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Review Guidelines

Last Updated: January 1, 2025
These legal documents are reviewed by qualified legal counsel. For questions, contact legal@hoareview.com

These Review Guidelines are incorporated into and form part of the HOAReview.com Terms of Service. By submitting a review, you agree to these Guidelines and to the legal obligations described below. Read the Legal Notice to Reviewers section carefully before submitting.

1. Our Mission

HOAReview.com exists to give homeowners and prospective buyers transparent, honest information about HOA communities — information that was previously accessible only to insiders. Every guideline below protects the integrity of that mission. Credible reviews help good HOAs get recognized, give struggling HOAs constructive feedback, and protect buyers from making uninformed six-figure decisions.

We take the trust of our users and the legal rights of HOAs and their members seriously. These guidelines are designed to encourage the most useful, legally durable reviews — not to suppress criticism. Honest, negative reviews about genuine governance failures are among the most valuable content on the platform.

2. Who Can Write a Review

To submit a review, you must have direct, firsthand experience with the HOA community you are reviewing. We verify eligibility through declared address cross-referencing and periodic audits. Eligible reviewers are:

  • Current homeowners or renters residing within the HOA's geographic jurisdiction at the time of submission
  • Former residents who lived in the community within the past five (5) years — please note your move-out date in your review so readers can assess its currency
  • Prospective buyers who have submitted a formal written offer or completed an inspection or due-diligence process for a property within the HOA — limited to your direct experience during that process

The following persons are not eligible to submit a review of a specific HOA community and are prohibited from doing so:

  • HOA board members reviewing their own community in their capacity as a board member
  • Employees or contractors of the HOA's management company reviewing a community they manage
  • Competitors of HOAReview.com or property management companies submitting reviews for marketing or research purposes
  • Any person acting at the direction of or receiving compensation from any party with a financial interest in the HOA's rating
  • Any person who does not meet the residency or prospective-buyer criteria above, regardless of claimed familiarity with the community

You may submit one (1) review per HOA community. If your experience has changed materially — for example, following a change in management company or board — you may request to update your existing review by contacting abuse@hoareview.com with your review ID.

3. What Makes a Good Review

The most useful reviews are specific, balanced, current, and written from direct personal experience. They address the rating categories — governance, HOA fees, maintenance, community atmosphere, and management company responsiveness — with concrete observations rather than vague impressions.

Be Specific

General statements like "the HOA is terrible" or "management is great" give readers nothing to evaluate. Specific, factual observations — particularly around timelines, dollar amounts, communication practices, and enforcement patterns — are far more useful and legally defensible.

Be Balanced

Even communities with serious governance problems often have things that work well. A review that acknowledges both strengths and weaknesses is more credible to readers — and to prospective buyers who are trying to make an informed decision, not just look for validation.

Be Current

HOAs change. Board members turn over, management companies are replaced, assessments are paid off. If your primary experiences are more than two years old, note that in your review. If you are a former resident, note your approximate move-out year. Stale reviews that do not acknowledge their age mislead prospective buyers.

Concrete Examples of Good Reviews

The following are examples of the kind of specific, balanced, legally sound reviews our platform is designed to host:

Example 1 — Governance & Fees: "The HOA approved a $4,200 special assessment for pool deck resurfacing in March 2024 with only 30 days' written notice, which violated the CC&Rs' 60-day requirement. The board did not hold the required open meeting before the vote. On the positive side, monthly dues have not increased since 2021, landscaping is consistently well-maintained, and the new property manager has been responsive to work order requests — typically within 48 hours."

Example 2 — Management & Maintenance: "We lived here from 2020 to 2024. The management company (changed in mid-2022) made a noticeable difference: before the switch, maintenance requests averaged three to four weeks for resolution; afterward, turnaround dropped to about a week. The community pool was closed for the entire 2021 summer due to a pump failure with no timeline communicated to residents. Reserve fund disclosures have been consistently provided at the annual meeting, which I consider a significant positive."

Example 3 — Community & Enforcement: "Enforcement of the CC&Rs is inconsistent — I received two violation letters for a trash can visible from the street by four inches, while a neighbor's fence has been out of compliance with the color guidelines for over a year with no apparent action. The community itself is well-kept and quiet. The board president runs meetings efficiently and posts minutes within two weeks. If enforcement were applied evenly, this would be an excellent community. Prospective buyers should request the last two years of violation logs before purchasing."

4. Prohibited Content

The following content violates these Guidelines and our Terms of Service. Reviews containing prohibited content will be removed and may result in account suspension or permanent termination. In serious cases, prohibited content may expose the reviewer to legal liability independent of any action by HOAReview.com.

  • False statements of fact — any factual assertion you know or have reason to know is untrue, including fabricated incidents, invented financial figures, false claims about named or identifiable individuals, or events you did not personally witness. Opinions and subjective characterizations are generally protected; statements of fact that are false are not
  • Private personal information — the full name, home address, personal phone number, personal email address, financial information, medical information, or other identifying details of any private individual, including board members acting in their personal capacity. Referencing the board's actions as a body, or describing conduct you personally witnessed at a public meeting, is generally permissible
  • Threatening or harassing content — any content that threatens violence or harm, constitutes targeted harassment of a named or identifiable individual, or is designed to intimidate or coerce any person
  • Compensated or directed reviews — any review written in exchange for payment, gift cards, discounts, services, or other compensation; or any review written at the explicit direction of a party with a financial interest in the HOA's rating, regardless of whether the content itself is accurate
  • Discriminatory content — any content that expresses a preference for or against prospective or current residents based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, disability, or other characteristics protected under the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604, or applicable state law
  • Off-topic content — reviews that are not genuinely about the HOA community's governance, fees, maintenance, or management, including complaints about individual neighbors' conduct unrelated to HOA enforcement, reviews of a real estate agent's services, or personal grievances unrelated to HOA operations
  • Duplicate or coordinated reviews — submitting the same or substantially similar review more than once, under the same or different accounts; or participating in any organized effort to artificially inflate or suppress an HOA's aggregate rating

IMPORTANT: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230) protects HOAReview.com as the platform from liability for content you post. IT DOES NOT PROTECT YOU, THE REVIEWER. You are the author and publisher of your review for purposes of defamation law, privacy law, and any other cause of action arising from its content. If your review contains false statements of fact that harm the reputation of an identifiable person or organization, you may be personally liable for defamation damages under the law of your state. HOAReview.com cannot and does not provide you with a legal shield.

Before submitting a review, you should understand the following:

  • Defamation law distinguishes between statements of fact and expressions of opinion. Pure opinion — "I think the board is incompetent" — is generally protected. A false statement presented as fact — "The board treasurer embezzled $50,000" — is not protected if it is false and you cannot prove it is true
  • The truth is a complete defense to defamation. If you state something as a fact, you should be prepared to substantiate it with evidence — emails, official meeting minutes, HOA financial disclosures, photographs, or other contemporaneous documentation
  • Anonymous posting reduces but does not eliminate your legal exposure. Courts routinely issue subpoenas to platforms to identify anonymous reviewers when a plaintiff demonstrates a sufficient basis for a defamation claim. HOAReview.com will comply with valid court orders requiring disclosure of account information
  • The First Amendment broadly protects criticism of HOA governance as speech on matters of public concern. However, this protection has limits, and false statements of fact about specific individuals or specific verifiable events are not constitutionally protected
  • If you are unsure whether a specific statement in your review is legally defensible, consult a licensed attorney in your state before submitting

If you receive a cease-and-desist letter, litigation threat, or lawsuit in connection with a review you posted on HOAReview.com, take the following steps:

  1. Do not panic or immediately remove your review. Removal may not stop a lawsuit and could be used against you. Consult a lawyer before taking any action
  2. Contact an attorney licensed in your state, ideally one with experience in First Amendment, defamation, or consumer protection law. Many state bar associations offer lawyer referral services
  3. Notify HOAReview.com by emailing legal@hoareview.com with the subject line "Legal Threat — Review." Include a copy of any letter or court filing you have received. We cannot represent you, but we take threats against our users seriously and can provide general information about anti-SLAPP protections in your state
  4. Research anti-SLAPP protections in your state. If you live in California, Texas, Florida, Wyoming, or another state with an anti-SLAPP statute, a meritless lawsuit targeting your protected speech may entitle you to early dismissal and recovery of your attorneys' fees from the plaintiff. See Section 11 of our Terms of Service for a list of applicable statutes
  5. Document everything. Preserve copies of the letter or lawsuit, all communications from the HOA or its attorneys, and all evidence supporting the accuracy of your review

HOAReview.com believes that retaliatory legal action against honest reviewers is itself a matter of public concern. Where permitted by law and consistent with our legal obligations, we will support affected users and may publish information about meritless SLAPP suits targeting our platform's users.

7. Notice to HOAs and Management Companies

HOAReview.com welcomes HOA boards and management companies to claim their profiles, post official responses to reviews, and correct factual inaccuracies in community profile data. We take legitimate content disputes seriously and will investigate all properly submitted reports.

However, we publish honest reviews as a matter of legal right and public policy. HOA governance is a matter of public concern — particularly for communities that exercise quasi-governmental powers over homeowners' property and financial obligations. Reviews expressing genuine resident experiences are protected speech.

ANTI-SLAPP WARNING TO HOAs AND MANAGEMENT COMPANIES: Filing or threatening a lawsuit against a reviewer to suppress or remove a negative review — rather than to vindicate a genuine legal right — may constitute a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Anti-SLAPP statutes in California (Code Civ. Proc. § 425.16), Texas (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ch. 27), Florida (Stat. § 768.295), Wyoming (W.S. § 1-29-101 et seq.), and numerous other states permit defendants in such suits to seek early dismissal and mandatory recovery of their attorneys' fees and costs from the plaintiff. HOAReview.com will provide information about applicable anti-SLAPP protections to any user who contacts us about a legal threat related to their review. We may also publicize meritless SLAPP suits targeting our users where doing so is consistent with our legal obligations.

If you are an HOA representative with a legitimate concern about a specific review — for example, you have evidence that a factual statement in the review is demonstrably false — please submit a formal dispute through our Legal & Abuse Reports form at /legal/contact. Select "Abuse Report" and provide specific evidence supporting your claim. We will investigate within 5 business days. We will not remove a review solely because it is negative, critical of board decisions, or unflattering to the community.

8. Content Moderation Process

All reviews submitted to HOAReview.com pass through a multi-stage moderation process before publication. This process is designed to maximize the publication of genuine resident speech while filtering content that violates these Guidelines.

Moderation Stages

  • Automated screening — all submissions are immediately evaluated by automated systems for spam signals, duplicate content, account anomalies (such as mass submission from a single IP), and content pattern flags indicating potential prohibited content
  • AI-assisted analysis — review text is submitted to an AI language model for automated quality scoring across multiple dimensions: specificity, sentiment, factual claim density, potential policy violations, and fair housing compliance signals. AI scores are advisory inputs to human review and do not independently determine publication decisions
  • Human review — reviews flagged by automated screening or the AI analysis layer are reviewed by a human moderator before publication. Moderators assess compliance with these Guidelines and apply editorial judgment consistent with our commitment to free expression. Moderators are trained to err toward publication for ambiguous cases
  • Post-publication review — published reviews remain subject to ongoing moderation in response to user flags, HOA dispute submissions, and periodic quality audits. A published review may be removed after publication if new evidence of a Guidelines violation comes to our attention

Timeline

Most reviews are published within 24 hours of submission. Reviews requiring human review may take up to 5 business days. You will receive an email notification when your review is published, when it is rejected, or when it is removed after publication. Rejected reviews include a general reason category; we do not disclose specific moderation criteria in detail to prevent circumvention.

Appeals

If your review is rejected or removed and you believe the decision was in error, you may submit an appeal within 30 days by emailing abuse@hoareview.com with the subject line "Moderation Appeal" and your review ID. Appeals are reviewed by a senior moderator within 10 business days. The appeal decision is final. We err toward publication on appeal in borderline cases.

9. Publicly-Sourced Content Imports

In addition to direct user submissions, HOAReview.com may supplement its review database by importing content that has been publicly posted on third-party platforms — including Reddit, Google Reviews, the Better Business Bureau, government consumer-complaint portals, and news publications — when that content is directly relevant to an HOA community listed on our platform.

Attribution and Source Disclosure

All imported public-source reviews are clearly identified on the HOA profile page with a source badge (e.g., "Reddit", "Google Reviews", "Gov. Complaint") and a link to the original posting. HOAReview.com does not claim authorship of imported content. The original author's username or display name, as available, is displayed alongside the content.

Moderation of Imported Content

All imported reviews enter the platform in a pending moderation status and are reviewed by a human administrator before publication — they do not appear publicly until approved. Imported content is held to the same content standards as user-submitted reviews: reviews that contain prohibited content as defined in Section 4 above are rejected and not published.

Removal Requests from Original Authors

If you are the original author of content that has been imported to HOAReview.com and you wish to request its removal, you may submit a removal request by emailing legal@hoareview.com with the subject line "Content Removal Request — Imported Review." Include (a) a link to the content on HOAReview.com, (b) a description of the original posting and its location, and (c) your contact information. Original-author removal requests are processed within 5 business days. If you are requesting removal of content on copyright grounds, please use the DMCA procedure described in our DMCA Policy instead.

HOAReview.com does not import content from private or password-protected forums, members-only communities, or non-public sources. All imported content originates from publicly accessible URLs at the time of import.

10. Contact Our Trust & Safety Team

Questions about these Guidelines, a moderation decision, or a legal threat related to your review? Reach our Trust & Safety team:

HOAReview, LLCTrust & Safety30 N Gould St, Ste NSheridan, WY 82801Email: abuse@hoareview.comLegal Threats: legal@hoareview.comReport Form: /legal/contact (select "Abuse Report")