If you considering moving to The Villages ask for a copy of the covenants; if you a new home buyer find your copy. Read it very carefully. It is long and complex; sometimes irrational; applied arbitrarily; but strictly enforced, and is, de facto, unappealable.
1. Long and complex: Your first encounter with the Covenants document is usually at closing. Being long and complex, you will not have time to read it before signing on the bottom line. You are now subject to a document that will have more impact on your daily life than state and federal laws. It is "almost" written as boilerplate for new CCD's (Community Development Districts). But contains within it, little differences for each district, as well as rules that apply only to specific housing styles, and lot locations. So read it very carefully.
2. Irrational: The covenants for my village say that you cannot have man-made landscape ornaments on your front lawn. This is sort of understandable - would you want your neighbor to put a flock on 100 plastic pink flamingos on his front lawn? Being unaware of the front lawn ornament rule, the new villager soon gets a letter from the CCD, saying his little plastic pets are out of compliance. He dutifully complies and the next day his neighbors happily see that pink is gone and the dominant color is again green. However, the day after that, he replants them in his backyard. Why? He read his covenants that night and found no stricture against doing so. Now all the golfers on the course that backs up to his house get to enjoy his landscaping skills. Irrational
3. Arbitrarily applied: The Community Development Districts, which nominally are responsible for covenant oversight, have no inspection group, but what they do have is your neighbor - only if a neighbor reports a possible violation will the CCD jump into action. and send a volunteer to the house to confirm the veracity of the complaint.
The "arbitrariness" enters the picture, because, as the volunteer wends his was to the offending property, it is almost certain he will pass houses with similar offenses. However, his/her orders are to report on the offending property only. The property with 50 artificial deer on the lawn will be ignored by the inspector. One more thing - the complainer can stay anonymous. A similar system was used in Germany in the 1930's.
4. Strictly enforced, and, de facto, unappealable: Once the violation is confirmed by the inspector, you (as the owner of the "pinko" property) are informed of the violation and given a certain time to comply. If you have not complied by the end of that period, the fines can start building up.
Your natural instinct is to appeal, which you have the right to do - to present you case before the CCD. In your mind you would be thinking of your case and its extenuating circumstances - "the volunteer was not an expert on landscaping"; I need the flamingo's as a windbreak"; "would it be ok if I painted them green to match the lawn?" "I think the neighbor who reported me is the one I ran over with my golf cart - he is only looking for revenge." In effect you are looking for a "variance". In my research, I could not evidence of variance has ever been granted to anyone, for any reason, in any village, at any time.
So what are you allowed to appeal? The simple answer is - the rule itself. That is, repeal it for everyone. To go this route, you have to prove something like, "It brings down property value," "Creativity, individuality and artistic taste are subordinated to common boring similarity". "I poled all my neighbors. 93% of them want the rule gone". I doubt if any CDD would bow to such idealistic presentations. Let alone risk the ire of the thousands of others in the district who agree with the rule.
The Villages is a wonderful place to live and play. However, I am writing this because I want to warn potential and new villagers of some of the darker realities, And help them deal with these realities in a realistic way.