Cayuga County, NY Code Violation Reporting: How to Report (2026)

Code of Cayuga County § 132-12, Complaints, requires the Code Enforcement Officer to review and investigate any complaint alleging conditions or activities that fail to comply with the Uniform Code, the Energy Code or Chapter 132. The response follows steps the officer deems appropriate: first, inspecting the conditions alleged to be in violation and documenting the results; second, if a violation is confirmed, giving the property owner and any other responsible person notice of the violation and an opportunity to abate, correct or cure it, or proceeding under § 132-15's compliance-order and penalty process; third, issuing a stop-work order where appropriate; and fourth, once a violation is corrected, re-inspecting to confirm the fix and filing a final written report with the complaint.

Every complaint received, and every investigation and report generated from it, becomes part of the permanent official record the Code Enforcement Officer must keep under § 132-13, and those records are public and open for inspection during normal business hours. The officer must also report annually: a written summary of all business, including complaints and pending or concluded appeals and litigation, goes to the County Legislature, and a separate annual activity report goes to the New York Secretary of State on a form the Secretary prescribes, under § 132-14.

This complaint process runs under Chapter 132, the county's Uniform Code administration program, and applies where the county performs code enforcement for a town or other municipality that has signed an intermunicipal agreement under § 132-17; residents of a town or the City of Auburn running its own program report to that municipality's own code office instead.