The summons names an agency you have never dealt with and a court you have never heard of.
OATH is the city's central independent administrative law court and is not part of the state court system. Its Hearings Division answers summonses written by city enforcement agencies. A parking ticket does not go there, and neither does a moving violation written in the five boroughs.
| Who holds it | What that covers | Where to look it up | The clock | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYC OATH Hearings Division | Summonses from city agencies: Buildings, Sanitation, Health, Transportation, Fire and others. | OATH Hearings Division, case status in the city's open file | The hearing date is on the summons. | Set by the rule the issuing agency charged. |
| NYC Department of Finance | Parking tickets, red light camera and speed camera violations. These sit on the plate. | Dispute free at nyc.gov, pay at CityPay, or the free plate lookup here | 30 days from the date on the ticket to request a hearing. | Published code by code on the city's fine schedule. |
| New York State DMV, Traffic Violations Bureau | Non-criminal moving violations written in the five boroughs. Not parking, not red light or speed camera, not a misdemeanor or felony. | Plead or pay a TVB ticket, or print an open one | The date is on the ticket. DMV publishes no single number of days, only the penalty for missing it: your license is suspended. | No single figure published. Stated when you plead or pay. |
Every row above links the office that holds the ticket. Sources read 2026-09-22.
Came here with a parking ticket or a camera violation instead? That one is the city's, it sits on the plate, and the free plate lookup will show it. Disputing it is free on the city's own site at nyc.gov, inside 30 days from the date on the ticket.
OATH lists them itself, and the list is long: Sanitation, Buildings, Fire, Environmental Protection, Transportation, Parks and Recreation, Health and Mental Hygiene, Consumer and Worker Protection, the Taxi and Limousine Commission, the Police Department, the Port Authority, Landmarks Preservation, the Business Integrity Commission, the Office of Technology and Innovation, the Department of Finance and the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement (nyc.gov, OATH Hearings Division, checked September 22, 2026).
OATH publishes a summons finder that returns a copy of the summons and the hearing date, searchable by name, by address or by summons number, and it warns that summonses issued to for hire vehicles, to restaurants, or by Consumer and Worker Protection are not in it. For those, and for every other type, the case status is in the city's open file (nyc.gov, OATH, checked September 22, 2026).
From there you either fight the summons or admit it and pay. OATH says you do not need a lawyer, and that its Help Centers take walk-ins during business hours at every Hearings Division location.
A parking ticket or camera violation is the Department of Finance's, and disputing it is free on the city's own site (nyc.gov, dispute a ticket, checked September 22, 2026). A non-criminal moving violation written in the five boroughs is the state's (dmv.ny.gov, checked September 22, 2026). Sending either to OATH loses you the clock, and the clock is the part nobody gets back.
We compute New York City parking and camera hearing outcomes and publish them free. We hold nothing on state moving violations or on the other agencies' files, so this page sends you to the office that does. If a link has moved, write to me. One person reads that mail and answers it; expect a reply within a few days.
Every claim above is linked to the document it was read from. All read 2026-09-22. Not legal advice.
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