Terms of Service

By accessing or using Fenceline, you agree to these Terms of Service and to our Privacy Policy. When you sign up you confirm that agreement explicitly after being shown these terms in full, and we keep a record of which version you agreed to and when. If you don’t agree, don’t use the site. Fenceline is a personal project operated by an individual, not a company, based in the United States (the “Operator,” “we,” “us”).

Fenceline is a platform for residents to describe, rate, and discuss the homeowners’ associations they live under. The community-level reads it shows (the vibe tier, the strictness and toxicity meters, and the dues, fine, and response figures) are aggregations of subjective resident opinion and self-reported experience. They are not statements of verified fact, and they are not professional, legal, financial, or real-estate advice. Don’t make a purchase, rental, or legal decision on Fenceline alone. Verify anything that matters through the association’s official records and your own due diligence.

You must be at least 18 years old to use Fenceline. By using it, you represent that you are.

You sign in with a one-time link sent to your email, so there is no password to manage. You’re responsible for the activity under your account and for keeping access to your email secure. Don’t share your account or impersonate anyone. Notify us if you suspect unauthorized use.

You keep ownership of what you post. To run the service, you grant the Operator a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and adapt your content for the purpose of operating and improving Fenceline, including aggregating it with other residents’ contributions into the community reads (tiers, meters, medians, and generated summaries). This license lasts as long as your content is on the platform and, for content already blended into an aggregate, as reasonably needed to keep that aggregate coherent.

You are solely responsible for what you post, and you represent that you have the right to post it and that it reflects your genuine, good-faith experience or opinion.

Separately from the license above, we may build, display, license, and sell aggregated and de-identified data we derive from residents’ contributions across Fenceline. That is the aggregated material behind each community read, such as scores, tiers, stance verdicts, and counts, with anything that could identify you or a single contributor stripped out first. We don’t license or sell your personal information, your account, or free-text you wrote that identifies you.

Fenceline only works if reviews are honest and fair. When you post, you agree not to:

• state something you know to be false as if it were fact;
• post the private or identifying information of an individual: a board member, manager, or neighbor’s name paired with personal details, home address, contact information, or similar (“doxxing”);
• harass, threaten, defame, or incite violence against any person;
• post content that is unlawful, hateful, or infringes someone else’s intellectual-property or privacy rights;
• impersonate anyone, or manipulate the reads with fake, duplicate, or paid reviews;
• spam, scrape, or attempt to break or overload the service.

Aim your criticism at how the association operates: its rules, its enforcement, its board’s conduct. Leave private individuals out of it. Our Acceptable Use Policy spells out what belongs here and what crosses the line, and is the standing policy our moderation decisions cite.

Content on Fenceline is submitted by residents and reflects their own views and experiences. We do not independently verify individual reviews or the figures residents report. Where a contributor is marked as a “verified resident,” that verification concerns whether the person lives (or lived) in the community. It is not a verification that any particular statement they make is true. Reads may be incomplete, out of date, or based on a small number of residents, and one person’s experience of an HOA can differ sharply from another’s.

We may review, moderate, remove, or restrict any content, and suspend or terminate any account, at our discretion, with or without notice, particularly over content that violates Section 6. We are under no obligation to monitor content, but we may.

In serious cases we may permanently ban an account. A single serious violation, such as posting a private individual’s personal information, making a credible threat, or sustained harassment of a person, can lead to a ban on its own; so can a pattern of content removed for breaking the rules in Section 6. Bans are the last step and are used sparingly. There is no fixed-term suspension ladder: a ban is permanent, and the decision to ban is always made by a person, never automatically.

A ban stops future participation. Content you already posted may stay on the platform unless it is separately removed. Creating or using another account to get around a suspension or ban is itself a further violation of these terms.

If we ban your account, we will tell you the policy area involved and how to appeal, but not the specific report, reporter, or post behind the decision, so that reporting stays safe in a small community. You may appeal by email to the address in Section 16. Appeals are reviewed case by case, on no fixed timeline, and nothing in these terms gives you a right to reinstatement. If you have tried to evade enforcement, a reviewer may weigh that against your appeal; that judgment is always made by a person, never applied automatically.

If you believe content about you is false, defamatory, or exposes your private information, follow the process on our Report content & takedown page. We take these requests seriously and will review them promptly. Fenceline is a provider of an interactive computer service; we are not the author of user-submitted content and are not responsible for it, but we will act on well-founded reports.

If you believe content on Fenceline infringes your copyright, send us a notice under the DMCA. The required elements, and how to file a counter-notice, are on our Report content & takedown page. We respond to valid notices, including by removing infringing content and, in appropriate circumstances, terminating repeat infringers.

The Fenceline name, design, the vibe-scale rating system, and the site itself are ours or our licensors’. These terms don’t grant you any right to use them except to use the service as intended.

Fenceline is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We don’t warrant that the site will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that the reads and information on it are accurate, complete, or current.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of data, reputation, or goodwill, arising from your use of Fenceline or from any content on it. Because Fenceline is a free, personal project, the Operator’s total liability to you for any claim relating to the service is limited to one hundred U.S. dollars ($100).

You agree to indemnify and hold the Operator harmless from any claims, damages, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of the content you post or your violation of these terms, including any claim that your content defamed someone or exposed their private information.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Georgia, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Georgia, and you consent to their jurisdiction. Before filing anything, please contact us first; most issues can be resolved directly.

Any dispute must be brought in your individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, or representative proceeding. You and the Operator each waive any right to have a dispute heard as a class action.

We may update these terms as the product evolves. When we make a material change, we update the date above, send a notice to the email on your account, and ask you to agree to the new version before you keep using your account. We may also suspend or discontinue the service, or your access to it, at any time.

Reach us, including for takedown, copyright, or legal notices, at hello@fenceline.homes.

These terms are the entire agreement between you and the Operator about Fenceline, and they replace any earlier understanding on that subject. If any provision of these terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be limited or removed to the least extent necessary, and the rest of the terms will stay in full effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; the Operator may transfer its rights if it continues the service in another form.

Fenceline’s core is free to use, but some content or features may require payment, such as a detailed report on a single community or time-limited access to part of the site. Access you earn by contributing, like the reading access that posting a review unlocks, is itself time-limited and can be revoked, and it runs under the access rules in effect at the time. We’ll show you the price and what it covers before you’re asked to pay.