What real estate agents need to know about HOA governance risk

"The core issue is being able to prove an election outcome and prove decisions, not just trust that they were made right. And as simple as that sounds, up until TrueHOA, that was not on the market, not even close. You still had HOAs doing paper votes. They had paper proxies, quorum chasing and quorum harvesting. You could have a situation where the property manager just decides not to count people's votes. You had situations where votes will be counted in the back room, and whatever the outcome [was in favor] for the incumbents, obviously [that] would happen, and it just kept on repeating."

"This is the biggest pain point that is fixable, and it has the highest impact on property values. I mean, just imagine, as a [real estate agent], you're taking your clients, and you're saying, Do you want to see the HOA that has verified governance where there's no Mickey Mouse games, or do you want to go to the HOA where you just trust that they do things the right way?' If you look at major cities New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco a lot of buildings are at the point where the mism"

"TrueHOA estimates Americans spend $5 billion to $10 billion annually on HOA-related litigation caused by outdated methods. Its flagship tool Verified Governance uses cryptographic verification, timestamping and independent auditing to create transparent, defensible HOA elections while preserving ballot privacy, Gropper said."

Americans spend $5 billion to $10 billion annually on HOA-related litigation driven by outdated governance methods. Unverifiable HOA elections rely on paper votes and proxies, enabling quorum chasing, quorum harvesting, and vote counting practices that can favor incumbents. Property managers may choose not to count votes, and outcomes can be repeated without accountability. HOA fees also reduce buyers’ effective purchasing power over time. Verified Governance aims to create transparent, defensible HOA elections using cryptographic verification, timestamping, and independent auditing while preserving ballot privacy. Real estate agents can use election verification as a due diligence signal to identify HOAs that avoid “Mickey Mouse” governance and protect property values.

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