Last updated: September 2026
These guidelines apply to content submitted on RottenHOAs.com and displayed on HOAReviewer.com ("Powered by RottenHOAs"), which together form a single review platform.
Our Mission
RottenHOAs.com exists to give homeowners, residents, and community members a clear, honest place to share real experiences with homeowners associations (HOAs), condo associations (COAs), and property management companies.
We believe transparency creates accountability. These Community Guidelines help ensure RottenHOAs remains a fair, informative, and trusted resource for HOA reviews, HOA complaints, and community feedback nationwide.
By using RottenHOAs.com or HOAReviewer.com, you agree to follow these Community Guidelines, our Terms of Use, and all applicable laws.
What We Stand For
RottenHOAs is built on three core principles:
Real Experiences Only
Reviews should reflect first-hand experiences from homeowners, residents, former residents, or others with a legitimate connection to the HOA or managed property.
Honest, Constructive Feedback
We support both positive and negative HOA reviews. Criticism is allowed — harassment, threats, or unfounded accusations are not.
No Pay-to-Play
HOAs, boards, and property management companies cannot pay to remove, suppress, or alter reviews. Financial relationships never influence ratings or visibility. Verified Partner status (available to attorneys, realtors, and vendors) reflects a paid directory listing only — it never affects review content, ratings, or visibility.
Sharing Your Experience Opinion vs. Fact
To keep reviews both honest and legally sound, we ask reviewers to frame subjective complaints as personal experience or opinion rather than as unproven factual accusations.
✅ "I felt the board was slow to respond to my maintenance requests."
✅ "In my experience, fines were applied inconsistently."
❌ No real names or identifying information. Avoid vulgar, threatening, or excessively abusive language. Keep reviews focused on your experience, not personal attacks.
This isn't about softening criticism — it's what keeps your review defensible if it's ever challenged.
Review Submission & Moderation
Reviews are evaluated for relevance, clarity, authenticity, and compliance with these guidelines using a combination of automated checks and human moderation. Submissions that fail to meet standards may be rejected or edited for clarity.
Verification: Reviewers may be asked to confirm their connection to a property or HOA (e.g., address matching, document upload). Reviews meeting this bar are labeled Verified, are prioritized in default sort order, and carry more weight in aggregate ratings than unverified submissions.
Updated reviews
If you update a review to reflect a new experience, it may be re-reviewed before republishing.
What's Allowed
✅ Honest HOA reviews based on personal experience
✅ Constructive HOA complaints focused on policies, enforcement, communication, or management
✅ Balanced feedback — both praise and criticism
✅ Fact-based descriptions of interactions with HOA boards or property managers
✅ Updates when situations improve or worsen over time
✅ Civil participation in discussions or comments
What's Not Allowed
❌ Fake, misleading, or second-hand reviews
❌ Reviews submitted on behalf of someone else
❌ Personal attacks, hate speech, threats, or harassment
❌ Unproven accusations of criminal conduct stated as fact (see "Opinion vs. Fact" above)
❌ Calls for violence or illegal activity
❌ Attempts to manipulate ratings or pressure others to post or remove reviews
❌ AI-generated reviews that do not reflect a real, lived experience — we run authenticity checks on submissions and may request additional verification where a review appears fabricated
Anonymity & Transparency
Users may submit reviews without displaying their name publicly. RottenHOAs may still request verification privately to ensure legitimacy; private verification details are never published.
Affiliated reviewers
HOA board members, vendors, employees, or contractors may submit reviews, but these are labeled for transparency and are not weighted the same as homeowner reviews.
Short-term or former residents
Feedback from renters, former owners, or short-term residents is labeled accordingly to reflect the scope of experience.
Incentives & Fairness
RottenHOAs may occasionally offer neutral incentives to encourage participation. Incentives are never tied to positive ratings or outcomes, and no HOA, board, or management company can buy influence over reviews or rankings.
Reporting Content & Safety
Users can report content they believe is inaccurate, abusive, or in violation of these guidelines through the report link on any review.
Review disputes
An HOA, board, or management company can submit a factual correction or written response to a review by contacting us. We'll add context or a right-of-reply where warranted, but a request to remove a review will not be honored solely because the subject disagrees with it. Removal requires a documented policy violation, a valid legal basis, or the reviewer's own request.
Legal requests
If we receive a legally valid request regarding specific content — such as a court order — we will review it against applicable law and respond accordingly. We do not remove content in response to informal legal threats alone.
Pattern detection
RottenHOAs may investigate suspicious activity such as review manipulation, coordinated posting, or abuse of the platform, and may suspend accounts or remove content found to violate these guidelines.
Platform Role & Disclaimer
RottenHOAs.com and HOAReviewer.com publish user-generated content. Reviews represent the personal opinions and experiences of individual users and do not constitute verified factual claims, legal findings, or statements made by RottenHOAs itself.
We do not independently investigate or verify the substance of user claims beyond the verification checks described above. We do not guarantee accuracy, completeness, or outcomes. Users should conduct their own due diligence before making decisions based on HOA reviews or ratings.
Our Commitment
RottenHOAs is committed to:
-Giving homeowners a real voice
-Promoting HOA transparency
-Encouraging accountability without intimidation
-Protecting free expression while reducing abuse
By participating, you help build a more honest, informed, and empowered HOA community.