The Office of the Public Advocate recently released the 2025 Worst Landlords Watchlist. This annual list is billed as information-sharing tool that enables tenants, public officials, advocates, and other concerned people to identify which residential property owners consistently flout city laws intended to protect the rights and safety of tenants.

The watchlist, now in its sixth year, uses HPD data to rank owners by their average monthly open violations. A detailed breakdown, including borough-specific worst buildings, is available at LandlordWatchlist.com. This year, Barry Singer tops the 2025 list with an average of 1,804 open housing violations. Heat and hot water issues dominate the complaints against his seven properties, with 121 incidents recorded during the heat season.

Last year’s worst landlord, Daniel Ohebshalom, has faced legal consequences, including two incarcerations since being listed. The latest incarceration was for a 60-day sentence for missing court-ordered repairs at two of his properties.

According to this year’s list, the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) housing challenges persist. NYCHA remains the worst public landlord, with 611,000 open work orders, which represents a sharp increase from last year. And this winter alone, over 6,600 NYCHA residents experienced unplanned heat or hot water outages across four developments, underscoring persistent issues in public housing management.

Along with the release of the list, Public Advocate Williams stressed the importance of a pending proposed bill that would expedite inspections and responses to hazardous violations by HPD. Specifically, Int. 2122-2020 would require HPD to respond to complaints received about an immediately hazardous condition within five hours or about a hazardous condition within 48 hours of the complaint being received.