Terms of Service

1. The agreement

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between HOAPOST, LLC, a Georgia limited liability company ("DATAQ", "we", "us"), and (a) each homeowners', property owners' or condominium association that subscribes to DATAQ (the "HOA"), and (b) each person who signs in to DATAQ or opens books with a share code ("you"). They cover the DATAQ website and service at dataq.hoapost.com (the "Service"). Our Privacy Notice is part of these Terms.

You accept these Terms by ticking the box that says you agree, or by opening books with a share code after being told that doing so means you agree. We keep a record of which version you agreed to and when. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Agreeing for the HOA. The person who registers an HOA, or completes a hand-over link for it, agrees to these Terms for the HOA as well as for themselves, and confirms that the HOA's board has authorized them to do so. If that is not true, that person is responsible to us for the HOA's obligations under these Terms.

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service.

2. What DATAQ is — and is not

DATAQ is software for HOA boards. It reads the financial documents the HOA or its management company sends — management reports, bank statements, invoices, dues and delinquency reports — and organizes what they say into the HOA's books: spending against the budget, payments made, what is owed, bank activity and tools for reviewing them.

DATAQ is not:

• a certified public accountant or CPA firm. DATAQ does not examine, review or compile financial statements, gives no opinion or assurance on them, and nothing it shows is a report by an accountant. Its red flags are tools that help a board ask questions;
• a law firm, tax preparer, financial adviser or reserve-study provider, and nothing in the Service is legal, tax, accounting, investment or professional advice;
• your management company, bookkeeper, treasurer or a fiduciary of the HOA. The board and its management company remain responsible for the HOA's finances, its decisions and its compliance with its governing documents and the law;
• the keeper of the HOA's official records (see section 4);
• a bank, payment processor or collection agency for dues. DATAQ does not collect money from homeowners, contact homeowners about what they owe, or report anyone to a credit bureau;
• a consumer reporting agency. DATAQ works only on the HOA's own records, for the HOA (see section 6).

For advice on the HOA's finances, taxes, collections or legal duties, the board should consult a qualified CPA or attorney.

3. Sign-ins, roles and share codes

Roles. The HOA's President controls the account: who is invited, the role each person has, and whose sign-in is switched off. The roles decide what each person can see and do. The HOA is responsible for giving access only to people who should have it — its board, and the outside accountant, management company or others it chooses — and for removing access when someone leaves the board or the HOA changes management company.

Your sign-in. Each sign-in is for one person. Keep your password private and do not share your sign-in. Tell us through the support page at once if you think someone else has used it. You are responsible for what is done with your sign-in until you tell us.

Share codes. The board can make share codes that open a read-only view of the books, for homeowners or others it chooses. That view shows homes by address, never by owner name. Anyone holding a code — and its password, if the board set one — can open what it shows, so the board decides who receives codes and switches them off when they should no longer work. If you open books with a share code, you agree to these Terms and to use what you see only for purposes connected with the HOA.

Development accounts. If DATAQ sets up an HOA's account before the HOA takes it over, DATAQ staff work in that account until it is handed to the HOA's President. Their access ends when the hand-over is approved.

4. Your documents and data

The HOA owns its data. The documents the HOA sends and the information read from them ("HOA Data") belong to the HOA. We claim no ownership of them.

What you allow us to do. The HOA lets us store, read, process, back up and display HOA Data only to provide the Service to the HOA and the people it authorizes, to keep the Service secure, to fix problems the HOA reports, and when the law requires it. We do not sell HOA Data, use it for advertising, or share it with other HOAs. Reading happens on our own systems; documents are not sent to outside artificial-intelligence services.

What the HOA confirms. By sending documents, the HOA confirms that it, or the management company sending them for it, has the right to share them with us and to let us process the personal information they contain, and that doing so is consistent with its governing documents and the law. Send only records about the HOA's finances. Do not send records that have nothing to do with them, or information such as Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers or medical information unless it is unavoidably printed on a financial record.

Digital documents only. DATAQ reads digital PDFs — the ones management software, banks and vendors produce — and bank and spreadsheet downloads. Scanned copies and photos are refused at upload, and a scanned page inside a digital PDF is not read. The HOA is responsible for obtaining digital documents from its management company, bank and vendors.

Uploading is the HOA's job. The HOA is responsible for uploading its documents. DATAQ does not retrieve documents from management company portals, banks or any other source, and the books reflect only what has been uploaded. Reminders are a courtesy; a missed or late reminder does not change this.

Documents are read, then deleted. Once every page of a document has been read, the file itself is deleted and only the data read from it is kept. DATAQ never shows a document or a picture of its pages: it shows what was read from each page, and which document and page it came from, so the HOA can check the original. A document that is refused or cannot be read is not kept: the sender is told why at once, and its file is deleted. DATAQ shows the HOA's books on screen; it does not provide copies or exports of documents or data.

Keep your originals. Because documents are deleted after reading, DATAQ is not a place to keep the HOA's records. The HOA, or its management company, remains the keeper of its books and records and is responsible for keeping them for as long as its governing documents and the law require, and for making them available to members who are entitled to inspect them.

5. Figures are read automatically

The figures in DATAQ are read by software from documents that may be scanned, photographed, incomplete or themselves wrong. Reading can make mistakes — a misread digit, a missed page, a line filed under the wrong heading. DATAQ checks what it reads against the document's own totals where it can, and marks figures it knows to be incomplete where it can, but it cannot catch every error. The books are only as complete and accurate as the documents the HOA sends.

Before the board relies on a figure for a decision — setting a budget or assessment, a collection or legal action, a dispute with a vendor or manager, reserve funding, an insurance claim or a report to members — check it against the original documents and, where it matters, with a CPA or attorney.

Red flags are questions, not findings. The review tools point out things that may deserve a question: a payment that appears twice, spending over an approval limit, a payment without an invoice. A flag does not mean anyone did anything wrong. Many flags have an ordinary explanation. Do not accuse anyone, publicly or privately, on the strength of DATAQ alone.

6. Homeowner information

DATAQ shows the board each home's balance, payments and how long an amount has been owed, so the board can manage the HOA's finances. The HOA and everyone who signs in agree to use this information only for the HOA's own purposes, as its governing documents and the law allow, and to keep it confidential.

In particular, no one may use information from DATAQ:

• to decide whether someone is eligible for credit, insurance, employment, housing, a lease or any other purpose covered by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act;
• to report anyone to a credit bureau;
• to harass, embarrass or single out a homeowner, or to discriminate against anyone on a basis prohibited by the Fair Housing Act or other law.

If the HOA pursues what a homeowner owes, it does so itself or through its manager or attorney, and must follow its governing documents and the laws that apply to collecting debts. DATAQ plays no part in collecting.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to: open, or try to open, another HOA's books or any part of the Service you are not allowed to use; probe, scan or test the Service's security, or get around its access controls or its limits on copying; copy the Service's data in bulk by automated means; upload anything harmful, unlawful or that you have no right to share; use the Service to build a competing product; or use it in any way that breaks the law or these Terms.

8. Subscription and payment

Price. DATAQ costs $299 a month for an HOA that subscribes now, plus any tax that applies, with every feature and unlimited sign-ins included. An HOA keeps the monthly price it subscribed at. We may change the price for future months by telling the President at least 30 days before the change takes effect; the HOA can cancel before then.

Paying by bank transfer. HOAPOST, LLC bills the subscription through Stripe, by ACH debit from the HOA's bank account. When the President completes payment, they authorize recurring monthly debits under the authorization Stripe shows at checkout, and confirm they are allowed to authorize debits from that account. That authorization stays in place until the subscription is canceled. Stripe's own terms and privacy policy apply to the payment details you give Stripe; we do not receive or keep the HOA's full bank account number.

If a payment fails. A bank transfer can take up to 14 business days to clear. If a payment fails, we tell the President, and the HOA has 30 days to fix it. If it is not fixed by day 31, the account is suspended: only the President can sign in, and only to the billing page. Nothing is deleted while the account is suspended, and paying restores access at once.

Cancelling. The President can cancel at any time from the billing page, through Stripe. Fees already paid are not refunded, including for part of a month, except where the law requires a refund.

9. Security and availability

We protect HOA Data with reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards, including encryption of stored files with a key unique to each HOA, keeping each HOA's records apart from every other's, and running our staff dashboard on a database sign-in that is refused every HOA's books. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot promise that HOA Data will never be lost or accessed without permission. If we learn of a security breach affecting HOA Data, we will tell the HOA and others as the law requires.

We work to keep the Service running, but do not promise it will always be available or free of errors. We may change, improve or stop offering features. We provide support through the support page in DATAQ.

10. Ending the service

After the HOA cancels. The HOA's books are kept, so a later restart picks up where it left off. While the subscription is canceled, everyone on the account can still sign in and read the books, but nothing can be changed or uploaded; the President can restart it from the billing page. Share codes stop working.

Deleting the HOA's account. The President can ask for the HOA's account to be deleted on the Billing page, confirming with their password and the HOA's name, or in writing to the address in section 16. The subscription stops at once and everyone who signs in for the HOA is told by email. After a waiting period of 7 days, during which the President can withdraw the request, the HOA's books, pages, sign-ins and share codes are deleted from the live Service and the HOA's encryption key is erased — in every case within 30 days of the request. A deleted account cannot be brought back. Copies remaining in our encrypted disaster-recovery backups are never used and are restored only to recover from a disaster (see the Privacy Notice). We keep billing records and the record of who agreed to these Terms as long as the law or our legitimate business needs require.

Ending access ourselves. We may suspend or end an HOA's or a person's access if they seriously or repeatedly break these Terms, if the law requires it, or to protect the Service or other HOAs. Where we reasonably can, we will tell the President first and give a chance to put things right.

Sections 4 (keep your originals), 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 continue to apply after the Service ends.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

To the fullest extent the law allows, the Service and everything in it are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy or completeness. We do not warrant that the figures in DATAQ are correct or complete, that the Service will find every error or irregularity in the HOA's records, or that it will be uninterrupted or secure.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows: (a) HOAPOST, LLC and its owners, officers, employees and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, loss of goodwill, or the cost of substitute services, however caused; (b) we are not liable for decisions made or actions taken by the HOA, its board, its management company or anyone else on the basis of figures shown in DATAQ, for errors in the documents the HOA sends, or for the acts of the HOA's management company; and (c) our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms is limited to the amount the HOA paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

Some places do not allow some of these limits, so they apply only as far as the law allows.

13. Indemnification

The HOA will defend and indemnify HOAPOST, LLC and its owners, officers, employees and agents against claims, losses and reasonable costs (including attorneys' fees) brought by a third party and arising from: documents or information the HOA sent without the right to do so; use of homeowner information contrary to section 6; or decisions or actions of the HOA, its board or its management company based on the Service.

14. Disputes and arbitration

Please read this section carefully. It requires disputes to be resolved by binding individual arbitration and waives the right to a jury trial and to bring or join a class action.

Talk to us first. Before starting any claim, send a written description of the dispute to HOAPOST, LLC at the address in section 16, and give us 30 days to try to resolve it informally.

Binding individual arbitration. Any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service that is not resolved informally will be settled by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules — or, for a claim by an individual to which they apply, its Consumer Arbitration Rules — then in effect. The arbitration will take place in Fulton County, Georgia, or by telephone or video if the arbitrator allows. The arbitrator decides all questions about the scope and enforceability of this agreement to arbitrate. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

No class actions. Claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding, and the arbitrator may not combine more than one party's claims. If this waiver is found unenforceable, this whole section 14 is void, but the rest of these Terms remain in effect.

Exceptions. Either side may bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, and may ask a court for an injunction to prevent imminent and irreparable harm, such as misuse of the Service or of HOA Data.

Opting out. You may opt out of this section by sending written notice to the address in section 16 within 30 days of first agreeing to these Terms, giving your name, your HOA and a clear statement that you opt out of arbitration.

15. General terms

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and by the Federal Arbitration Act for section 14. Any matter that may go to court will be heard in the state or federal courts located in Fulton County, Georgia.

Electronic records and notices. You agree to receive these Terms, notices, receipts and other communications electronically — on screen in DATAQ or by email to the address on your sign-in — and that they satisfy any requirement that they be in writing. You agree that ticking a box to agree is your electronic signature. You may withdraw this consent by ending your use of the Service.

Changes to these Terms. We may change these Terms. If a change is important, everyone is asked to agree to the new version at their next sign-in, and the date at the top of this page changes. Using the Service after agreeing to a new version means the new version applies.

Everything else. These Terms, with the Privacy Notice and the payment authorization given at checkout, are the whole agreement about the Service. If any part is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Not enforcing a part of these Terms is not a waiver of it. Neither the HOA nor you may transfer these Terms without our consent; we may transfer them with our business. Neither side is responsible for delays caused by events beyond its reasonable control.

16. Contact

For questions about the Service, use the support page in DATAQ. Written notices go to: HOAPOST, LLC — DATAQ, P.O. Box 53, Fairburn, GA 30213.