[Frangyomory]

The Villages will become a resident owned community, totally, in 2011 unless the developer determines that he/they will remain to continue to build. Your bond is supposed to be in a special escrow like account which will fund the infrastructure such as road repair, planting bushes and trees in common areas, planting and caring for grass and flowers, etc.

Each year in your tax bill, you are charged a maintenance fee even if you have paid your bond off, as we did. That fee for us was 400 this year. I called Pete Wahl and asked him why we were being billed for this $400 "maintenance fee". He said this is how the developer pays for all the people who take care of "common areas" in the Villages.

The amenity fee is just for use of recreation facilities. This will continue on for good, regardless of who owns the Villages but will likely continue to rise each year to maintain staff and other infrastructure.

I understand that the developer/family will have completed their building in 2011 and we are then the proud owners. Each time a recreation center is completed, the developer has been selling it to the residents as a rate they determine appropriate for the real estate market. I understand this is all in accordance with the special provisions of communities under VCCDD (? I might have left out a C ) which is a special piece of Florida legislation.

A longer term Villager told me this is due to some influence that Walt Disney Corp had with the Florida legislature. When they had completed Disneyworld they discovered that the surround area was falling to ruin and that pushed up the costs for Disney to maintain the area. Thus a piece of legislation was passed which eventually applied to communities like ours and we are assessed a bond when we buy a new home. Older homes sometimes have a small balance if the first owner did not pay the bond down.

Unfortunately, these are things we are finding out now after we have been here two years and have invested in our home, etc.

It is imperative that all home owners pay attention to how the developer and his cronies disburse property, etc. because at some point in time, we will be holding the entire bill for the place.

The VHA is useless for us and I suggest that all consider joining and becoming active in POA who is a REAL voice for home owners. I believe I have said before that most of the representatives of the VHA are employees, in some capacity, of the developer. They might be a sales rep or a greeter or work in some office or other, but they will not bite the hand that feeds them.

Just my warning once again. Caveat Emptor....as we all learned in grade school...let the buyer beware.

This is a wonderful place to live but keep your eyes and ears open and don't depend on the Daily Sun to let you know what's going on around here!
:cop: