City opens fewer Housing Court cases against landlords as the Bronx keeps the lead

The Bronx is where the city takes landlords to Housing Court most often. Since Jan. 1, 2023, city housing officials have opened 13,340 cases against landlords in the borough. That is 33.0% of all such cases citywide.

Brooklyn ranks 2nd, with 10,543 cases, or 26.1% of the citywide total. The figures come from litigation records kept by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, known as HPD. The city refreshed those records on Oct. 1.

The overall pace, however, is falling rather than rising. HPD opened 10,485 cases citywide in 2025, down 10.0% from 11,648 in 2024. Through Oct. 1 of this year, the count stood at 7,252, down 11.5% from 8,190 at the same point in 2025.

For tenants, these records show how often the city goes to court against landlords over cold apartments, needed repairs and harassment. They do not show how many problems tenants reported to the city. They also do not show how many cases ended with the work actually done.

Where the cases are

Over the full period, from Jan. 1, 2023 through Oct. 1, 2026, the Bronx ranks 1st among the boroughs by cases opened. Brooklyn follows. Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island trail those boroughs.

The Bronx's lead is wide. Its share of 33.0% compares with Brooklyn's 26.1%. For a tenant in the Bronx, that means the city's court actions against landlords are more concentrated in their borough than anywhere else in the city.

The Bronx has also seen a sharp drop. Cases opened there fell 14.0% in 2025 compared with 2024. That decline was steeper than the citywide drop of 10.0% over the same years.

The data does not explain the shift. The records list cases the city opened, not the reasons it filed more or fewer in a given year. Many factors can affect how many cases reach court, and this data does not identify them.

The chart below shows annual cases opened in each borough for the full calendar years 2023 through 2025. It lets readers see whether their own borough's count has gone up or down over that time.

Heat, hot water and harassment

Heat and hot water cases make up a large part of the city's docket. HPD opened 8,891 of them citywide since the start of 2023. That is 22.0% of all cases opened.

That total ranks heat and hot water 2nd among the case types in the records. For tenants, these are the cases tied to some of the most basic conditions in an apartment.

Cases the city records under the label tenant action and harassment are close behind. They account for 21.0% of all cases opened over the same period. The share is just below that of heat and hot water cases.

Other categories in the records make up the rest of the docket. Together, heat and hot water cases and harassment cases are a large share of what HPD brings to Housing Court.

The case-type figures cover the whole city. They do not show how the mix differs from borough to borough. A borough with many heat cases may have fewer harassment cases, or the reverse.

What to watch

The longer trend is mixed. Cases rose from 11,003 in 2023 to 11,648 in 2024. Since then, the count has moved down in 2025 and so far in 2026.

The 2026 figures stop at Oct. 1. They do not include the last stretch of the year, as colder weather sets in. The full-year total could look different once those months are counted.

Readers should watch whether the drop continues into 2027. They should also watch whether the Bronx and Brooklyn stay at the top of the list, and whether the Bronx's steep decline holds.

Future data releases will show whether HPD's court filings against landlords keep falling or turn back up. Tenants can check those updates to see how often the city acts in their borough.

For now, the record is clear on the basics. The Bronx and Brooklyn see the most city court actions against landlords. Heat, hot water and harassment make up a large share of those cases. And the citywide count has fallen since 2024.

How we did this

We used HPD's Housing Court litigation records, refreshed by the city on Oct. 1, 2026, and counted cases opened from Jan. 1, 2023 through Oct. 1, 2026 by borough and by case type. We compared full calendar years 2023 through 2025, and compared Jan. 1 to Oct. 1, 2026 with the same period of 2025.

HPD: the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which enforces housing maintenance rules. HPD-initiated Housing Court case: a court action against a landlord that HPD opened, as recorded in the city's litigation data. Heat and Hot Water case: a case type in the records covering a landlord's failure to provide heat or hot water. Tenant Action/Harassment case: a case type in the records labeled tenant action or harassment.

Limitations

• The 2026 figures are partial and run only through Oct. 1, so they may not reflect the full year.
• The data counts cases opened, not how they were resolved or whether repairs were made.
• The records do not explain why filings rose or fell; we state no causes.
• Case-type shares are citywide and do not show how the mix of cases differs by borough.
• The borough chart shows each borough separately and does not include a citywide line.
• The city may revise or add records in later data refreshes, which could change these counts.

Sources

• The publisher's Socrata open-data portal (named with each dataset): Housing Litigations, latest period 2026-10-01, released Oct. 1, 2026; retrieved Oct. 12, 2026. Data