Terms of Service

HOA-PMS — Property Manager Stories
Effective: September 30, 2026

1. The Service

HOA-PMS (“HOA-PMS,” “the Site,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is an independent online platform for property-management-related stories, commentary, humor, and discussion. It may permit visitors to submit stories, create accounts, receive notifications, react to stories, and use other features. Unless expressly stated otherwise, HOA-PMS is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by any homeowners association, condominium association, community association, management company, vendor, employer, board, governmental body, or person discussed by a user.

2. Eligibility and Electronic Agreement

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or submit content. By doing so, you represent that you can legally enter into these Terms. Your affirmative electronic acceptance is intended to constitute an electronic agreement. Electronic records, signatures, and contracts are recognized under applicable Illinois law.

3. User Content and Your Responsibility

“User Content” means stories, titles, names or pseudonyms, messages, images, reactions, and other material a user submits through the Site. You remain responsible for your User Content. By submitting it, you represent and warrant that you have the right to submit it; factual statements presented as facts are, to the best of your knowledge, truthful and not materially misleading; and the content does not unlawfully defame another person or entity, invade privacy, misappropriate identity or likeness, infringe intellectual-property rights, or disclose information you are legally or contractually prohibited from disclosing.

You should distinguish personal opinion, recollection, humor, satire, or speculation from factual accusations when that distinction would reasonably matter. Publication can create legal consequences for the person who supplied content. HOA-PMS does not provide legal review and does not guarantee that moderation will identify every potentially unlawful, inaccurate, or harmful statement.

4. Content Rules

You may not submit content that contains a knowingly false material factual accusation; threatens violence, stalks, harasses, or solicits unlawful conduct; publishes highly sensitive credentials or financial information; contains unlawful intimate imagery or sexual exploitation of minors; impersonates another person; infringes copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights; contains malware or automated spam; attempts to defeat Site security; or otherwise violates applicable law.

Criticism, negative opinions, complaints, satire, and unfavorable descriptions are not prohibited merely because a person or business dislikes them. Nothing in these Terms is intended to waive a right that cannot lawfully be waived, including protections applicable to lawful consumer statements.

5. Privacy, Identity, and Publicity Rights

Do not assume a submission is confidential. Published content is public and may be copied, quoted, indexed, archived, shared, or discussed by others. If you identify a person, employee, manager, board member, resident, vendor, association, or company, you are responsible for having a lawful basis for what you publish.

You may not use another person’s name, image, likeness, voice, or other indicia of identity for an unlawful commercial purpose or otherwise in violation of applicable privacy or publicity law. The Site does not request biometric identifiers or biometric information as part of ordinary registration or story submission. If that changes, legally required biometric notices, consent, retention rules, and safeguards would be addressed separately before collection. See our Privacy Policy.

6. License to HOA-PMS

You retain whatever ownership rights you have in your User Content. By submitting it, you grant HOA-PMS a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, publish, display, distribute, excerpt, format, reformat, and promote it in connection with operating, publicizing, archiving, and improving HOA-PMS and its related channels.

This license permits reasonable editorial changes that do not materially alter meaning, including spelling and formatting corrections, creating or editing a title, categorization, excerpts, and anonymizing identifying details. HOA-PMS may publish a submission under a pseudonym or randomized display name. The license continues for copies already published, shared, archived, backed up, or reasonably required for legal and operational records even if an account is deleted. We are not required to publish or continue displaying any submission.

7. Moderation and Editorial Discretion

HOA-PMS may review, reject, edit, anonymize, categorize, unpublish, restore, restrict, or delete User Content, and may suspend or terminate accounts, when we reasonably consider that action appropriate for editorial, legal, safety, anti-spam, security, or operational reasons. Moderation does not mean HOA-PMS adopts, verifies, endorses, or guarantees User Content. We may use automated tools to assist with spam, abuse, and security review and are not obligated to investigate every factual dispute.

8. Third-Party Content and Federal Law

Much of the material on HOA-PMS may be supplied by users. To the extent applicable, federal law, including 47 U.S.C. § 230, may provide protections concerning third-party content and good-faith content moderation. Nothing in these Terms expands or contracts any protection, exception, immunity, duty, or liability established by law.

9. Copyright and Intellectual Property Complaints

You may not upload material you do not have the right to use. HOA-PMS may remove or disable access to material after a credible infringement complaint and may restrict or terminate repeat infringers where appropriate. A copyright complaint should identify the copyrighted work and allegedly infringing material, provide sufficient location and contact information, state the complaining party’s good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized, and contain the statements and signature required by applicable copyright law. Nothing here represents that HOA-PMS has obtained a statutory safe harbor unless all requirements for that safe harbor have actually been satisfied.

10. Accounts and Security

You are responsible for your password and activity through your account. Your login email functions as your account identifier and may not be changeable. Notification-delivery addresses and preferences may be separately editable. You may not obtain unauthorized access, probe or circumvent security, interfere with Site operation, or use automated means to create accounts, submit content, or manipulate reactions.

11. Email Communications

If you create an account and retain an email-notification setting, you authorize HOA-PMS to send account, verification, security, and content-notification messages consistent with your settings. You may change available notification preferences through your account. Transactional or security messages necessary to administer an account may still be sent when appropriate.

12. No Professional Advice

Stories and other content are for discussion, information, and entertainment. They are not legal, financial, accounting, engineering, property-management, insurance, medical, or other professional advice.

13. No Warranty

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SITE AND ITS CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” HOA-PMS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR SUITABLE FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR THAT USER CONTENT IS TRUE, ACCURATE, OR RELIABLE.

14. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HOA-PMS AND ITS OWNER, OPERATOR, ADMINISTRATORS, MODERATORS, AGENTS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, REPUTATIONAL HARM, OR DAMAGES ARISING FROM RELIANCE ON USER CONTENT, THIRD-PARTY CONDUCT, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, OR CONTENT MODERATION.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THEIR AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE SITE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID HOA-PMS DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR $100. Nothing excludes liability that applicable law does not permit to be excluded or limited.

15. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless HOA-PMS and its owner, operator, administrators, moderators, agents, and service providers from third-party claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, losses, and reasonable costs and attorneys’ fees arising from your User Content, unlawful use of the Site, violation of these Terms, or infringement or violation of another person’s rights. HOA-PMS may control the defense of a matter subject to indemnification, and you agree to reasonably cooperate.

16. Illinois Law and Venue

These Terms and disputes arising from or relating to the Site are governed by Illinois law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where federal law controls. Subject to any law requiring a different forum, the state and federal courts serving Cook County, Illinois will have exclusive jurisdiction and venue, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

Nothing limits rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be waived. Illinois statutory protections and limitations apply according to their terms, including laws concerning electronic transactions, privacy and data security, publicity rights, defamation and privacy claims, consumer practices, and protected participation or speech.

17. Changes

We may modify the Site and these Terms. Material changes will be reflected by an updated effective date and, when appropriate, additional notice. Changes apply prospectively from their effective date unless applicable law permits otherwise. If you do not agree to revised Terms, stop submitting content and discontinue account use.

18. Account Deletion and Retention

You may stop using the Site at any time and may use available controls to delete your account. Account deletion does not necessarily delete stories submitted separately or records reasonably retained for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, dispute resolution, backups, or enforcement.

19. Severability; No Waiver; Entire Agreement

If a provision is held unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and the remainder will remain effective. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any additional terms expressly presented for a feature constitute the agreement governing content submission and account use.

20. Reports and Legal Requests

If you believe content violates these Terms or your legal rights, report it through any reporting or contact method made available on the Site and identify the specific content and basis for the request. HOA-PMS may preserve and disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with valid legal process, enforce these Terms, protect rights or safety, or as otherwise permitted by law.