The HOA-OS Blog
Practical advice, product updates, and community management insights for HOA boards.
When an HOA Can Suspend Amenity Access
Suspending an owner's pool or clubhouse access is a strong enforcement tool with strict conditions. Suspension for unpaid assessments versus rule violations, the notice and hearing steps, and how Texas and Florida differ.
HOA Guest Policies for Amenities
How to set guest limits and resident-present rules for HOA amenities, how tenants fit in, and where a guest policy can cross the federal fair housing line on familial status.
How does a community let residents reserve the clubhouse and pool without a sign-up sheet?
A short walkthrough of amenity reservations in HOA-OS. Each space keeps its own weekly slots, a resident books an open one, and a taken slot stops being offered.
Renting the Clubhouse: Reservations, Deposits and Damage
A clubhouse rental policy has to settle who can reserve the room, what the fee and deposit cover, whether alcohol is allowed, and who pays when a guest breaks something. How to write each part.
HOA Pool Rules: Hours, Guests and Liability
The pool rules a self-managed board actually needs, the health and safety requirements that sit outside the board's control, and how to adopt and post them before the season opens.
HOA Amenity Rules That Hold Up
Amenity rules draw their authority from the declaration, the bylaws and state law. How to tell a rule the board can adopt from a restriction that needs an owner vote, and how to write one that survives a challenge.
How does a board put a request form on its website without building one from scratch?
A walkthrough of a request form in HOA-OS. The board describes the form in plain words, ticks a policy document as a reference, edits the draft that comes back and turns it on.
How does a board send a title company the resale package it ordered before a home sale closes?
A walkthrough of a resale package order in HOA-OS. The board confirms the lot, chooses the documents, and one button assembles the package with a cover sheet for the sale.
What does a board do when a title company asks for a resale certificate before a home sale closes?
A walkthrough of a resale certificate request in HOA-OS. The board confirms the lot, answers what the ledger can't, picks the officer and issues the certificate.
How does a board keep a record of a delinquent account from the first warning to a filed lien?
A walkthrough of the Lien Tracking page in HOA-OS. The board records that a warning went out and that the lien was filed, adds a note, and the timeline reads back in order.
Where does a board see what's owed on one unit, what's been reported, and who actually lives there?
A walkthrough of one lot's page in HOA-OS. The board sees the balance and the ledger behind it, what's been reported, who lives there and who holds the title.
How does a board track a maintenance request from the moment a resident reports it until the work is done?
A 3-minute walkthrough of maintenance requests in HOA-OS. Residents' reports land in one list, and the board sets each one's priority, records its owner and moves its status along.
How much should our board be putting into reserves each year?
A 3-minute walkthrough of the reserves Projections tab in HOA-OS. The board starts from what it contributes today, sees the year its fund runs short, and finds the contribution that clears it.
The HOA Closing Playbook
A single sequence a board can run every time a home in the community sells, from the request landing to the certificate being logged, with the six underlying questions answered in one place.
Transfer Fees, Capital Contributions, and What Buyers Pay
Several one-time charges land at an HOA closing and none of them are dues. What a transfer fee pays for, how a capital contribution differs, who owes each one, and why they have to be billed separately.
What Goes Wrong at Closing When HOA Records Are a Mess
Closings rarely stall on the sale itself. They stall on a balance nobody can substantiate, a lien nobody recorded, or a set of minutes nobody can find. Six record failures and what each one does to a contract.
Who Actually Prepares Your HOA's Resale Package
A board, a management company, or a third-party resale service can assemble the package. Only one party is answerable for what it says. How the three routes differ on cost, speed, and who carries the number.
The HOA Resale Certificate Deadline Clock
Resale and estoppel deadlines run in business days, calendar days, or a hybrid, and they start on an event the board usually misses. What starts the clock, what stops it, and what a late certificate costs.
How does a board walk the neighborhood and log what it finds without a clipboard?
A 3-minute walkthrough of an HOA inspection walk in HOA-OS, where the board walks a zone on the map, rechecks an open violation, logs a new one with its photo, and comes home with the record written.
HOA Estoppel Fees: What You Can Legally Charge
Some states cap what an association may charge for an estoppel or resale certificate to the dollar. Others allow only what the work actually cost. Here is where the lines fall and what the caps do not cover.