State senator Jeffrey Klein says New York City housing officials could have acted to prevent the death of a Bronx family in a fire in April, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office is contesting that.

City officials have said the foreclosed property was a fire trap because of illegal subdivisions. The city has said inspectors were stymied by laws preventing them from entering the property without permission.

Klein says a 2009 state law would have allowed officials to enter after giving seven days’ notice to the foreclosing bank. He says the property was one of many foreclosed homes where banks aren’t satisfying their responsibility to maintain properties.

Mayor’s spokeswoman Julie Wood says the city’s lawyers say the law doesn’t go so far as to allow them to forcibly enter a person’s home.

A survey Klein released Monday found nearly 2,000 bank-owned foreclosed properties in the city have more than 3,750 unresolved structural violations.