Sources & methodology
HOA Spy compiles public records about US community associations exclusively from official government sources. Nothing is scraped from behind a login, no restricted source is used, and no documents are re-hosted — every finding links to the government record it came from. Data last checked 2026-10-02.
Sources
| Florida DBPR — Division of Condominiums registry | https://www2.myfloridalicense.com/condos-timeshares-mobile-homes/public-records/ |
|---|---|
| Texas Real Estate Commission — HOA management certificates | https://hoa.texas.gov/management-certificates-search |
| IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File — tax-exempt associations | https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-business-master-file-extract-eo-bmf |
| Florida Division of Corporations (Sunbiz) — non-profit registry | https://dos.fl.gov/sunbiz/other-services/data-downloads/quarterly-data/ |
| Arizona Department of Real Estate — subdivision Public Reports | https://services.azre.gov/PdbWeb/Development/SearchDevelopments |
| Cook County Assessor — residential condominium buildings | https://datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov/d/3r7i-mrz4 |
| Broward County Official Records — recorded-document index | https://www.broward.org/RecordsTaxesTreasury/Records/Pages/IndexFiles-Completed.aspx |
| Cook County Clerk — recordings index (association liens) | https://crs.cookcountyclerkil.gov/Search |
| CourtListener RECAP — federal court dockets | https://free.law/recap |
| CourtListener bulk data — docket and opinion captions, federal and state appellate courts | https://www.courtlistener.com/help/api/bulk-data/ |
| GDELT — news article index | https://www.gdeltproject.org/ |
How flags are computed
Each community's "things to watch out for" list is rule-based: registration status comes straight from the state registry; corporate-standing flags fire on the registry's own status field; lien and foreclosure counts are document counts from the county's official records index; court flags come from the case's nature-of-suit. Name matching across sources is deliberately conservative — an ambiguous match is left unlinked rather than guessed.
Coverage limits
- Recorded-lien data covers only the counties whose official-records index we can read — an association elsewhere showing no liens has not been checked, not cleared.
- Some states publish only a registry: no lien or corporate-status signal is available there from free public sources.
- Court coverage is federal dockets, state appellate dockets and opinions and the trial-court portals we can index; most HOA litigation is in state trial courts, which have no free national index.
- Cross-source joins are by association name. Exact-name and unique distinctive-name matches only; anything ambiguous is left unlinked.
- County lien indexes rarely carry a parcel id, so lien records identify parties and dates, not property addresses.
Corrections
If a record on this site is wrong or matched to the wrong community, we want to fix it. Use the contact link on the home page and include the page URL — disputed matches are re-verified against the official source.