No federal agency tracks it. No state regulator reports it. Yet a new analysis by TrueHOA estimates that Americans collectively spend at least $5 to $10 billion annually on HOA-related litigation and disputes — making it a massive, largely invisible legal cost center hidden inside 370,000 separate budgets.
These costs are buried inside 370,000 separate budgets. That invisibility is the problem. You can't fix what you can't see.
Jonathan Gropper, J.D. — Founder, TrueHOAA Billion-Dollar Problem Split Two Ways
The estimate covers both sides of the dispute. First, the costs absorbed by HOA associations: legal fees, collection actions, dispute resolution, and compliance spending rolled into operating budgets and special assessments. Second, and less visible, the costs shouldered by homeowners directly.
Absorbed through operating budgets, special assessments, and collection actions. Based on CAI data showing $417.1B in total U.S. HOA contributions in 2024, with legal costs representing 3–7% of operating budgets.
Paid out of pocket by homeowners who hire attorneys, pay disputed fines, or settle rather than fight. Excludes the invisible costs: fines paid under duress, challenges never filed, and homes sold early to escape unresolved disputes.
These costs don't appear in any budget. They don't show up in any filing. They are the shadow economy of HOA governance failure — and by any reasonable estimate, they dwarf the litigation spending that does get counted.
The system isn't designed to be unfair. It's designed to be fast and cheap to run. Fast and cheap means unverifiable. Unverifiable means indefensible the moment trust breaks and proof is demanded. Then the problem becomes really expensive.
Jonathan Gropper, J.D. — Founder, TrueHOAUnverifiable Governance
More than 77 million Americans live under HOA governance, subject to board-controlled decisions on budgets, assessments, rules, and leadership that directly affect their daily lives and the value of their homes. Yet the methods used to reach those decisions date to the era of dot-matrix printers and carbon copies.
Paper ballots. Email votes. Proxy chains. Room counts. In practice, these are not verifiable voting systems. They are liability generators.
When a vote is challenged — and increasingly, they are — the burden of proof falls on the people who ran the process. That means the property manager, the board, and the management company. If the result cannot be independently verified end-to-end, it cannot be easily defended.
Process is not proof. Running an election is not the same as being able to prove its outcome and correctness at each step of the process.
Jonathan Gropper, J.D. — Founder, TrueHOAVerified Governance™
TrueHOA's answer is Verified Governance™ — a framework built on the premise that every HOA election and community vote should be provable, from the moment a ballot is cast through final tabulation, by anyone who needs to verify it.
- 01Every vote cryptographically timestamped and anchored to an immutable, independently auditable record
- 02Every participant identity verified without compromising ballot anonymity or privacy
- 03Every result self-verifying — the outcome is not a claim, it is a proof
- 04The standard extends beyond annual elections to assessments, rule changes, and budget approvals year-round
This is not just software. It is a verifiable standard for how communities make decisions. The best-run communities don't just vote once a year — they build participation throughout the year on the decisions that shape the community.
If it can't be fully verified, it can't be easily defended. The burden shifts to the property managers, the boards, and ultimately the community itself.
Jonathan Gropper, J.D. — Founder, TrueHOA