If you work for a medical office and ask for records from another medical facility with out patients signed release. Is this a Hipaa violation?

It is. It is if the other facility gives you the records also.

For records to be transferred, the patient must sign a release.

I don't think this is a cut-and-dried situation. Is the patient being treated at both offices? If they are, I think that it may be allowed to request the records without having a patient authorization (unless they are psychotherapy records). 45 CFR 164.506(c)(2) states: (2) A covered entity may disclose protected health information for treatment activities of a health care provider.

If the patient is not being treated at the new medical office, you can't just idly ask for the records.

But HIPAA is not my area of expertise, and regulations are written with a lot of "this is ok, unless this other section says it's not" and I haven't tried to track down all those twists.