The question a board cannot yet answer

Here is the honest state of play, and it matters: we could not locate a DOB rule amendment setting the new interval. The statute requires an interval between six and twelve years, set by rule. It takes effect on October 1, 2026. We searched for the implementing amendment to 1 RCNY § 103-04 and did not find one.

Section 1 of the local law also directed DOB to study the question: “The department of buildings shall conduct a study regarding article 302 of chapter 3 of title 28… Such study shall evaluate the appropriate time period within which critical [examinations shall be conducted],” and to report recommendations to the Speaker of the Council. Section 1 expires on submission of those recommendations.

So the practical question for a board — what happens to the published Cycle 10 sub-cycle windows after October 1 — is open. Our position is to report the statute as enacted and to say plainly that the implementing rule is the thing to watch. Nothing yet establishes that a board's filing window has moved, or that it has not.

The windows as currently published

Cycle 10 is running now under a DOB Service Notice of February 24, 2025:

“Starting February 21, 2025, owners of buildings taller than six (6) stories are required to file an acceptable Cycle 10 report of critical examination of the [facade]s and appurtenances of the building within the time frames below.”²

The sub-cycle is set by the last digit of the tax block: blocks ending 4, 5, 6 or 9 are sub-cycle A, filing February 21, 2025 to February 21, 2027. Blocks ending 0, 7 or 8 are sub-cycle B, February 21, 2026 to February 21, 2028. Blocks ending 1, 2 or 3 are sub-cycle C, February 21, 2027 to February 21, 2029.

Both A and B are open right now.

The provision that stops the penalty clock, and the trap inside it

A DOB Service Notice of December 8, 2025 created something genuinely useful for a board that is behind:

“Beginning December 15, 2025, early filings of sub-cycle 10B and 10C reports will be available in DOB NOW: Safety. Starting in Cycle 10, owners whose buildings have their most recent status as No Report Filed and are filing as Safe or SWARMP (safe with a repair and maintenance program) may file an Initial report prior to the start of their designated filing window to stop accumulating civil penalties.”³

The notice adds that “A sub-cycle override is no longer required” — which supersedes the older procedure described in the February 2025 notice. And then the trap:

“Once the report is provisionally accepted, all related civil penalties must be paid within 10 business days. The report will receive final approval only after payment is received. Failure to submit payment within 10 days will result in the report being deemed incomplete and civil penalties continuing to accumulate.”

Ten business days. A board that files early to stop the clock and then takes three weeks to approve the payment has achieved nothing.

The penalties, exactly

1 RCNY § 103-04(d), verbatim:

“(1) Failure to file. An owner who fails to file the required acceptable inspection report shall be liable for a civil penalty of five thousand dollars ($5,000) per year immediately after the end of the applicable filing window. (2) Late filing. In addition to the penalty for failure to file, an owner who submits a late filing shall be liable for a civil penalty of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) per month, commencing on the day following the filing deadline of the assigned filing window period and ending on the filing date of an acceptable initial report.”⁴

The failure-to-correct-an-unsafe-condition penalty escalates with the shed: $1,000 a month in year one; $1,000 a month plus $10 per linear foot of shed per month in year two; plus $20 in year three; plus $30 in year four; plus $40 in year five. It runs until an acceptable amended report shows the conditions corrected, the shed removed and the permits signed off, or an extension is granted.

And a $2,000 one-time penalty applies where an owner “fails to correct a SWARMP condition reported as requiring repair in the previous report filing cycle and subsequently files the condition as unsafe.”

Two SWARMP rules boards routinely get wrong

“A report may not be filed describing the same condition and pertaining to the same location on the building as SWARMP for two consecutive report filing cycles.” And the engineer “must certify the correction of each condition reported as requiring repair in the previous report filing cycle, report conditions that were reported as SWARMP in the previous report filing cycle as unsafe if not corrected.”

In plain terms: SWARMP is a one-cycle deferral, not a permanent status. A board that has been carrying the same SWARMP condition forward is heading for an unsafe filing, a shed, and the escalating penalty table.

On extensions, the rule says the same thing twice, and means it: “Financial considerations shall not be accepted as a reason for granting an extension.”

Why this now reaches your building's financing

A FISP unsafe finding used to be a compliance and capital problem. As of 2026 it is also a mortgage problem. Fannie Mae's project standards make a project ineligible where it has “failed a mandatory jurisdictional inspection related to structural safety,” needs critical repairs, or faces unfunded repairs costing more than $10,000 per unit within twelve months. A FISP unsafe condition with no funded repair plan is precisely that fact pattern — and project ineligibility applies to every unit in the building at once.

Our New York condo safety inspections page covers the inspection regime, and our reserve studies page covers the funding question that now determines whether an unsafe finding is a repair or a financing event.