How do I get access to the resident portal?

These are two different problems with two different fixes, and doing the wrong one wastes days.

• You have an account and cannot get in. You have signed in before, or you have set a password at some point. Start at "If you have an account but cannot sign in", below.
• You have never had an account. No invitation ever arrived, or you never opened it. Start at "If the invitation never came".

If you are not sure which one you are, assume you have never had an account. That path also finds out whether one exists.

The portal is the part of Roam that owners see: your balance and payment history, documents your association has published, notices sent to you, and any requests you have open.

You do not need portal access to pay, and you do not need it to be heard. Your association can take a payment and answer a question without it. If you are reading this because a bill is due, that deadline is not blocked by a login problem — see How do I pay my assessment?

Your association or its management company — not Roam.

We store your association's records, but we do not decide who is on them. Your association owns that list and decides who gets portal access and when. If you email Roam asking to be added, we cannot add you; we would have to forward the request to your association, which is slower than contacting them yourself.

Most owners get an emailed invitation when their association turns the portal on, or shortly after a home changes hands.

The invitation contains a link that lets you set a password. Use it soon: the link stops working after a while. If yours no longer works, contact your association or management company rather than trying the old link again.

If you are not sure whether the message in your inbox is genuine, read I got an email from Roam. Is it real? before you click anything in it.

Work through these in order. Most cases are one of the first two.

1. Search your mail, do not browse it. The subject line varies by association, so search for your association's name, your management company's name, and "roamstay" rather than for the word "invitation". Check spam, promotions, junk, and any folder a filter might have moved it to. On a phone, search the mail app rather than scrolling. If you find something and you are not sure it is genuine, do not click it — see I got an email from Roam. Is it real?.
2. Check which address your association has for you. The invitation goes to the email on your owner record. If that is an old work address, an address you no longer use, or your co-owner's, the invitation went there and is sitting unread. This is the single most common cause.
3. Contact your association or management company, and give them the email address you want to use. Ask them to read back the address they have on file — a typo in a record is invisible until someone reads it aloud.

If all three have been done and nothing arrives, that is the point at which it may be a software problem rather than a records problem, and your manager can raise it with Roam.

• A forgotten password and a missing invitation are different problems. If you have set a password before and cannot remember it, call your association or management company and say so.
• Type the address of the portal yourself rather than following an old link from an email. Old links expire, and a link is also the thing an attacker would want you to click.
• Check which email address you are signing in with. Where a couple owns a home jointly, the account is usually attached to one specific address, and it may not be the one you use most.

There is usually a gap between a sale closing and an owner record being updated, because the association updates it from the closing documents rather than automatically.

If you bought in the last few weeks and have no access, that is the ordinary reason. Contact your manager, give them your property address and your completion date, and ask where the record stands. It is worth doing rather than waiting — assessments can be charged from the date you took ownership even if nobody has set your login up yet.

Portal access is normally for the owner of record. Some associations give tenants a limited login and many do not. Ask your association what they offer, and tell your landlord either way — anything with money attached goes to the owner regardless.

It shows what your association publishes to owners: your own balance and payment history, documents they have shared, notices sent to you, and your open requests.

It does not show other owners' balances or records, board discussions unless your association chooses to publish them, or anything about a home you do not own. If you sit on the board, you may see a separate board area with more in it.

If you have worked through this and are stuck, see Something is wrong with my account. Who do I contact?