Learn the rules. Vote online. Propose changes.
What is HOAproxy?
HOAproxy is a transparent, community-built web platform designed to ease constructive engagement with your neighborhood government. We improve information dissemination of HOA policies, expose the balance of power via proxy voting, and raise resident proposals - transforming HOAs into healthy participatory democracies. Documents are anonymously uploaded by residents, with content filters to keep it kosher.
What is HOAproxy not?
- We are not a platform for busybodies, cranks, or gossip. Our goal is that every owner can have their say, easily. Residents should be able to tune in quickly one day per year to make their proportional impact.
- We are not a company. This is a community project started by one of the millions of tech worker residents of an HOA. To be transparent, I am also an academic who wishes there was better data on community government organizations. See: The rise and effects of homeowners associations.
- We have no axe to grind. This project is about fulfilling functions that HOA boards have legitimate reasons not to perform.
What We Fix
- Document readability: We make HOA documents searchable with a chatbot. To limit liability, boards post only the legally-valid version of community documents, often behind a login.
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[Planned] Voting transparency: In communities with proxy voting, real elections happen long before the meeting. Boards often send meeting announcement postcards that are functionally a one-person ballot, locking up votes before other candidates enter the race.
This bad voting system is vulnerable to disruption. HOAproxy allows residents to send e-signed emails to the board, giving their vote to a neighbor up to a year before the election. And boards are legally required to accept it. It's guerilla online voting! HOAproxy can become your community's defacto, transparent voting forum.
- Resident proposals: Any verified owner can draft a proposal for their community, get two neighbors to agree, and their proposal will appear to other verified owners with the option to upvote it. The proposals are non-binding, but smart boards are likely to listen. To avoid this becoming a gossip feature, comments are not allowed.
Legal Basis for Sharing Association Documents
HOAproxy is a national project, and HOA law is state-by-state. The exact boundaries vary by jurisdiction, governing documents, and court order. Nationally, the common pattern is broad owner access to many association records, public recording of core governing instruments, and specific carve-outs for sensitive categories like attorney-client material, personal data, and restricted uses of membership lists.
The citations below are examples of those common patterns, not a complete 50-state survey.
- California: broad association-record categories and inspection windows in Cal. Civ. Code 5200 and 5210; membership-contact opt-out in 5220.
- Florida: recorded governing documents, owner inspection rights, and statutory exclusions in Fla. Stat. 720.303.
- Arizona: owner inspection and copying rights, with listed withholding categories, in A.R.S. 33-1805.
- Virginia: association record-access rules and statutory limits in Va. Code 55.1-1815.
- Texas: public recording of dedicatory instruments and owner access to association records in Tex. Prop. Code 202.006 and 209.005.
- North Carolina: owner inspection rights in 47F-3-118 and 47C-3-118, plus nonprofit-record constraints in 55A-16-04 and 55A-16-05.
- Federal copyright baseline: fair-use analysis is fact-specific under 17 U.S.C. ยง 107.
If the site contains any documents it should not, please contact wyatt.clarke@gmail.com and include the legal basis for your complaint.
Open Source
HOAproxy is built in the open. The full source code is public under the Functional Source License (FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0), which means you can read, learn from, and contribute to the codebase. After two years, each release automatically converts to the Apache 2.0 license.
If your HOA frustrates you and you know how to code, we'd love your help. Check the contributing guide to get started.