DC's housing enforcement crisis
DC has 89,450 open housing violations carrying $88.7M in fines. 50% of them were cited more than two years ago and are still open. Tenants are living with the same mold, rodents and broken heat while the paperwork piles up.
Each bar counts citations from that year that DOB still lists as open.
* 2026 so far. DOB's published data starts in March 2018, so anything cited earlier isn't shown here.
An independent review by Rentrospect found the same thing from a different angle: of the 79,454 open violations with repair deadlines in September 2026, 77,117 were past their deadline (Washington Informer).
A fine only works if it leads to a fix. DC's data tells a different story. In thousands of buildings, inspectors have come back to cite the exact same violation, under the same law at the same address, again and again.
Each of these represents inspectors returning, writing another citation, and leaving the tenant in the same conditions. The fines pile up on paper. The repairs don't happen.
Read the full enforcement gap report →Each ward links to its full profile. Click to explore buildings, top violations, and worst landlords by ward.
Of the 9,018 buildings with open violations, 279 have 50 or more. Those 3% of buildings hold 27% of DC's open violations. Many buildings with a problem have just one (2,115 of them).
The buildings with the most open violations:
Dealing with rats or mice in your building? We can help you find your building's violation history and submit a formal complaint to DC's Department of Buildings — which can trigger an inspection and, if your landlord hasn't acted, a citation.
Look up your building →Citations include violations for rodent infestation, vermin harborage, pest extermination, and insect re-infestation.
DOB cites the company named as a building's owner, often an LLC set up for that one building. We match those companies to DC's beneficial owner records and follow them to the people and organizations at the top, so a landlord with ten LLCs counts once. 60% of fines on open private violations are on companies we could match. The rest are on individuals named directly, or on companies with no DC record. See all 50 on the watchlist.
DC has the power to inspect buildings and fine their owners. Here's where that process breaks down between a tenant's complaint and a finished repair.
In February 2025 the Department of Buildings' own dashboard showed more than $65 million in uncollected fines for housing violations (Legal Aid DC testimony). DOB collected about $2.6 million in 2024 (Washington City Paper).
A landlord who contests a fine goes to the Office of Administrative Hearings, which can take six months to two years. In October 2024, $39 million in fines were still waiting there, some from notices issued in 2018 (Legal Aid DC testimony).
Landlords can certify their own repairs by uploading photos, which the agency doesn't closely check. A 2024 D.C. Council review of 50 rental properties found that more than half of the notices it looked at were sent to the wrong address, and that most violations weren't fixed by their deadlines (DCist).
DOB relies heavily on tenants calling in problems, so a building where nobody complains can go years without an inspector (Washington City Paper).
The DC Auditor studied Dahlgreen Courts in 2018 and found that extensions and delayed re-inspections let landlords put off repairs, and that fines were low enough to ignore (DCist). Dahlgreen Courts has 177 open violations today.
Suzie Amanuel reported that 12 properties tied to Buwa Binitie's companies carry more than $2 million in housing code fines, according to DOB records, while tenants describe complaints going unaddressed (The 51st).
"Landlords know they can ignore bad conditions and walk away without facing more than a citation or a fine."
Nathan Hunter-El, Empower DC, to Suzie Amanuel in The 51st
Lawmakers, auditors and tenant attorneys have proposed most of these already.
The Council passed the Proactive Inspection Program Act in 2024, which requires DOB to inspect every multifamily rental building on a regular cycle. Council Chair Phil Mendelson has called for inspecting buildings with violation histories every year.
Today a landlord can close out a violation by uploading photos of the repair, which DOB doesn't closely check (Washington City Paper), and a 2024 Council review found the process easy to falsify (DCist). Tenants should hear when their landlord reports a problem fixed, and get a chance to dispute it before the violation closes. In the meantime, you can mark a problem in your building as still ongoing on Housing Signal.
Enforcing the housing code works when landlords know that letting a building fall apart will cost them, and when the ones who do are actually punished. That only happens if fines get paid. DOB collected about $2.6 million in 2024 (Washington City Paper) while more than $65 million sat uncollected (Legal Aid DC testimony). As a Legal Aid DC attorney put it, "you're depending on the lawfulness of the landlord to pay the fine" (The 51st). When fines go unpaid for years, ignoring them is cheaper than fixing the building. Unpaid fines should come due quickly and stay with the owner, so a landlord can't sell, refinance or buy more buildings without settling them.
Raise fines too, as the DC Auditor recommended in 2018, so a violation costs more the longer it stays open.
Appeals can take up to two years now. A fine should be settled while the problem it's for is still there.
DC's Clean Hands law kept drivers from renewing a license over more than $100 in unpaid traffic fines, until a federal judge stopped it in 2023 (DCist). For landlords the bar is much higher. The same law only blocks a business license, which landlords need to rent out apartments, once housing code fines pass $1,000, and fines under appeal don't count at all (D.C. Code § 47-2862), even though appeals can take two years. An owner can also set up a new LLC for each building, so what one building owes doesn't stand in the way of the next (DCist). Fines and unfinished repairs should follow the owner, not the LLC. A 2023 bill by Councilmember Janeese Lewis George would have denied new business licenses to anyone with more than five serious housing code citations in a year; it didn't advance. Tenants at an October 2026 town hall asked for the same thing (Washington City Paper).
Tenants are pushing for the LIEN Act and the STRONG Homes Amendment Act, which would let DC stop problem landlords from selling or refinancing and pay for repairs (The 51st).
Worst Landlord Watchlist
Housing Signal tracks every DC landlord's open violations: citations, fines, buildings, and repeat offenses. Search by name or browse the full watchlist.
View the Worst Landlord Watchlist →All data from DC's Department of Buildings (DOB) open data, last synced October 29, 2026. DC Housing Authority (DCHA) is excluded from landlord tables. Counts and fines cover open violations only. Fines shown are amounts assessed by inspectors; amounts actually collected by DC are not publicly available. Ward-level data covers only violations linked to a building with a known ward. Rodent/pest citations include violations under statutes referencing rodents, vermin, infestation, and pest extermination.