CDD 5 to end anonymous complaints
 

After data showing complaints dropped to less than 10% of what they used to be.
Time for all CDDs to follow suit.

SO agree. Anonymous simply rubs me the wrong way. Yes time for a Complete TV change.

I disagree. I think in fact, it is a very bad idea - as we are in a complaint driven enforced community. We don’t seem to have any by-law officers. There is much latitude in my neighborhood already and people seem to get along just fine. So people move in to TV for its beauty and then ….. ? I am concerned of maliciousness and vindictiveness towards a complainer if it is not anonymous. As it is, the situation gets investigated and nothing happens if it is not a legitimate complaint. Now if one person complains often and without a legitimate reason, in my opinion, such a person should be fined, to discourage them making frivolous charges.

So do I! There would not be any complaints if people followed the deed restrictions they signed at closing.

Where is the information that tells us if the violations have increased, decreased, or stayed the same? Isn't that what really matters?

Op did not suggest that the identity of the complainer would be revealed to the violator. It may be that only the CDD knows. I don't know which it is, but before the hand wringing begins and the clip board ladies jump off a cliff, we should be aware of the whole story.

I believe you should know who your accuser is.

That number is meaningless.

What REALLY matters is what percentage of the complaints received were verified as legitimate.

It has to exist. Though I doubt we'll ever see it.

They do. The accuser is the CDD in question. The person bringing the alleged violation to the attention of the CDD is the REPORTER.

The REAL question here is, why isn't reporting violations the responsibility of Community Watch? Seems like a no-brainer to me.

What does it matter? If you are a violator, you have violated everyone in the whole community. If you run a stop sign does it matter WHICH policeman writes you up?

Yes, that would seem right as they would be unbiased, but then we’d had increased their work so it will cost us more money.

Because Community Watch is to assist us Villagers and not to be a police force we try to avoid.

Nope. People can’t be trusted to follow the rules they agreed to. Don’t like it? Put up a for sale sign.

If the accuser is suing you in a court of law, then sure. But this isn't a court of law.
This is deed restrictions. Your accuser is Community Standards.

It's not a violation of law. It's a violation of the community rules that you agreed to abide by when you bought the property.

And I agree with whoever said that it shouldn't be anonymous to CS. CS should absolutely have a record of everyone who lodges a complaint against a property in The Villages. But the person the complaint is lodged against - should not be entitled to that information. That's what creates neighbor wars.

What difference does it really make when violations are selectively enforced. They seem to go after people with little white crosses with vengeance but totally ignore people disrupting a whole neighborhood by renting a revolving door room out of their house to transient customers on a nightly basis. Go figure?

Things change.

If 80% of a Village is violating the same restriction, maybe there need to be a way to amend the restriction.

Ah, the difference between deed restrictions and democracy. People vote with their feet, if they don’t like the deed restrictions, they don’t buy in The Villages. Lots of other places in Florida.

Any examples of deed restrictions that should be changed that would likely have widespread support?

Since one violates the deed restrictions but the other does not (in most areas) that might explain it.

The "accuser" is the deed restrictions you signed.

Why? So you can retaliate?

As far as I know, I don't have any deed restrictions. If I do, and someone notifies me, I will correct it. I don't care who it is, anonymous or not. It shouldn't matter.

I have always chosen a deed restricted community with covenants to make sure the area stays consistently nice. I am not in favor of the anonymous process. However, I do think the restrictions need to be enforced. That being said, the problem in the Villages is most people have never read their covenants and restrictions and, in fact, do not maybe even know they signed and agreed to them. I think what would help the most is an awareness campaign from the Districts as to what is included so people can take their own actions to correct. Then, have a volunteer committee that notifies people that are out of compliance. This worked well in two of our past neighborhoods. Most people were quick to get into compliance and those that refused, the neighborhood board got involved.

Two possible reasons. The first reason is because it is not their job. Secondly, and more importantly, if the CDD essentially took over the role of reporting deed restriction violations then they could possibly be accused of selective enforcement. With the current system of only investigating possible deed restriction that are reported by others, it is hard to see how that could happen as long as they uniformly investigate possible deed restriction violations. If the CDD was to take on the job of reporting deed restriction violations then they will have to essentially catch all of them.

Three Common Covenant Enforcement Defenses – Waiver, Estoppel, and Selective Enforcement | Florida Condo & HOA Law Blog

I don't think people's issues are with deed restrictions but as characterized, by Mrs. Kravitz driving the neighborhoods with her clip board and phone and recording what she feels is a deed restriction. One would hope the CDD would clamp down and discourage this behavior. Neighbors can police themselves and often do. I do think the Community Watch could provide some assistance as well since they drive through the area anyways, not to enforce but to report. Stay in your lane....

I wonder if any of you have been the subject of an anonymous complaint? Shortly after we moved here, we received a note on our door stating we were out of compliance due to two metal sand hill crane figures in our front planter. The cranes were held over from a previous owner and according to our next door neighbor had been there for years. We removed the cranes despite the fact that there are other homes in our village and elsewhere that display the same cranes in their front yard (and also various other lawn ornaments) and continue to do so. Does this seem fair to you?

One could make the argument that, if Community Watch WERE charged with assuring that homeowners in TV follow the covenants in force in their area, they are thus helping ALL law-abiding Villagers by ensuring that egregious violators do not, by their action or inaction, drive property values in the neighborhood down.

Right, pit neighbor against neighbor in the reporting or stop the reporting so the neighborhood goes to pot. Nice going.

It doesn't seem fair but some are targeted and others are not. Also remember not all districts have the same restrictions.

But that’s not the point, is it? The point is the homeowner is out of compliance with the restrictions he/she agreed to abide by. It doesn’t have anything to do with the person reporting the infraction. No accusing being done.

The problem as see with the complaint system is that I could have a complaint over a yard item and have to remove it and my next door neighbor could have the exact same item in their yard and be able to keep it if no one complained about theirs. CDD even told me the same thing- They said if they came to my house due to a complaint, i had to remove the item and if even if CDD saw with their own eyes the exact same item in a neighbors yard, they had no authority to tell them the item needed removed without a formal complaint- Seem fair?

All CDDs should follow suit
 

I’m 1000% for dropping the anonymous complaints, you get people that have nothing better to do than to find small, idiotic, minor in fractions to complain about things that don’t bother anyone else in the neighborhoods and most of the time it’s against someone they don’t like but having the guts to confront the people in person, so they keep giving anonymous complaints.

a easy, neighbor-to-neighbor conversation would probably be in order before filing a complaint. if i was doing something wrong, i would LOVE it if someone i knew told me 1st, rather than relying on the clipboard ladies to do it for them. :shocked:

Different enforcement. Interior vs exterior. ONLY TV can enforce interior (renting) and they don’t.

Never a true word spoken

No, it’s not fair. BUT, if they did pull your neighbor’s WITHOUT a complaint, it could be seen by that owner as “selective enforcement”…a BIG NO-NO in the world of HOAs. This is why CS vehicles can not “police” violations. If they missed even one, out comes the selective enforcement banner. Once the neighbor wars in start in CDD5 and/or or it starts looking like hell, anonymous reporting will be back. As for the “clipboard ladies”? Make them PROVE they live in that district before accepting their complaints. Better yet, eliminate their need by having the RE agents at closing actually set aside 15 minutes and MAKE people read the covenants they sign for. Novel concept.

But then there is this?

Waiver is the intentional or voluntary relinquishment of a known right or conduct which infers the relinquishment of a known right.

The right to enforce a restrictive covenant may be lost due to waiver where, by failing to act, one leads another to believe that he or she is not going to insist upon enforcement of the covenant.

Courts have found that when an association is aware of the violations for a lengthy period of time without raising any objections it may have waived its right to later pursue enforcement of such activities.

If an association postpones enforcement of violations of which it is aware for such a lengthy period that the reasonable inference can be made that the association will tolerate the violations, then waiver has occurred.

Since most associations will begin enforcement activities soon after learning of a violation, successful waiver defenses are rare.

When our neighborhood was visited by what some call is the elusive clipboard ladies, 48 complaints filed on the same day. We were one of 48, our complaint was a white cross in a planter at our house.

We for the life of us couldn’t figure out where said cross was. Since not our faith for white crosses, we thought it was a mistake.

4 weeks later knock on door, with a official notice to remove cross from our premises, or fines would start. So we walked through our yard looking for white cross, and couldn’t find one. But the person did find vine had died in the flower pot, And if you looked at it sideways it may or may not have looked like a very thin cross.

Apologies were given and the exact words were if we charged these people five dollars for every complaint they reported, 90% would cease completely.

If complaint had value, Then the submitter would not be charged, if it was false then they would pay five dollar fine. His words not mine.

I had a complaint for unapproved landscaping. The landscaping was installed by the builder before sale. They said nevermind :-)