HOAsk — Terms of Service

By accepting these Terms, you specifically acknowledge and agree that you have read and understood the following, each of which is a material part of this agreement:

• Answers produced by the Service are AI-generated and may be wrong;
• Answers are not legal advice and must always be independently verified;
• you assume all risk arising from your use of the Service and any Answer;
• you, not HOAsk, are solely responsible for anything you do with an Answer;
• our liability to you is limited and capped as set out below; and
• billing, pricing, and plan terms may change.

These acknowledgments are reflected in detail throughout these Terms, and your acceptance applies to all of them.

HOAsk is a software platform that lets you upload governing documents for homeowners associations and community associations (“Governing Documents”) and submit plain-language questions. The Service uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and retrieval technology to generate responses that reference and quote from the documents you upload, including supporting citations such as quoted text and page references (“Answers”).

The Service is a productivity and information-retrieval tool only. It does not provide legal, compliance, financial, or professional advice; it does not interpret or apply law; and it does not make determinations about any party’s rights, obligations, or liabilities. Answers are automated informational outputs and nothing more.

Your use of the Service does not create an attorney-client, fiduciary, advisory, or other professional relationship between you and HOAsk. HOAsk is not your lawyer, agent, or representative.

You agree that you do not and will not rely on the Service or any Answer as a sole or authoritative basis for any decision, communication, enforcement action, approval, denial, fine, notice, or other action. Any reliance you place on an Answer is at your own risk and is your independent decision.

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. You are responsible for safeguarding your account credentials and for all activity under your account, whether or not authorized by you. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete account information and to keep it updated. You must notify us promptly of any unauthorized access or security breach involving your account. Each account is for the registering organization and its authorized personnel only; you may not share, resell, or provide access to anyone outside your organization without our written consent.

We may offer a free trial subject to limits we set and may change at any time, which currently include a limited trial period, a limited number of communities, and a limited number of questions. Trial limits are enforced by the Service. Upon expiration of the trial or upon reaching any trial limit, continued use requires a paid subscription. Trials are provided “as is” with no warranties of any kind, and we may modify, suspend, or discontinue trials at any time without liability.

Plans and pricing. Paid access is provided on a subscription basis. Pricing is based on the size and number of communities associated with your account, as presented at the point of purchase or on our pricing page.

Billing and renewal. Subscriptions are billed in advance on a recurring basis (monthly or annual, as selected) through our third-party payment processor. Your subscription automatically renews at the end of each billing period at the then-current rate unless you cancel before the renewal date. You authorize us and our payment processor to store your payment method and to charge it for all fees, taxes, and renewals until you cancel.

Billing is subject to change. We reserve the right to change our prices, plans, fees, billing methods, and billing cycles at any time. We will provide notice of changes that affect your recurring fees before they take effect on your next renewal. Your continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the new pricing.

Failed payments. If a charge fails, we may retry, suspend, or terminate your access. You remain responsible for all amounts owed.

Cancellation. You may cancel at any time through your account or billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.

No refunds. All fees are non-refundable. We do not provide refunds or credits under any circumstances, including for partial periods, unused questions, downgrades, or periods during which your account was unused, except where required by non-waivable law.

Taxes. Fees are exclusive of all taxes, which are your responsibility, other than taxes based on our net income.

Pricing depends on accurate information about the size and number of communities you use the Service for. You agree that the Governing Documents and community information in your account reasonably reflect those communities. We reserve the right to review account usage and your Governing Documents to verify that your plan matches your actual usage and community size. If we determine your usage or community size materially exceeds your plan, we may move you to the appropriate plan and adjust your pricing prospectively. Misrepresenting community size or count, or structuring usage to avoid appropriate pricing, is a material breach of these Terms and may result in repricing, suspension, or termination.

Ownership.As between you and us, you retain all rights to the Governing Documents and other content you upload (“Customer Content”). We do not claim ownership of it.

License to operate the Service. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, process, reproduce, transmit, and display your Customer Content, and to create derived data such as text embeddings and indexes, solely to provide, secure, maintain, and improve the Service for you, including processing through the third-party providers described in Section 13.

Your representations. You represent and warrant that: (a) you own or have all rights and authorizations necessary to upload the Customer Content and permit its processing; (b) the Customer Content and its processing do not violate any law, contract, confidentiality obligation, or third-party right; and (c) you are solely responsible for the accuracy, completeness, currency, labeling, and authenticity of the Customer Content.

Accuracy depends on your documents. You understand that the accuracy and completeness of Answers depend directly on the documents you upload. Outdated, incomplete, superseded, amended, mislabeled, corrupted, or low-quality documents will produce unreliable Answers. You are solely responsible for uploading the correct, current, and complete versions of your Governing Documents, including all amendments.

You agree not to: use the Service to provide legal advice to third parties as a substitute for an attorney; upload content you are not authorized to upload or that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, or malicious; attempt to access the Service, other accounts, or other customers’ data without authorization; probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service or breach its security; reverse engineer, decompile, scrape, or attempt to extract source code, models, or underlying data, except as permitted by non-waivable law; resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service except as expressly permitted; misrepresent your identity, organization, or community size; or use the Service in any way that overburdens, disrupts, or interferes with it. We may suspend or terminate access for any violation, with or without notice.

This Section is a material part of these Terms, and you accept it by using the Service.

• Answers are generated by automated artificial intelligence systems and may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, fabricated, or wrong, even when they appear confident, detailed, or include citations.
• AI systems can and do produce errors, including misquotation, misattribution, hallucinated content, omission of relevant provisions, and surfacing of provisions that do not actually apply. The system can and will make mistakes and should never be trusted without verification.
• Answers are not legal advice, not professional advice, and not a determination of any party’s rights or obligations.
• You must independently verify every Answer against the cited Governing Documents and, where appropriate, with a qualified attorney, before relying on it or communicating it to any homeowner, board member, resident, vendor, regulator, or other party. The citations and quoted text exist to enable that verification.
• You assume all risk arising from your use of the Service and any Answer. You are solely and exclusively responsible for any decision, communication, interpretation, enforcement action, fine, approval, denial, or other action taken based on, derived from, or related to an Answer, and for all consequences of those actions.
• HOAsk has no responsibility or liability whatsoever for what you do with an Answer after it is provided to you, or for any third party’s use of an Answer you communicate to them.
• The Service does not interpret, apply, or opine on federal, state, or local law, fair housing requirements, or other regulations, and no Answer should be treated as doing so.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you knowingly and voluntarily assume all risks associated with your use of the Service and any Answer. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you release and discharge HOAsk and its owners, officers, employees, contractors, and agents (the “HOAsk Parties”) from any and all claims, demands, damages, and liabilities, known or unknown, arising out of or related to your use of the Service or any Answer, including any decision, communication, or action you took in reliance on an Answer. This release does not apply to liability that cannot be released as a matter of non-waivable law.

We aim to keep the Service available but do not guarantee uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free operation. The Service may be unavailable due to maintenance, third-party outages, or factors outside our control. We may modify, suspend, limit, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time, with or without notice, without liability to you.

The Service relies on third-party providers, which may include cloud hosting, database and storage, AI generation and embedding, document processing, and payment processing providers. Your Customer Content may be processed by these providers solely to deliver the Service. We are not responsible or liable for the acts, omissions, performance, availability, security, or output of any third-party provider, and your use may be subject to their applicable terms.

We implement reasonable measures designed to protect the Service, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we do not warrant that the Service or your Customer Content will be free from unauthorized access, loss, or alteration. You are responsible for maintaining your own backup copies of your Governing Documents. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any unauthorized access to or loss, corruption, or disclosure of data except to the extent directly caused by our gross negligence or willful misconduct.

We may offer features identified as beta, preview, or experimental, which are provided “as is,” may be changed or removed at any time, and carry no warranties. If you provide feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use them for any purpose without obligation to you.

THE SERVICE AND ALL ANSWERS ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE HOASK PARTIES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY THAT THE SERVICE OR ANY ANSWER WILL BE ACCURATE, RELIABLE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, SECURE, UNINTERRUPTED, OR ERROR-FREE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM THE SERVICE CREATES ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED HERE. YOU ASSUME FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR USE OF AND RELIANCE ON THE SERVICE AND ANY ANSWER.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:

• IN NO EVENT WILL THE HOASK PARTIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, BUSINESS, OR REPUTATION, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR ANY ANSWER, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
• WITHOUT LIMITING THE ABOVE, THE HOASK PARTIES ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, FINE, PENALTY, JUDGMENT, DISPUTE, ENFORCEMENT ACTION, REGULATORY ACTION, OR LIABILITY OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM ANY DECISION, COMMUNICATION, OR ACTION YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY MADE IN RELIANCE ON, OR DERIVED FROM, AN ANSWER.
• THE HOASK PARTIES’ TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE TOTAL FEES YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).

THESE LIMITATIONS ARE AN ESSENTIAL BASIS OF THE BARGAIN AND APPLY EVEN IF A REMEDY FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you; in that case our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the HOAsk Parties from and against any and all claims, damages, liabilities, losses, judgments, penalties, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your Customer Content; (b) your use of the Service or any Answer; (c) any decision, communication, or action you or any third party took in reliance on an Answer; (d) your violation of these Terms or any law or third-party right; or (e) any dispute between you and a homeowner, board, resident, vendor, or other third party.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by AAA (American Arbitration Association) under its rules, seated in Richland County, South Carolina, rather than in court, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court. You and HOAsk each waive the right to a jury trial and waive the right to participate in any class, collective, or representative action. If the class-action waiver is found unenforceable, the entire arbitration provision is void. You may opt out of arbitration by notifying us in writing at contact@hoask.org within 30 days of first accepting these Terms.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or related to the Service or these Terms must be brought within one (1) year after the claim arose; otherwise it is permanently barred.

These Terms apply while you use the Service. You may cancel at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, fail to pay, misrepresent your account, or use the Service in a way that creates risk or legal exposure. Upon termination, your right to use the Service ends immediately, and we may delete Customer Content consistent with our data practices. You are responsible for retaining your own copies. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including Sections 3, 8, 10–20, 22, and 23.

We may update these Terms at any time. If we make material changes, we will provide reasonable notice (for example, by email or through the Service). Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not agree, your sole remedy is to stop using the Service.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of South Carolina, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to Section 19, the exclusive venue for any dispute is the state or federal courts located in Richland County, South Carolina, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including acts of God, natural disasters, outages, third-party provider failures, cyberattacks, labor disputes, war, or governmental action.

These Terms, together with any order or plan terms presented at purchase and any policies referenced here, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service and supersede all prior agreements. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, or severed, and the remaining provisions will remain in full effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them freely, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. You consent to receive notices and to transact electronically, and agree that electronic acceptance of these Terms has the same effect as a handwritten signature. Notices to us may be sent to contact@hoask.org.