How do we set up an emergency text and email alert list for our HOA?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised September 29, 2026

How an HOA board sets up an emergency text and email alert list: what counts as an alert, federal texting consent and STOP rules, a sign-up form and privacy.

Part of the HOA board handbook: residents and communication.

The short answer

Build a separate, opt-in list for urgent news: a water main break, a gas leak, a boil-water order, a gate stuck open, a pool closed for a chemical problem. Collect cell numbers and email addresses on a signed or checked-box form, invite tenants as well as owners, and send through a mass-text and email service, not a group text from a director's phone. Give two people access, honor every STOP reply, and test the list twice a year. Keep this list apart from the consent owners give for official meeting and collection notices. Those notices have their own legal rules, which our guide on collecting owner emails and consent for electronic notices covers. An alert list is about speed. Nothing on it replaces a notice the statutes or your governing documents require. Rules vary by state and by your documents, and this guide is general education, not legal advice.

Decide what counts as an alert

Write the list of alert types down and have the board approve it, because the list will get used for everything if nobody draws a line. A workable definition: anything that affects safety, access to homes or utilities within the next 48 hours. That covers water, gas and power shutoffs, sewer backups, fires, a boil-water notice from the utility, storm closures, a broken entry gate, road work that blocks the only way in, and police activity the association has been told about. It does not cover dues reminders, meeting notices, pool party invitations or the newsletter. The line matters legally as well as practically. The federal rule on automated calls and texts, 47 CFR 64.1200, allows calls made for emergency purposes without prior consent and defines those as calls necessary in any situation affecting the health and safety of consumers. A water main break may fit. A reminder that the pool opens Saturday does not. If the board also wants a list for events and reminders, offer it as a second checkbox on the same form, and send those messages under a different name so residents can tell them apart.

The federal texting rules in plain terms

Under 47 CFR 64.1200(a)(1)(iii), no one may make a call using an autodialer or an artificial or prerecorded voice to a cell phone unless it is made for emergency purposes or with the prior express consent of the person called, and the same section's opt-out rules speak of calls and text messages alike. Whether a particular mass-text service counts as an autodialer is a legal question lawyers argue about. Don't build your plan on the answer. Get written consent from everyone on the list, and the question stops mattering. The rules on taking consent back are specific, and your process has to follow them. Under 64.1200(a)(10), a person may revoke consent by any reasonable method. A reply of stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe counts automatically, and so does any other reply a reasonable person would read as a request to stop. The sender must honor a revocation within a reasonable time, no more than ten business days, and may not require one exclusive way to opt out. If the service cannot receive replies, each text must say so and give another way to opt out. In practice: pick a service that processes STOP replies by itself, add 'Reply STOP to opt out' to every message, and when someone emails or calls the secretary to get off the list, take them off the same day.

Build the sign-up form

One page, or one online form, with these fields: name, property address, owner or tenant, cell number, email address, and which lists the person wants, emergency alerts only or alerts plus community news. Add a preferred language if your community needs it, and a second contact for owners who live elsewhere and want a local relative or property manager to hear about a burst pipe. Then the consent, in words you can copy: 'I agree to receive emergency alerts from the association by text message and email at the number and address above, including messages sent through an automated service. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. I can opt out at any time by replying STOP or by writing to the association.' Keep three things separate on the form: consent to alerts, consent to official notices by email, and permission to list the person's number in a resident directory. An owner who wants a text when the water is off has not agreed to receive legal notices by email or to have a phone number published. Tenants are not members of the association, so reach them through their landlords. Ask each owner who rents to pass the form to the tenant, and put the form in the lease addendum packet if your community uses one.

Protect the phone numbers

State law treats owners' phone numbers and email addresses as private. Texas Property Code section 209.005(k) says the association is not required to release an owner's contact information, other than the owner's address, without the owner's express written approval or a court order. Florida section 720.303(5)(g)6 makes phone numbers, email addresses and emergency contact information inaccessible to members, though an association may print a directory with owners' names, addresses and phone numbers, and an owner can have their numbers left out by asking in writing. Colorado section 38-33.3-317(3.5)(b)(I) requires the association to withhold members' and residents' phone numbers and email addresses from inspection unless the person gave prior written consent to publish them, and that consent must be kept as a record. So never run the alert list as a group text or a group chat, where every member sees every other number and can reply to all. Use a service that sends each message individually. Limit admin access to two people, remove a director's access the day they leave the board, and store the signed forms with the association's records.

Roles, tools and templates

Name a primary sender and a backup, usually the president and the secretary, and write down who decides that something is an alert. Choose a mass-notification service that sends text and email together, handles STOP replies, keeps a sent log and lets you export the list. Write five templates now and load them into the service: water shutoff, gas leak or evacuation, boil-water notice, gate or access failure, and all clear. Keep each text under 300 characters and put the action first. Example: 'Oak Creek HOA alert: water main break on Elm Ct. Water off for all homes on Elm and Birch until about 6 pm. Do not call 911 about the outage. Updates at 2 pm. Reply STOP to opt out.' The association's list does not replace government alerts. Ready.gov explains that Wireless Emergency Alerts reach phones without any sign-up, so tell residents in the welcome message to leave those on and to sign up for their city or county's own alert system as well. Our guide on an HOA emergency preparedness plan covers the contact tree and vendor calls that sit behind these messages.

Keep it current

Lists decay fast. Put the form in every welcome packet and every resale package, and ask the title company or the selling owner to tell the association when a home changes hands, so the old owner comes off the list and the new one gets invited. Each January, send a short email asking people to confirm or update their information. Remove numbers that fail twice. Keep a log of every alert sent with its date and text, which most services export. Colorado lists all written communications to unit owners generally from the past three years among the records an association must keep (38-33.3-317(1)(p)), and a saved alert log answers the question if anyone asks whether owners were told.

A sample rollout and a test

Week 1: the board approves the alert types, the senders and the service, by a motion such as 'Moved that the association establish an opt-in emergency alert list by text and email for owners and residents, limited to the alert types in the attached policy, with the president and secretary as authorized senders.' Week 2: load the templates and a test group of the board. Week 3: mail and email the form to every owner with a two-line explanation and a sign-up link. Week 5: remind owners who have not answered and ask landlords to forward the form to tenants. Week 6: send the first test message: 'This is a test of the Oak Creek HOA alert list. No action needed. Reply STOP to opt out.' Count the failures, fix them, and repeat the test every six months. Before hurricane season in Florida, or before winter in Colorado, is a sensible time.

Mistakes boards make

Adding every phone number on file to the list without asking. Running alerts through a director's personal phone, so the list leaves with that director. Using a group chat that exposes 90 numbers to everyone on it. Letting the alert list drift into a newsletter until residents mute it. Telling an owner who replied 'take me off' that they must use a form instead. Sending a meeting notice by text and assuming that satisfies the statute. Forgetting tenants, who are the people actually standing in the flooded kitchen. The form, a short written policy and a service that handles opt-outs keep a board clear of all of them.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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