Annual Compliance & Recordkeeping

The tricky thing about Local Law 126 is not the inspection itself - it is the recordkeeping. Because parapet reports are never filed with the city, there is no DOB deadline reminder, no portal status, no external system keeping you honest. The obligation is entirely yours: get the observation done every calendar year, keep the written report, hold it for at least six years, and produce it the moment the Department of Buildings asks. We run that annual cycle so a year never slips.

An annual cadence that is easy to forget

Every covered building needs an observation completed by December 31, every year. Unlike FISP’s five-year rhythm, which is spaced out enough to plan around, an annual requirement with no filing quietly disappears into the background of building operations - until a DOB request arrives and there is no current report to produce. We keep each building’s observation on schedule and completed well before the year-end deadline.

The six-year record

Owners must retain each parapet report for no less than six years and make it available to the Department upon request. That means at any given time you should be able to produce not just this year’s observation but a continuous history. A gap in that record is itself a compliance problem. We maintain the written reports for your building or portfolio so the full six-year history is intact and retrievable, not scattered across email threads and old files.

What a complete report should contain

A defensible parapet report documents the observation date, the qualified person who performed it, a close-up assessment of the entire parapet, the conditions found, and any corrective action required or taken. If an unsafe condition was identified, the record should also reflect the public protection installed and the repair completed. We make sure each year’s report is complete enough to satisfy a DOB request without follow-up questions.

What a DOB request looks like

Enforcement of Local Law 126 typically surfaces when the Department of Buildings asks to see your parapet report - during a complaint response, an inspection, or other DOB contact with the building. At that moment, either you have a current observation and an intact history to produce, or you do not. There is no grace period to go arrange one after the fact. Keeping the record current year to year is the whole game, because the request can come at any time and the report has to already exist.

Building sales and transfers

Like other compliance obligations, the parapet requirement follows the building. A buyer's due diligence should include the parapet record, and a gap in that six-year history is a mark against the property. Whether you are acquiring a building and want to confirm its record, or selling and want a clean history to present, we can bring the documentation current and keep it that way.

Built to sit alongside your FISP program

For buildings that fall under both laws, the two requirements should be managed together, not by separate vendors on separate clocks. A thorough FISP facade report can satisfy the parapet observation for that year where it covers the required details, and the five-year facade cycle and the annual parapet cycle can be planned as one calendar. We coordinate both so effort is not duplicated and no requirement is left uncovered between them.

One record across a whole portfolio

For owners and managers with multiple buildings, the recordkeeping burden multiplies fast - different buildings, different conditions, all on the same annual clock. We track every covered building in one place: which have been observed this year, which are due, which have open repairs, and where each building sits in its six-year history. And for buildings that also fall under FISP, we coordinate the two requirements so a thorough facade report can satisfy the parapet obligation where it qualifies, without duplicated effort.