What do you do if an elevator is broken?

Report it to the building immediately, either through the front desk, a posted maintenance number, or the building's management portal. If you're stuck inside, press the emergency call button and wait for help. After the cab is running again, add the outage to a public tracker so the building's history reflects what happened.

Is a broken elevator an emergency?

It depends on the building. In a hospital, a broken elevator between the ER and an operating floor is a life-safety emergency. In an apartment building with a wheelchair user, a pregnant tenant, or a newborn on an upper floor, it is urgent and usually triggers repair obligations within 24 hours under local housing codes. In a low-rise office with stairs, it is an inconvenience but not an emergency.

Can a landlord keep renting units in a building with a broken elevator?

Usually yes, but with conditions. Most jurisdictions require the landlord to make the repair promptly (often 24 to 72 hours), to provide reasonable accommodation for disabled tenants while the elevator is down, and to abate rent if the outage is prolonged. Tenants can file complaints with their city housing agency, state labor board, or fair-housing agency.

Can you sue a building for a broken elevator?

Tenants have sued landlords successfully when a broken elevator effectively evicted them from their own unit, when a building failed to accommodate a disabled tenant, or when the outage caused a physical injury. Consult a local tenant-rights lawyer or legal aid clinic; outcomes depend on your jurisdiction and your lease.

Who is responsible for fixing a broken elevator in an apartment building?

The landlord or building owner is responsible for elevator maintenance under almost every residential lease. The owner typically contracts a licensed elevator company (Otis, Schindler, KONE, TK Elevator, or a local firm) for routine service and repair calls. Tenants are never responsible for elevator maintenance costs.

How long can a hospital elevator be out of service?

Hospitals typically treat any elevator outage on a clinical floor as an urgent work order, with a contracted mechanic on site within hours and a documented backup plan for moving patients between floors until the cab is restored. The Joint Commission's Environment of Care standard EC.02.05.01 requires hospitals to maintain a written inventory of utility systems — including elevators — and to document inspection and maintenance activities for each. Prolonged or repeated outages can trigger accreditation review.

Broken elevator: what it means, your rights, and how to report it

If the elevator in your building is broken, you have options: report it, document it, and escalate. A plain-language guide for tenants, workers, and anyone sharing a cab with a stranger at 6 a.m.

Broken elevator

If the elevator in your building is broken, report it to management first, then add the outage to a public tracker. Most local housing codes give landlords 24 to 72 hours to restore service, require accommodation for disabled tenants, and allow rent abatement when outages drag on. Hospitals, offices, and transit stations each have their own paths.

What actually counts as "broken"

The word covers a range of problems. A cab that won't answer a call, doors that won't close, an intercom that doesn't work, a floor indicator stuck on the wrong number, or an elevator that stops between floors are all legitimate reasons to report it. So is an elevator that keeps resetting itself to the lobby, a cab that lurches or shudders mid-travel, or one where the door sensors fail and the doors close on riders.

A broken elevator is not necessarily a dangerous elevator. Most outages are mundane — door operators, relays, controller boards — and the cab sits idle until a mechanic rebuilds or replaces the component. But any of the above symptoms mean the elevator should be taken out of service until it's fixed, and "out of service" should be documented.

Your rights as a tenant

Residential tenants in most of the US, Canada, and the UK have a landlord obligation to maintain working elevator service as part of the implied warranty of habitability. The specifics vary, but the common elements are:

The landlord must repair the elevator within a reasonable time, typically 24 to 72 hours for a single elevator building.
The landlord must provide reasonable accommodation to disabled tenants during an outage — for example, assistance moving between floors, temporary relocation, or grocery delivery service where appropriate. This duty is reinforced by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) (US), the Equality Act 2010 (UK), and provincial accessibility legislation in Canada.
Tenants can request rent abatement when an elevator is out for an extended period. Some jurisdictions require it automatically.
Retaliation for filing a complaint (eviction threats, lease non-renewal) is illegal in most jurisdictions.

For the hard numbers by jurisdiction, see the jurisdiction table in our guide on elevator out-of-service rules.

Hospital elevators

Hospital elevators are their own category because failures have clinical consequences. When a staff elevator between the ER and an operating floor goes out, patient transport has to be rerouted, gurney crews have to take back stairs, and timed procedures can be delayed. Hospitals typically contract 24/7 response from a major service vendor — Otis, Schindler, KONE, and TK Elevator all have dedicated healthcare service divisions — and treat a full bank of broken elevators as a facility emergency equivalent to a power outage.

If you're a patient, family member, or staff in a hospital with a broken elevator, the escalation path is usually: nurse station first, then facilities, then the charge nurse or administrator on duty. The hospital's risk management office will want the outage documented even if the cab is restored quickly, because clinical time lost is tracked for quality reporting.

The Joint Commission, the accrediting body for most US hospitals, requires facilities under Environment of Care standard EC.02.05.01 to maintain a written inventory of utility systems that includes elevators, and to document inspection and maintenance activities for each. Prolonged or repeated outages can trigger an accreditation review under this standard.

How to report it

Start inside the building: front desk, posted maintenance number, or the building's online maintenance portal. Keep the timestamp — a text to the building manager counts as documentation.

If the building is slow to respond, escalate to the public channel that applies:

New York City tenants: file a complaint with NYC Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) through NYC311. If you're in a hospital or commercial building, the complaint goes to the Department of Buildings.
Other US tenants: state labor department or state division of public works elevator unit. Fair-housing complaints (ADA reasonable accommodation) go to HUD or the state equivalent.
UK tenants: housing officer for council properties; the local authority's environmental health team or the Housing Ombudsman for housing associations; the Equality Act 2010 for disability access.
Canadian tenants: the provincial technical standards authority (TSSA in Ontario, RBQ in Quebec, Technical Safety BC, etc.).

See our dedicated guide on how to report a broken elevator for the exact channels and what information to include.

How we track it

Elevator Uptime maintains a public, searchable record of elevator outages at every indexed building — residential, commercial, hospital, and transit. Anyone can file a report in 15 seconds, no account or email required. The system tracks start time, resolution time, and rolling uptime, so a building's track record is visible to tenants, future renters, disability advocates, and anyone else with reason to check.

A single outage rarely changes anything. A documented pattern is how tenant organizers, fair-housing lawyers, and city agencies build cases that actually get elevators fixed.