Find out what kinds of ownership info the HPD website provides

[wstlabs]

In support of issue #12, before we can provide "comparable" ownership info to what the city's HPD site provides, we need to understand what it's actually providing, and how it differs from the contact info we have.

In particular: people are saying the HPD site "tells us who the real owners" of a property are, at least some of the time -- but we're still not sure what this means exactly, i.e. how their information differs from ours. We would also lie a fair number of example cases (at least 4) that clearly illustrate this difference (if there is any).

[wstlabs]

Here's a city-run site that appears to provided extended results for some properties:

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/hpd/index.page

Here's how it seems to work:

(1) Go to the URL above, and look for the form on the lower right, under the heading "HPDONLINE".

(2) Enter/select details for a given lot, e.g. "87", "Ludlow", "Manhattan"; hit "Go." This will take you to the first results page, as shown in the following screenshot.

(3) Look for the link that says "Property Owner Registration Information", in yellow, in the purple panel on the left. Click on it. A few seconds will go by, then the page will refresh with an additonal box:

(4) Meanwhile, here's what the lookup tool provides:

Note that they both tell us the owner is "HONG TU CORPORATION", and the contact names do differ (though why they differ we don't know). Also, note that the HPD site does not provide any additional info behind "HONG TU CORPORATION", e.g. its LLC registration.