Effective July 28th, the New York City Department of Buildings will no longer accept paper filings of annual boiler inspections required under Local Law 62/91. A new digital platform will be put in service on August 14th 2017, called DOB NOW Safety Platform. All boiler inspections from July 28th going forward must be filed electronically using this DOB NOW Safety platform.
A requirement of this system is that each building has an owner contact or owner’s designee added before a boiler inspection may be filed in the system. Boiler inspections will not be considered complete or valid until they are filed within the DOB NOW system. If an annual inspection is not electronically filed there is a fine of $1,000 for failure to comply. At this time, there are no clear guidelines as to who may act as the owner’s designee, however, the DOB is considering allowing a management company or a relative of the owner. The DOB is expected to clarify this prior to the activation of this system.
In order to comply, the owner or representative will need to enter a full name, address, phone number, and an e-mail address into the DOB NOW Safety system, and complete online registration forms. Once the forms are submitted, an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address provided with a link to complete the registration process. Once the link is clicked and registration confirmed, boiler inspections can be submitted. Your underwriter’s inspection service will not be able to perform an inspection unless this procedure has been completed.
Owners of buildings subject to Local Law 11 Façade Inspections may have already gone through this process. Those were the first inspections to be filed under this new platform. Elevator and other various building safety inspections are scheduled to switch to this system in winter of 2017.
To register, please go to the website linked below and complete the listed steps:
- Go to eFiling, and click on the link to “Register for electronic filing.”
- Fill out the Electronic Filing Account Information form. NOTE: Your address should be your mailing address, not the address of the building you own.
- Read the Agreement section, and click submit.
- You will get two (2) emails. Your account will not be active until you get the second email.
- In the first email, you must click a link to activate your account.
- The second email confirms that you have been enrolled.
Once you receive the second email, your registration in eFiling will take effect the next day. You can then use your eFiling email and password at DOB NOW.
NOTE: If you want to change your account information, such as email, phone, or mailing address, you will have to log in to eFiling. To receive further updates and news from the DOB, you may sign up by using the following link: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/buildings/industry/dob-now.page and select Subscribe to Buildings News.
