Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of Building Status NYC ("we", "us", "our") at buildingstatusnyc.com. By creating an account or using the site you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the service.

We write these Terms in plain English on purpose. If something is unclear, email us at support@buildingstatusnyc.com and we will answer.

1. Acceptance

Clicking "Create account", continuing past a sign-in screen, or using any paid or free feature means you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you are using the service on behalf of a company, you confirm that you have authority to bind that company.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and a resident of the United States to use Building Status NYC. The service is designed for NYC buildings and for US-based users only. We do not currently market to or knowingly provide the service to users outside the US.

3. Account and security

3.1 Your account

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account. Pick a strong password, do not share it, and tell us right away at security@buildingstatusnyc.com if you think your account has been compromised.

3.2 Sessions and re-authentication

We use better-auth sessions. Some sensitive actions — changing your email, changing your password, deleting your account, exporting your data, or managing team seats — require you to re-authenticate even if you are already signed in.

3.3 Two-factor and phone verification

We may require phone verification (SMS OTP) for account recovery and high-risk actions. Standard message and data rates apply from your carrier.

4. Subscription, billing, cancellation, and auto-renewal

4.1 Subscriptions

Building Status NYC offers paid subscription tiers. Prices, features, and limits are published at /pricing and are the source of truth.

4.2 Auto-renewal (California ARL disclosure)

Your subscription automatically renews at the end of each billing period (monthly or annually) at the then-current price until you cancel. We charge the payment method on file. We will send an email reminder before annual renewals and at least fifteen (15) days before any material price or term change takes effect for annual subscribers, consistent with California's Automatic Renewal Law.

By subscribing, you authorize us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis until you cancel. You may cancel at any time through your account settings at /dashboard/billing or by emailing support@buildingstatusnyc.com. Cancellation stops the next renewal; you retain access through the end of the current paid period.

4.3 How to cancel

You can cancel in your account settings or by emailing support. No phone call, no retention script, no dark patterns. We honor cancellations instantly.

4.4 Free trials

If we offer a free trial, we will disclose the trial length and the price that begins after it. You can cancel during the trial with no charge.

4.5 Refund policy

• Monthly subscriptions: no refunds for partial months. You can cancel anytime, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You keep access through that period.
• Annual subscriptions: no refunds for partial years. You can cancel anytime, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the current annual period. You keep access through that period.
• Due Diligence one-time reports: no refunds once the report has been delivered. If delivery fails on our side, contact support and we will retry or refund at our discretion.
• Bona fide billing errors: we refund duplicate charges and billing bugs. Email billing@buildingstatusnyc.com within 60 days of the charge.

4.6 Taxes

Prices do not include taxes. You are responsible for any applicable sales, use, VAT, or similar taxes.

4.7 Price changes

We may change prices. Changes apply to new billing periods only. We will give you at least thirty (30) days' notice by email before a price change takes effect on an existing subscription.

5. Acceptable use

5.1 FCRA prohibition (critical)

Building Status NYC is NOT a "consumer reporting agency" under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. We do not assemble or evaluate consumer information for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports. Our data describes buildings and permits and violations issued by city agencies, not people.

You agree that you will NOT use Building Status NYC, any data it surfaces, or any output it produces:

• for tenant screening or any decision to rent, lease, or offer housing to a natural person;
• for employment decisions (hiring, promotion, retention, reassignment);
• for credit or insurance underwriting, pricing, or adverse action;
• for any other "permissible purpose" under the FCRA;
• as a "consumer report" as that term is defined in the FCRA.

If you violate this section, we may terminate your account immediately and may report the violation to the affected individuals and to regulators.

5.2 No scraping, no automated access without permission

You may not scrape, crawl, or harvest the service through automated means without our written permission, and you may not reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive source code from the service. Reasonable robots.txt-respecting crawlers are fine for indexing our public pages.

5.3 Do not misuse

You agree not to use the service to harass, defame, or threaten anyone; to submit knowingly false content about a building, property, or person; to transmit malware; to circumvent rate limits; to use the service in connection with unlawful activity; or to impersonate another person or entity.

5.4 Not an official city service

We are an independent private service. We are not affiliated with the City of New York or any NYC agency (HPD, DOB, OATH/ECB, FDNY, DSNY, DCP, DOT, DOF). Do not represent the service as "official" or as a substitute for filings with the issuing agency.

6. User-contributed content

Building Status NYC lets you add notes, upload documents, and create "your records" entries that live alongside city-sourced data (see ADR 0005 for the product model).

6.1 You own your content

You keep ownership of everything you upload or type into Building Status NYC.

6.2 License to us

To operate the service, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to host, store, reproduce, display, back up, and transmit your content only as needed to provide the service to you and your team. We do not use your content to train any general-purpose model and we do not sell it.

6.3 Your representations

You represent that (a) you have the rights needed to upload your content, (b) your content does not infringe anyone's intellectual property or privacy rights, and (c) your content does not contain tenant personal information (names, phone numbers, SSNs, complaint narratives) of people who have not consented.

6.4 Removal

We may remove user content that violates these Terms, the law, or a valid legal process. We will notify you where we can.

7. Data accuracy disclaimer

City records lag. NYC agencies publish on their own cadence; our data ingestion partner syncs on its own cadence; there is always some delay between what appears on the service and what the city actually has on file.

Before you act on any deadline — a hearing, a cure period, a permit expiration, a certificate of no harassment filing — verify the record directly with the issuing agency. We make no guarantees about the completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the data we display.

8. No legal advice

Building Status NYC provides educational and informational content only. Nothing on the service is legal advice, and using the service does not create a lawyer-client relationship. We are not a law firm. Our "resolution guides" describe how violations typically get resolved; they are not personalized legal advice.

Before taking action on any specific violation or permit, consult a licensed NYC expediter or attorney.

9. Intellectual property

9.1 Our content

The site, its design, its software, its text and graphics (except for content that originates with the City of New York or with you) are owned by Building Status NYC and protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws.

9.2 NYC data and attribution

We display data originating with NYC agencies. That data is public record and made available under the terms of NYC Open Data. We attribute the source on the page that displays it. See Data Sources for the full list.

9.3 Feedback

If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

10. DMCA

If you believe content on the service infringes your copyright, see our DMCA Policy for the takedown and counter-notice procedures.

11. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, fail to pay, abuse the service, or use it for a prohibited purpose under Section 5. You may terminate at any time by canceling your subscription and deleting your account from /dashboard/settings.

Sections that by their nature survive termination do (disclaimers, limitation of liability, dispute resolution, indemnification, intellectual property, acceptable use, and these provisions).

12. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. WE DISCLAIM ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT ANY DATA DISPLAYED IS CURRENT OR ACCURATE.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:

1. Building Status NYC, its affiliates, and its suppliers are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including lost profits, lost revenues, lost data, or business interruption, even if we were told of the possibility.
2. Our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the service is capped at the greater of one hundred US dollars ($100) or the amount you paid us for the service in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Some jurisdictions do not allow these exclusions; they apply to the maximum extent permitted in your jurisdiction.

14. Indemnification

You will indemnify and hold harmless Building Status NYC, its affiliates, and its personnel from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from (a) your use of the service, (b) your violation of these Terms, (c) your violation of law, or (d) your content. We may assume the defense of any matter we are indemnified against; you will cooperate.

15. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The federal and state courts located in New York County, New York have exclusive jurisdiction over any matter not subject to arbitration.

16. Dispute resolution; AAA arbitration; class waiver

16.1 Informal resolution first

Before filing a formal claim, email legal@buildingstatusnyc.com with a description of the dispute. We will try to resolve it within 60 days.

16.2 Binding individual arbitration

If informal resolution fails, you and we agree to resolve any dispute by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, seated in New York, New York. The arbitrator — not a court — decides arbitrability, except that a small-claims court in New York may hear a qualifying claim instead of arbitration.

16.3 Class-action waiver

You and we waive the right to bring or participate in a class action, collective action, or representative action. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims.

16.4 Thirty-day opt-out

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement within thirty (30) days of creating your account by emailing legal@buildingstatusnyc.com with the subject line "Arbitration opt-out" and your registered email address. Opting out does not affect the rest of the Terms.

16.5 Injunctive relief

Either party may seek injunctive relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to stop infringement of intellectual property or misuse of confidential information without waiving arbitration for other claims.

17. Severability

If a court finds any provision of these Terms unenforceable, the rest of the Terms stay in effect, and the unenforceable provision is limited to the minimum extent necessary.

18. Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any written order form you sign with us, are the entire agreement between you and us about the service and supersede any prior agreement on the same subject.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give you at least thirty (30) days' advance notice by email (to the address on your account) and by a banner in-app. Your continued use of the service after the effective date means you accept the new Terms. The version and effectiveDate at the top of this page are the source of truth.

20. Contact

• General: support@buildingstatusnyc.com
• Privacy and DSAR: privacy@buildingstatusnyc.com
• Security: security@buildingstatusnyc.com
• Legal notices: legal@buildingstatusnyc.com
• Accessibility: accessibility@buildingstatusnyc.com