Photo to mailed HOA violation notice

The idea

Self-managed HOA boards run violations on a hobbyist stack: a phone photo, a Word template, a trip to the post office for certified mail, and a folder of receipts someone’s spouse maintains. When a fined homeowner lawyers up, the board scrambles to prove the courtesy notice ever went out. AppFolio and CINC solve this, but they are enterprise suites priced and built for firms managing thousands of doors, not a volunteer treasurer with 60 homes.

The wedge is the escalation ladder with proof. Courtesy notice, warning, fine, each one dated, photographed, and certified-mailed through Lob, with the tracking record welded to the parcel. That single compliance story is worth more than any dashboard.

Who pays

Self-managed HOA boards and one-person management companies pay 29 USD/month per community plus postage passthrough. The buyer is the board president or treasurer, spending association funds, which makes the purchase painless. Distribution: HOA board Facebook groups, state Community Associations Institute chapters, and content targeting searches like how to send an HOA violation letter, which boards google constantly.

MVP scope

• Parcel roster via CSV import with per-parcel violation history
• Per-community rule library with editable letter templates
• New-violation wizard: photos, rule, escalation step, letter preview
• Lob certified mail send with tracking webhooks saved to the parcel record
• Immutable PDF snapshot of every letter as sent
• Skip for v1: homeowner portal, fine payment collection, ARC requests, board voting workflows

Build NoticeBoard, a web app that turns a photo of an HOA violation into a printed, certified-mailed notice with a full audit trail.

Stack: Next.js (App Router), Supabase (Postgres + auth + storage), Lob API for print and certified mail, Stripe for subscription plus metered postage.

Core flow: a board member or manager selects a property (parcels imported via CSV: address, owner name, mailing address), uploads one or more photos, picks a rule from the community's rule library, and picks the escalation step: courtesy notice, formal warning, or fine. The app generates a letter from a template that merges the rule text, photos, dates, and prior-notice history for that parcel, then sends it via Lob certified mail. Lob tracking events post back via webhook and attach to the property record.

Pages: magic-link login, communities list, parcel roster with per-parcel violation history, new-violation wizard, rule library editor (rule code, title, full text, default cure period), letter preview before send, and billing.

Implementation details: enforce the escalation ladder in code, so a fine cannot be issued unless a prior warning exists for the same rule and parcel within the configurable lookback window. Store an immutable snapshot PDF of every letter as sent, because the audit trail is the product.

Pricing: 29 USD/month per community via Stripe, with Lob postage billed as metered usage at cost plus 20 percent.