed) the matter was dismissed, so no certification applies | 11,035 |
| Compliance shown compliance was confirmed by a reinspection or submitted documentation | 2,767 |
35.5% of every matter on the docket has an accepted certificate of correction on file.
What the penalties add up to
The 81,378 matters the city's dataset marks active, 49.0% of the total, carry 357,970,317 dollars in penalties imposed. Across every matter on the docket we hold, active or resolved, 99,865,073 dollars has been paid. A penalty here is the amount a decision set, not a bill, and a citywide total says nothing about any one matter. For one matter, look up its summons number on OATH's own case search.
Where OATH/ECB meets HPD
OATH/ECB's docket is DOB's channel, not HPD's. A building with no open HPD violation can still carry an active OATH/ECB matter, and the reverse holds too. Right now 12,307 properties carry both an open HPD violation and an active OATH/ECB matter at once, 37.5% of every property with an active matter on this docket. How often the two actually overlap, with the full numbers, is on the agencies hub.
Checking a specific matter
This page counts hearing outcomes in aggregate, never by address or by who was cited. A specific ECB violation number, its hearing date and its status are looked up directly through OATH's own online case status search, not summarized here. What this page adds is the shape of the whole docket: how often a hearing actually happens, how often nobody appears, and how many matters clear afterward.
What this page is not
This page counts hearing outcomes by status. It does not identify a building, an owner, or anyone a summons names, and a penalty total here is not the figure for any one matter. OATH's own case search has that.
No building or owner is named on this page. Source: NYC Open Data, the city's own published datasets. Status codes decoded, violations by borough, citywide, ViolationScout.