# Finding building violations in Chicago Every day, inspectors working for the City of Chicago Department of Buildings are issuing citations for building violations. These are publicly available and they can be searched and filtered in Chicago Cityscape. Chicago Cityscape has three ways of looking up building violations in Chicago: 1. Look up a building violation by address 2. Look up building violations in a Place Report 3. Look up building violations citywide Additionally, there is a dataset for bank-owned buildings that's housed in the violations section of Place Report and Property Report (which is described at the end). ## Three ways of looking up building violations ### 1. Look up a building violation by address Each Property Report for a Chicago-based property will show building violations at that address (if there are any) and nearby. 1. [Search for a Chicago address](http://chicagocityscape.com/address.php) and select the link to open its Property Report. 2. In the Table of Contents, select the link for building violations. The webpage will automatically scroll down to the "Violations data" section of the report. 3. Select the "Load building violations" button. After a moment, a map and data table will appear. 4. If the address has violations (based on an address match) the map and data table will show only the violations at that address. If the address does not have violations, going back to 2006, then nearby building violations up to 250 feet away will appear. 5. In the data table, the following information will be displayed: address, date of the inspection, number of violations found during that inspection, whether it has a top 50 violation, and whether it has a serious violation. What constitutes a serious violation is discussed at the end of this article.  *Screenshot showing building violations near an address that doesn't have any at that address* ### 2. Look up building violations in a Place Report Each Place Report that overlaps Chicago will show building violations within that Place. 1. [Find a Place Report within Places Explorer](http://chicagocityscape.com/maps/) or [search for it](http://chicagocityscape.com/search.php) and select the link to open its Place Report. 2. In the Table of Contents, select the link for building violations. The webpage will automatically scroll down to the "Violations data" section of the report. 3. Select the "Load building violations" button. After a moment, a map and data table will appear. 4. In the data table, the following information will be displayed: address, date of the inspection, number of violations found during that inspection, whether it has a top 50 violation, and whether it has a serious violation. What constitutes a serious violation is discussed at the end of this article. #### Alternative: Use Property Finder Property Finder in Chicago-based Place Reports has a filter to include or exclude properties with a building violation.  *Screenshot showing the Property Finder building violations filter* Note: The filter works by matching addresses. This is imperfect because sometimes the address on a property does not match the address written in a building violation, because the building may have multiple addresses (think courtyard buildings, or buildings with residential entrances on two streets). ### 3. Look up building violations citywide Chicago Cityscape also has Building Violations Browser to see all building violation citations issued across the city. Open Building Violations Browser. In the menu, select "Projects & Leads" and then select [Building Violations Browser](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/violations.php). BVB has many filters to locate violations of a particular type or cited in a specific time period. ## Serious violations Potentially serious violations are labeled at our discretion or they are on the City of Chicago scofflaw list; most of these codes are violations that could represent an imminent threat to life safety. The violation codes are labeled "Potentially serious" are listed in the [Building Violations Browser](https://www.chicagocityscape.com/violations.php). ## Vacant bank-owned buildings The City of Chicago has regulations that vacant buildings owned by banks (REO) must register those. In a Place Report and a Property Report, select the "Vacant bank-owned buildings" tab in the Violations data section.  *Screenshot of vacant bank-owned buildings map and data table in the Violations data section* # Related articles - [[Property Report overview]] - [[Vacant storefront registry]]