Why HOA Spy — public records on US community associations
Check the HOA before you sign.
HOA Spy searches 283,000+ homeowner and condo associations across all 50 states and DC for recorded liens and foreclosure filings, court cases, registration and corporate standing, and consumer complaints — every finding linked to the official government record it came from.
Or explore the lien & court-case map, or look up an HOA at the source and bring the record back.
What a report shows
One page per community, built only from government registries, county records and court dockets. Free to read, no account needed.
Liens & foreclosure filings
Claims of lien, lis pendens and foreclosure documents from county official-records indexes — Broward and Miami-Dade (FL), New York City — plus California's statewide judgment-lien index, with volume and escalation flags per community.
Court cases
Federal dockets (CourtListener RECAP) and state appellate opinions for every state, and trial-court dockets where a portal can be indexed — Texas statewide, Florida's Broward, Hillsborough and Miami-Dade, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Alaska. The report says whether the association sued or was sued.
Registration & standing
State HOA and condo registries, corporate rosters with status (dissolved, forfeited, delinquent, non-compliant), county and city HOA inventories, and the IRS tax-exempt roster — who runs the association and whether it is in good standing.
Complaints
Consumer-complaint reports naming associations where a state publishes them (South Carolina's Department of Consumer Affairs, 2018–2025 so far).
Member reviews & records
Sign in with just your email to leave a review, or bring back a court or county link you found yourself. Approved links appear on the community's report for everyone.
The verdict
Every report sums its itemized signals into one caution score — Looks OK · Some concerns · Troubled · Serious red flags — and always lists what was checked and what was not. How the score works ↓
How the verdict is scored
Every report adds up the individual things on record — each worth a set number of points — into one caution score, then shows that score as one of four plain-language tiers. The score is never a black box: every point is itemized next to the record that earned it, and the panel always lists what was not checked. (When nothing is on file yet, the report says Not enough data rather than scoring it.)
What moves the number:
- Heavier records count for more. A foreclosure filing or an owner-vs-HOA lawsuit weighs more than a routine collection lien; recorded liens, state complaints and a run of foreclosures each add points scaled to how many there are and how the community compares with others in its county. Every category is capped, so one noisy source can't run away with the score.
- Members count too. Three or more reviews averaging 2 out of 5 or worse add points; a strong average subtracts them. Records a member looks up and adds themselves count by what the document is — a fraud or embezzlement filing far outweighs a routine "other public record."
- Fraud and discrimination jump straight to red flags. A credible fraud, theft or fair-housing allegation forces the top tier whatever the total, because the allegation itself is the finding — courts and regulators decide the rest.
- Favorable records pull it back down. A case the association won, a clean audit or a dismissed complaint subtracts points.
A score reads the records; it is not a verdict on the community. "Looks OK" means nothing adverse turned up in the sources checked — never a clean bill of health — which is why every panel spells out what it could and could not see. The full scoring rules are in the open-source code.
How it works
- Government and court sources only. State registries, county recorders, court dockets, the IRS exempt-organizations file, consumer-complaint reports. Nothing restricted is scraped and no documents are re-hosted.
- Joined conservatively. Records are matched to a community by exact or unique distinctive name; anything ambiguous stays unlinked, so one association's liens never land on another's report.
- Every finding links to its source. Open the clerk's index, the docket or the registry entry yourself — and the report tells you what it did not check.
Coverage is uneven, and every report says so. County lien indexes cover Broward, Miami-Dade and New York City; trial courts are indexed for Texas, parts of Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Alaska; California communities carry status but no address. No findings means none in these sources, not a clean bill of health. Sources and caveats · see the map.
Donate
HOA Spy is free to read and run by volunteers. The biggest gaps left are behind paid county recorder indexes, clerk data feeds and state bulk files. Donations go straight to buying that access and to hosting.
Bitcoin
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Time, data or code
Look records up at the source and bring the links back, share access to a recorder index or data feed you already pay for, or contribute to the open-source collectors on GitHub. The Help us page lists every way to pitch in, and the roadmap shows what each state still needs. Questions or corrections? Email [email protected].
Look up your community
Search by name, city or county. Free, no account needed to read.