Vacate order

A vacate order directs that a building, or part of one, be emptied of occupants because conditions make occupancy unsafe — structural instability, fire damage, utilities failure, or illegal occupancies whose configuration endangers the people in them. The Department of Buildings and the housing agency both issue them, full or partial, and the order remains until conditions are corrected and it is lifted.

Vacates are among the most serious items a property record can carry: they document a moment the government judged the building unsafe to live or work in. For diligence, an active vacate reprices everything — occupancy, income, insurability — and even a lifted one prompts the question of what failed and how thoroughly it was repaired.