Resolving ECB violations: Tips for property owners in the New York City area

If you are a property owner, at some point an ECB violation will be issued on your property, whether you feel it is rightfully issued or not. What is important, is that you have your violation resolved as soon as you possibly can. If not, these open violations can lead to unnecessary problems ranging from the inability to re-finance your property to being ineligible for J-51 tax benefits. Upon receiving your ECB violation notice, you will want to check for several things. First, you will want to check that the violation was correctly issued to you and your property. Violations can be incorrectly written and your name/company name may appear as the respondent, while the written block and lot will be an adjoining property, or vice versa. Should there be a discrepancy, the best thing to do is to locate the other party quickly and determine who the violation was intended for. After you have established that the violation was correctly issued to you, you will want to read what the violating conditions actually are. Sometimes the violating conditions are issues that you can easily fix on your own. For more specific violations, such as elevator violations or "failure to maintain building" violations, you may need to hire a contractor. Once you have identified the problem and how you intend to correct it, you will want to check the lower left corner of the violation to see if you were allowed a cure date. This cure date is a grace period issued which allows you to correct the violating conditions without having to attend a hearing or pay a fine. If you hire an outside contractor to do the work, make sure to inform them that there is a time frame for having the work completed. (Upon receiving a violation, I immediately forward a copy to the contractor. If 7-10 business days prior to the cure date I still have not heard back, I contact them to check the progress of the work). Most violation notices will have an AEU-2: Certificate of Correction form attached to them. It is mandatory to have this form in order for your violation to be resolved. If it is not attached to the violation notice, you can locate the form on the NYC Department of Buildings website. Upon completion of the corrective work, you will have to submit this form along with all other evidence (affidavits, permits, photos, etc...) and a copy of the violation notice to the Administrative Enforcement Unit located on the 5th floor of 280 Broadway New York, N.Y. (It cannot be stressed enough that you should have every document notarized). In the case that your documentation is not acceptable, the Administrative Enforcement Unit will hand you a letter of disapproval stating what additional information they will require from you (signed affidavit from contractor, photos, etc.). It is advisable to submit your paperwork for dismissal earlier than the cure date to allow yourself ample time, should you need to resubmit. Some violations, such as those deemed "hazardous," are not granted a cure date. Should you receive one of these or should you miss your cure date for another violation, you will be required to attend an ECB hearing at the location indicated on the notice of violation. If you believe that the violation was wrongfully issued to you, you can present your case to show your innocence, or you can hire an expediter to gather all of the information and represent you at the hearing. If you know you are guilty of the violating conditions, you can simply appear at your hearing and admit that the violating conditions existed. (Hopefully you have resolved them by that time). This next part of the ECB violation removal process is misunderstood by many people. After your hearing, the administering judge's decision will be mailed to you within 6-8 weeks. Should the judge find you guilty, your violation will still be open even if you pay the set fine. To resolve the violation, you must go to 280 Broadway and have your Certificate of Correction accepted by the Administrative Enforcement Unit. This is the step which will resolve your violation. After a hearing where you plead guilty, you can go straight to the Department of Buildings in Manhattan and submit your Certificate of Correction. In both cases, once the Certificate of Correction has been approved, you will be handed a letter of approval and the open violation will be removed from your "Property Profile" on the Department of Buildings website, usually within 48 hours. Assuming you have done the corrective work, ECB violations are not difficult to resolve. It is a simple process which can save you from many unexpected problems down the road, so be sure to follow through. Benjamin Chervin is the in-house expediter at Langsam Property Services, Bronx, N.Y.