Fast Facts Online: The Habitat Guide to Co-op & Condo Board Resources

New York City and State, plus a couple of for-fee companies, offer a wealth of fingertip information. Want to know if that architect or contractor is licensed? If the city's scheduled to tear up your street for road work? What your property tax or water bill is? It's all gotten a lot easier to find in this Internet age than it was in the days of Patty-and-Selma bureaucrats.

Here's a starter list — if you know of other sites your fellow board members may find useful, e-mail us here!

 New York City Building Code Updates

While the Department of Building's main page provides you the raw laws, which can take an attorney to fully decipher, you might make good use of this list of Building Code Updates from July 2, 2008 – present. They'll keep you on the cutting edge – which in turn keeps your professionals on their toes.

 New York City Buildings Information System  (BIS)

The DOB's main database. It's your one-stop-shop for:

•  Property profile information
•  Application processing (application submission, review, and certificate of occupancy issuance)
•  Inspections (final construction, plumbing, electrical, and elevator)
•  Complaint & violation tracking
•  Safety reports (report submission)
•  Equipment tracking (fire safety, elevators, boilers, façade, marquee and illuminated signs)
•  Trade licensing and contractor tracking

 New York City Department of Consumer Affairs

Check if a business is licensed. The DOCA covers a number of categories from debt collectors to used-car salespeople, but you're probably most interested in these two:

•  Home Improvement Contractors and Salespeople
•  Locksmiths

 New York City Department of Environmental Protection

Find a list of Certified Asbestos Investigators, confirm that in-sink garbage disposals are indeed legal, and get answers to water- and sewer-bill questions, among other things.

 New York City Department of Finance

The Big Kahuma of board resources. There's so much info to be had here that we've broken it down into three subdivisions:

•  Automated City Register Information Systems (ACRIS)

Property document online search and registration application. You can search property records and view document images for Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx and Brooklyn back to 1966; compute property transfer taxes; create cover pages and tax forms to record documents; and find a property's address or its Borough, Block and Lot (BBL) designation

•  NYC Property Tax Info

•  NYC Tax Appeal Tribunal

Exactly what they sound like. See our articles Challenging Your Tax Assessment: Tactics from a Tax Attorney, Part 1 and Part 2 and Tax Appeals for Condos Specifically, among other tax-related articles on our Site Map.

 New York City Department of Transportation – Sidewalk and Roadways Construction Permits

Find out what streets and sidewalks have active construction permits, see transportation advisories, and even — get this — report the locations of potholes, failed utility cuts and other types of street defects!

 New York State Office of Real Property Services

City property taxes are one thing. State property taxes are the cherry on top of a particularly had-to-swallow cake. In any event, this site gives you the New York State perspective on how it values and assess real property, and it also provides you with, among other things:

•  Taxpayer Rights & Information
•  Tax Policy & Exemptions
•  Forms, Publications & Procedures

 New York State Education Department Office of the Professions

This database, updated Monday through Friday, lets you look for licensees by name or by license number, and even gives you a list of Professional Discipline Actions. Though primarily listing doctors, nurses and other types of medical practitioners, it also covers these variety of professionals who work with buildings and boards:

•  Accountant, Certified Public
•  Accountant, Public
•  Architect
•  Engineer
•  Interior Designer
•  Land Surveyor
•  Landscape Architect

 People-Finders a.k.a. MelissaData.com

This is but one of many online sources that, for a fee, will save you the time of looking through individual databases in individual states, so that you can do a background check on prospective bidders or potential residents. This particular company includes these categories:

•  Business search
•  Professional licenses
•  Criminal search
•  Bankruptcies & liens
•  Property search
•  Sex offenders
•  Marriage search
•  Death search
•  Divorce search

Know of other useful sites? Let us know, and tell us your stories of using them!