Residents and contacts on a property

Not everyone connected to a property will ever log in. The owner might live in another state and rent the place out. The resident might be 82 and prefer a phone call over an app. HomeHerald handles both with Residents & contacts - person records that live on the property itself, with no account needed.

This is also how a community starts: on day one nobody has signed up, so every name on your roster is a record here. When one of them signs up later with the matching email or phone, the record and the account become one person.

Claimed vs. not yet claimed - the difference in one line

• A claimed person has an account and has claimed the property. They see the ledger, pay dues, book amenities.
• A person who is not yet claimed is someone the HOA knows about - a name, an optional email, an optional phone, and a role. No account, no login, no portal.

Every row under Residents & contacts carries one of those two badges, so you can see at a glance who is actually in the app.

A property can have both at once: a tenant who claimed the home and lives there, plus the owner on file as a contact.

Adding a resident

Three ways, same result:

From the property (the day-one case)

1. Go to Properties, open the property, click Modify
2. In the Household section, click Add resident
3. Enter a name (email and phone are optional), pick a role - Owner, Tenant, or Other, and tick Billing contact if they pay the bills
4. Leave Send invite now checked if you want them invited once invites are live
5. Click Add to this property

If the email or phone you typed already belongs to an account in this community, HomeHerald links that account to the home instead of creating a second record for the same person. Underneath the form, or link an existing account is the direct path when you know the account by name.

From the Members area (fastest for one-offs)

1. Go to Members in the admin sidebar
2. Click the Residents & contacts tab
3. Click Add resident
4. Enter a name (email and phone are optional), pick a role - Owner, Tenant, or Other
5. Search for the property and select it
6. Save

From import

When you import your property list, the owner name, email, and phone columns become records on each property - and a tenant (or renter, occupant, co-owner) column set creates a second person on the same home. Nothing extra to do.

Nobody needs an email

A name alone is enough. This is exactly for the resident who will never touch a digital system: put them on file with a phone number, and you’ll always know who’s in the home. They won’t get emails (there’s nothing to send to), but paper still works - letters reach them at the property, or at a mailing address you put on file - and their phone number is right there when you need to call.

Emails and phones open the door automatically

An email or a phone on one of these records pre-approves that person for the home. When they sign up and pick that address:

• they join the household with no approval step
• their record flips from Not yet claimed to Claimed
• the email or phone that let them in is used up, so it can’t let anyone else in later

Phone matching is why this matters for the people who never use email: someone who signs up on their phone still lands on the right home.

Billing contacts

Any contact can be marked as the billing contact for a property. One per property - setting a new one replaces the old one.

Here’s the rule that matters:

When a property has a billing contact, dues and billing notices go to the billing contact instead of the resident.

Not in addition to - instead of. The resident living in the home stops getting payment reminders, and the billing contact starts. Everything else (announcements, amenity confirmations, request updates) still flows to the resident as normal.

This is built for rentals: the tenant claims the home and uses the portal for day-to-day life, while the landlord - on file as an Owner contact with the billing flag - gets every dues notice. The tenant never sees a payment reminder for a bill that isn’t theirs.

If the billing contact has a HomeHerald account, notices arrive in-app, by email, and by push like any other notification. If they don’t have an account, notices arrive by email. A billing contact with no email can’t receive notices, so HomeHerald falls back to notifying the resident rather than letting the property go silent.

One owner, many properties

The same person can be the billing contact on as many properties as they own. A landlord with five rentals shows up five times under Residents & contacts - once per property - and gets dues notices for each one.

Landlords can pay, too

A billing contact with a HomeHerald account gets a Properties You Pay For section in their portal: every property they’re the billing contact for, each with its balance, a one-time Pay Now button, and its own AutoPay enrollment. One card can put every rental on AutoPay.

Physical mail follows the billing contact too

Every contact can carry a mailing address - for the landlord in another city, the snowbird owner, anyone who doesn’t get mail at the property. It’s optional, and it’s all-or-nothing: street, city, state, and ZIP together.

When you send formal letters (Communicate > Formal Letters), a Mail Billing Contacts toggle controls the routing. With it on (the default), any property with a billing contact mails that person’s letter to them - at their own mailing address if one is on file, otherwise addressed to them at the property. The recipient list shows exactly where each letter will go before you send, so there are no surprises. Flip the toggle off and everything mails to the resident at the property, like before.

So the late-dues escalation reaches the right person on every channel: email goes to the billing contact, and the paper letter lands in their actual mailbox - even if that mailbox is three states away.

Reaching billing contacts in bulk

Billing contacts show up as their own rows in both Email Blast and Formal Letters - amber entries with a BILLING badge, right in the recipient list, plus a Billing Contacts quick-select pill next to All Residents and Late Dues. What you see selected is exactly who receives the send; nobody is included invisibly.

• Email Blast lists every billing contact that has an email on file. Select the pill (or individual rows) and they get the email directly - no account needed. Those emails carry an unsubscribe link like every other community email; a contact who uses it shows an OPTED OUT badge here and in the recipient list, and Email Blast skips them from then on. See Announcements for what is and is not exempt.
• Formal Letters lists every billing contact. Each row shows exactly where the letter will mail: their mailing address if one is on file, otherwise the property. This also means an unclaimed property can still receive mail - no resident account required, the owner on file is letterable directly.
• In-App messages can’t reach contacts (there’s no account to deliver to), so they don’t appear there.

What happens if someone on file signs up later

If someone on file signs up for HomeHerald with the same email or phone, their record connects to their new account automatically at claim time. The badge changes to Claimed. Nothing is lost or duplicated - the roster entry and the account become one person.

Connecting is not claiming: a contact whose profile connects to an account does not become the resident and does not take over the property. Claiming only happens when someone signs up and claims the home themselves.

Claiming a residence as a tenant

For rentals, the usual sequence is:

1. Admin adds the owner as a contact on file (role Owner, billing contact if they pay the dues)
2. The tenant signs up with the community join code and claims the property - they become the resident
3. The property now shows the tenant as the resident and the owner under Residents & contacts

The tenant gets the full portal. The owner gets the bills. Nobody gets confused.

Where these records show up

• Members > Residents & contacts - everyone in the community, searchable, with role, billing, and claimed badges
• The property’s quick view - a Residents & contacts card under the resident
• The property editor - where you add, edit, or remove them

They never appear in the resident directory. The directory is for people with accounts who chose to be visible; these are admin roster data.

Common gotchas

“I set a billing contact but the resident says they’re still getting reminders.” Check that the billing contact has an email or a connected account. A billing contact with neither can’t receive notices, so HomeHerald keeps notifying the resident instead.

“I added the owner - why can’t they log in?” A roster record isn’t an account. If the owner wants portal access, they need to sign up like anyone else; their record connects automatically if the email or phone matches.

“Who gets the dues notice when there’s no billing contact?” The resident, exactly as before. Billing contacts only change anything for properties where you set one.

Where to go next

• Linking residents to a property - the resident and household side
• Dues Chaser - the automation that sends the payment reminders
• Glossary - claimed, contact on file, signed up, and the rest