Privacy policy

Effective 2 October 2026. This policy covers the KeepHOA application and the keephoa.com website.

1. Who we are

KeepHOA is software for volunteer treasurers of homeowners associations and similar small organisations. In this policy, "we" and "us" mean the operator of KeepHOA, and "you" means the person using the application or this website. You can reach us at support@keephoa.com.

2. Your association's financial data

The application is a program that runs inside your browser. It is not a hosted service that holds your records. When you record a payment, import a bank file or produce a report, all of that happens on your own device.

Your books are stored in two places, both of which you control:

• Your browser's local storage on your device. This is the working copy the application reads and writes as you use it.
• A file in your own Google Drive, if you choose that option. This is the durable copy that you share with your board and that survives a change of computer or treasurer.

If you prefer not to use Google Drive, you can keep the books only on your computer and save copies wherever you wish.

We do not receive, store, process or transmit your association's financial records, with one optional exception: Autopilot, described in section 5, which handles them in its memory only while a run lasts. We could not produce a copy of your books if we were asked to, because we do not keep one.

3. How KeepHOA uses Google Drive

Connecting Google Drive is optional. If you connect it, the application asks Google for a single, narrow permission, known as drive.file.

What this permission allows

• Creating the books file for your association, and any folder it needs.
• Reading and updating that file, and files you explicitly select using Google's own file picker.
• Reading who a file is shared with, so the application knows whether you have edit or view access.
• Sharing those files when you ask it to: adding a board member as "Can edit" or "Can view" from inside KeepHOA, or, if you turn on the owner portal, sharing each home's encrypted portal file by link.

What this permission does not allow

• Listing, searching, opening or reading any other file in your Google Drive.
• Reading your Gmail, or any access to Google Contacts, Google Photos or any other Google service. (Sending email from your Gmail is a separate, optional permission; see below.)
• Changing who any other file in your Drive is shared with.

Where the data travels

The books file moves directly between your browser and Google's servers. It does not pass through any server operated by us, except during a run of the optional Autopilot add-on (section 5).

So that you aren't asked to sign in to Google again every hour, KeepHOA's sign-in helper, which runs on our own site, keeps Google's long-lived sign-in credential in your own browser: encrypted with a key only the helper holds, in a cookie that web pages can't read and other sites can't use. When the access token Google issues expires, about every hour, your browser asks the helper, which uses that cookie to get a new access token from Google and hands it back to your browser. The short-lived access token, your name and your email address therefore pass through our server briefly, in memory. We do not store or log them, and we never use them to open your Google Drive, your Gmail or your books. Signing out of Google in KeepHOA deletes the cookie, and you can remove KeepHOA's access at any time in your Google Account.

Sending email from your Gmail (optional)

If you choose to email homeowners or the board from KeepHOA, the application asks Google for one more permission, gmail.send, the first time you send. It lets KeepHOA send the messages you send from inside the app, from your own Gmail account, and nothing else: it cannot read, search or delete your mail. Each message goes directly from your browser to Google and appears in your Gmail's Sent folder. KeepHOA records what was sent in your books, so the board can see it.

Limited Use

KeepHOA's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Specifically, we do not transfer, sell or share Google user data with third parties; we do not use it for advertising; we do not use it to build profiles; and no human at KeepHOA reads it. Because the data never reaches us, these commitments are a property of how the software is built rather than a promise about what we choose to do.

Disconnecting

You can revoke KeepHOA's access at any time from your Google Account's security settings, under third-party access. Your books file stays in your Drive and remains yours; the application simply stops being able to open it until you reconnect.

4. Attachments and documents

Receipts, invoices and other documents you attach are stored alongside your books, in your Google Drive folder, or on your own computer. The books file records only the file's name, type and size. We never receive the documents themselves. Archive files, which hold your closed years once they are moved out of the working books, are stored the same way: in your Drive folder beside the books, and on your computer.

5. What we do collect

Licence purchases

If you buy a licence, payment is handled by Dodo Payments, the company that takes the payment, adds any sales tax and sends your receipt. We receive the email address you used and a record that a licence was issued, so that we can send you the licence key and help you if it goes missing. We never see your card details. The licence key is verified by the application on your own device and does not require the application to contact us.

Email you give us

If you enter your email address on this site to hear about the product, we store that address and use it to write to you about KeepHOA. The form is stored with Netlify Forms, part of Netlify, our website host. It keeps exactly what you type into it: your email address and, if you fill it in, how many homes your association has. We do not sell it, rent it or pass it to anyone for their own use. Every email includes a way to unsubscribe, and you can ask us to delete your address at any time.

Reminder emails (optional)

In the application's Settings → Routines you can ask us to email you on the days your routines fall due ("October billing is ready: open KeepHOA"). Nothing is sent or kept unless you sign up. If you do, our reminder service stores only your email address, the days you picked, your time zone, when you signed up and confirmed, and the date of your last reminder, plus your association's name only if you tick the box to include it. It never receives your books: no amounts, homeowners or entries. The service runs on Netlify, our host, and keeps this in Netlify's storage; the emails are delivered by our email provider from support@keephoa.com. We send a confirmation email first and nothing else until you click its link; a request that isn't confirmed within 7 days is deleted. To stop, click the one-click unsubscribe link in any reminder, or Unsubscribe in the application; either deletes your address and days straight away. If you would rather not share an email address, download the calendar file (.ics) from the same place instead: it is made on your computer and nothing is sent.

Complaints from owners (optional)

If your board turns on complaints in the owner portal, a homeowner can send the board a complaint, with up to three photos, from their own portal page. It is encrypted on the homeowner's device, before it leaves, to a key that only your association's books hold (HPKE, RFC 9180: P-256, HKDF-SHA-256, AES-256-GCM). It then waits on KeepHOA's relay, a small service on our own website (app.keephoa.com/api/complaints, run on Netlify and stored in Netlify Blobs), until a board member opens the books. Their KeepHOA collects it, decrypts it on their computer and files it in your books, and once your books holding it are saved in your association's Google Drive, deletes it from the relay. Anything not collected within 90 days is deleted. While it waits, the relay holds only the encrypted message, which we cannot read, and the least it needs to deliver it: when it arrived, its size, and a one-way hash identifying which portal link sent it. It never holds a name, an address, a home or a word of the message. Only homes of your association can send, at most 10 messages a day each. The board's replies go back inside that homeowner's own encrypted portal page. A home a complaint is about is never told who complained. Turning complaints off deletes everything still waiting on the relay. This is the only place KeepHOA's servers ever hold anything a homeowner wrote, and only in a form we cannot read.

Autopilot (optional, paid)

Autopilot is a yearly add-on that runs your routines on schedule while nobody has the books open. It is off unless a board member reads what it does and connects it in the application's Settings → Routines → Autopilot, and it works only for books kept in Google Drive. It is the one case where your books pass through our server.

• What it accesses. With the connected board member's Google account: the books file in your association's Google Drive, and files KeepHOA made for it such as the letterhead logo, and sending email from that Gmail (gmail.send: sending only, never reading mail). Google shows these as lasting (offline) access when you connect.
• When. Only during a run: once a day, in the hour you choose. Never while someone has the books open, and it saves only onto the version it started from.
• In memory only. During a run the books are downloaded into the server's memory, opened with the same accounting engine as the application, the routines run, the books are saved back to your Google Drive, and the copy in memory is dropped. The books are never written to the server's storage or its logs.
• What is stored. Google's lasting access for the connected account (a refresh token), encrypted with a key only the server holds; the books file's id and the association's id; the schedule and any extra addresses to email; and a last-run summary: when, how it ended, and counts. No amounts, no names, no homes.
• Where. The Autopilot service runs on Netlify, our host, and keeps the above in Netlify's storage. Its renewal reminders come from support@keephoa.com through our email provider.
• Money. By default Autopilot only prepares the steps that post money and emails the board to approve them in KeepHOA. A board can choose, routine by routine, to let it post them itself; each is then logged as run by Autopilot on behalf of the board member. Autopilot never opens owner complaints.
• How to stop. Pause or Disconnect in Settings → Routines → Autopilot. Disconnect asks Google to revoke the access and deletes everything stored. You can also remove KeepHOA in your Google Account's security settings. When the yearly subscription ends, Autopilot stops by itself.

Support messages

If you email us, we keep the correspondence so we can help you and remember the context if you write again.

This website

This site sets no cookies, runs no advertising or analytics scripts, and makes no requests to third-party servers. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and reliability.

6. Service providers

We use a small number of providers to run the business, and only for the purposes described above: website hosting, payment processing for licence purchases (Dodo Payments), and an email service for sending licence keys, reminder emails you sign up for, and product updates. None of them receives your association's financial records, because we do not keep them. The one exception is Autopilot, described above, whose runs happen on our host, Netlify, in memory only.

7. Keeping data

We keep licence records for as long as the licence is valid, so that we can reissue a lost key, and afterwards as our tax and accounting obligations require. We keep email addresses until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove them. Your association's financial records are kept for exactly as long as you keep them, because they are in your hands and not ours.

8. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, or to object to our use of it. Write to support@keephoa.com and we will respond within 30 days. In practice the data we hold about any individual is limited to an email address and, if you have bought a licence, a purchase record.

9. Children

KeepHOA is intended for adults administering an association's finances. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

10. Security

The strongest security property of this product is structural: the data that would matter most in a breach is not in our possession. Beyond that, the site and application are served over HTTPS, the application makes no network requests other than to Google when you have connected Drive and, for the optional features described above, to our own service, and licence keys are verified using a cryptographic signature checked on your own device.

Because your books live in your Google Drive and on your computer, their security also depends on you: use a strong password and two-factor authentication on the Google account that owns the books, and be careful about who you share the file with.

11. Where we are

KeepHOA is operated from India and serves customers internationally. The limited personal data described in section 5 may be processed in the countries where our service providers operate.

12. Changes

If we change this policy we will update the effective date above, and for anything significant we will say so plainly on the website. We will not make a change that would allow us to collect your association's financial records without telling you clearly first.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about anything else: support@keephoa.com.