Escalations and repeat offenders

The same property keeps getting flagged. Same violation, same neighbor reporting, increasingly frustrated board. HomeHerald flags the pattern and supports an escalating response - by hand or automated. This article covers both.

How the system flags repeat complaints

Complaints attach to an address. When a new complaint comes in for an address that already has earlier tickets, HomeHerald:

• Marks the new ticket Repeat (a red badge in the Requests list)
• Links the earlier tickets to it, and the ticket shows them with a note on which ones look like the same issue (same covenant rule or similar wording)
• Sends every admin and board member an urgent “REPEAT OFFENDER” notification
• Tells Herald the history when it screens the complaint against your covenants

For a resident’s own complaint, “earlier tickets” means ones that are still open and were filed by someone else.

To see everything at one address, open the property under Properties and click Notes & history. The Tickets section lists every ticket at that address, with how many are still open.

A typical escalation ladder

Most communities follow something like this:

Step	Trigger	Action	Resident notified by
1	First confirmed violation	Friendly notice - “we noticed this, please fix”	In-app message / email
2	Same issue again	Formal warning	In-app message / email / letter
3	Still happening	First fine	In-app message / email / letter
4	Continued violation	Larger fine	In-app message / email / letter
5	Severe / unresolvable	Legal action - lien, suspension, court	Lawyer-handled

Your bylaws and state law set the actual amounts and timing. HomeHerald counts offenses at each address; the legal steps happen outside it.

Two ways to run escalation

Manual escalation

The simplest. A board member reviews each repeat case and decides what to do: resolve the complaint with a Warning or a Fine, or Quietly Resolve it (see Issuing a fine). HomeHerald:

• Flags the repeat and shows the earlier tickets
• Pre-fills the fine amount from the matched covenant rule when it has one
• Can suggest an outcome through Ask Herald what to do on the ticket

Pros:

• Every escalation is human-reviewed
• No surprises for residents
• Easy to handle edge cases

Cons:

• Time-intensive - you’re reviewing every case
• Slower response means residents notice the lag

Most new communities should start here. Get a feel for what your enforcement actually looks like before automating.

Herald Shield (automated)

Herald Shield screens complaints against your covenants and can act on the ones it confirms. It’s part of the Automate plan.

What Herald Shield does:

• Sorts new requests into the four request types when residents file them
• Screens each complaint against your covenants: violation found, no violation, or unclear
• Applies your escalation ladder when it finds a violation: it counts the earlier tickets at that address and runs the matching step - a warning, a formal warning, or a fine
• Flags fines for review instead of posting them, if you set a step that way

What Herald Shield won’t do:

• Run the ladder on a complaint it rated “no violation” or “unclear” - those wait for the board
• Take legal actions (liens, court filings)
• Handle disputes - those always come back to the board

Warnings run automatically, fines are your choice

Warning and formal warning steps always run on their own: Herald Shield resolves the ticket and sends the notice. Each Fine step has its own setting:

Setting	What happens
Auto-Fine & Close	Herald Shield posts the fine to the property’s ledger, resolves the ticket and alerts the resident
Flag for Review	The ticket stays open with a Herald Shield Recommendation showing the recommended fine; an admin decides

Recommendation: start with every fine step on Flag for Review for at least a month. You’ll see what Herald Shield wants to do before it does it. Once you trust the ladder, switch the lower fine steps to Auto-Fine & Close and keep the higher ones on review.

Configure it under Configuration in the admin sidebar, then the Herald Shield Automation card.

To stop automatic escalation without switching Herald Shield off entirely, use the on/off switch on the Violation Escalation section - confirmed violations stop auto-escalating and your ladder steps are kept, so turning it back on is one tap.

Configuring the ladder

On the Herald Shield Automation screen:

• Use Default Escalation - sets up Warning → Formal Warning → Fine in one tap
• Offense steps - step 1 is the first offense at an address, step 2 the second, and so on. The last step applies to every offense after it. Add Escalation Step adds one.
• Action per step - Warning, Formal Warning or Fine
• Fine amount - a fixed amount, or tick Use matched covenant rule’s fine amount when available and set a fallback
• When this step triggers - Auto-Fine & Close or Flag for Review (fine steps only)
• Require photo evidence - only auto-escalate when the report includes a photo
• Auto-dismiss No Violation - when Herald finds no violation, the resident’s complaint is blocked and they’re shown the analysis instead of it being filed

Herald Shield’s notices go out as in-app messages, which reach residents by email too, per their notification settings. The Email and Letter chips on a step don’t send anything extra; to mail a letter, resolve the ticket yourself and pick Official Mail, or use Formal Letters.

A typical config:

• Step 1 (Warning): automatic
• Step 2 (Formal Warning): automatic
• Step 3 (Fine $100): Flag for Review
• Step 4+ (Fine $200): Flag for Review

This lets Herald Shield handle the routine notices while keeping admins in the loop for anything with financial consequences.

How offenses are counted

This is the part to understand before you turn on any automatic fine:

• Every earlier ticket at that address counts - any type, any outcome, open or resolved, including complaints that were dismissed and requests the household filed about its own home.
• There is no time window. A ticket from three years ago counts the same as one from last week.
• Addresses match by text. “123 Maple St” and “123 Maple Street” are two different addresses to the ladder. Complaints filed in the app pick the address from your property list, which keeps them consistent.
• The ladder runs once, when the complaint is filed. It doesn’t come back later to re-check a ticket.

If a count would land a household on a fine step it doesn’t deserve, that’s what Flag for Review is for.

When to step in manually

Even with Herald Shield running, there are cases where you should override:

• Hardship situations - the resident is dealing with a medical issue, family crisis, etc. The system doesn’t know that; you do.
• Disputed bylaws interpretation - Herald Shield is following the rule literally; you may have context about why this case is different
• First offense by an otherwise-good resident - sometimes a friendly call from the board is better than a formal notice
• Active board negotiation - if the resident has already engaged with the board on a fix, don’t let automation override the negotiation

To keep Herald Shield off one complaint, file it yourself from Requests > New Ticket and untick Let Herald Shield apply the escalation ladder. That box is ticked by default when you file for a resident and unticked when you file as The Board. A complaint Herald Shield has already resolved isn’t touched again.

What residents see

A resident whose address gets a Herald Shield step sees:

• An in-app notice (and email) with the warning or fine, signed by your community’s board
• The fine on their balance, if one was posted
• The ticket in their own request history, including Herald Shield’s entry on the thread

The notice and the thread entry come from Herald Shield, so residents can tell an automated step from a board member’s decision. Internal admin notes and other residents’ enforcement history stay hidden.

Resident escalation

Residents have an escalate button too. When one of their requests is In Progress, they can tap Escalate to Board once. Every admin and board member gets an urgent notification, and a line goes into the ticket’s thread. If you see these often, requests are sitting too long in In Progress.

Common situations

”Herald Shield issued a fine and the resident is angry”

Treat it the same as any board-issued fine. Review the situation, confirm the ladder counted the right tickets, decide whether to waive. If the ladder was right but the situation warranted leniency, that’s a good signal to move that step to Flag for Review.

”Herald Shield isn’t catching obvious repeats”

Possible causes:

• Herald Shield rated the new complaint “no violation” or “unclear” - the ladder only runs on a confirmed violation
• Require photo evidence is on and the report had no photo
• The ticket was filed as The Board with the ladder box unticked
• Address discrepancies - same property, different address spellings. Use the property’s canonical record, not free-text addresses.

”We want to give one specific resident a permanent pass”

There is no per-property exemption. Record the decision as a board note on the property from Notes & history so the reasoning survives a board turnover, and handle that resident’s violations manually. If auto-escalation is causing problems community-wide rather than for one home, turn off the Violation Escalation switch instead - your ladder steps are kept.

”We’re getting too many false positives from Herald Shield”

Move your fine steps to Flag for Review for a few weeks and look at what it’s flagging. Turning on Require photo evidence also cuts down on thin reports.

”Same family keeps offending across multiple properties they own”

The system counts per address. If the same owner has violations on two different properties, Herald Shield treats them separately. To see owner-level patterns, check each property’s Notes & history.

Where to go next

• Issuing a fine - the manual flow
• The request lifecycle - what status changes look like
• Publishing to the public board - for transparency on enforcement
• Herald Shield feature page (marketing): /features/herald-shield/