Does TV have Too many deed restrictions.
 

Deed restrictions are necessary so TV doesn't turn into a flop house but in your opinion do they take it a little TOO far and TOO restrictive.

Sometimes I feel like I'm renting opposed to being a homeowner in TV with not being able to put any small personal touches to my home.

I realize if I don't like it I can move or I should've not moved here if I didn't like the restrictions so I will save those opinions from a couple of key strokes.

I do talk to a lot of folks in nearby retirement communities and when I ask them why they didn't buy in TV they all have the same answer, "too many deed restrictions"

Thoughts?

There are very few restrictions and they do help to keep the appearance of our homes in order. I've been in HOA's and Condo associations that are much, much more restrictive than what we have here. The biggest complaints here are the crosses which I feel at this point is just a set up, other than that you hear very few complaints regarding the restrictions. The restrictions are not a problem, those that don't follow them are the problem.

Unless short term rentals, such as AirBnB’s renting by the night, are prohibited (and enforced) I strongly believe the deed restrictions are way too Lenient.

I agree it’s very easy to follow the rules here , but to many people think that there little extra touch to there home is great and should be allowed .I loved it when the villages watch guys would come by and leave a ticket on your door telling you if something was wrong .I’m on my 6th home here and I’ve found that following the rules has not been any kind of hardship remember your little statue can soon become someone else’s theme park .I don’t play golf or go to pools or rec centers , I came and stayed for the beauty and order of the villages not to watch one persons statue turn into someone else’s theme park

First - deed restrictions vary from village to village. A lot of things people assume are "forbidden" aren't. They just have to submit the plan to ARC and wait for them to sign off on it before they start the work. Things like expanding a driveway, or selecting a new color for the house. In most cases you can do those things. But you have to select colors within a palate that already exists for the purpose, and the driveway has to fit within certain parameters after the work's completed.

Other things are restricted or forbidden - you can't remove your perimeter wall in a courtyard villa. You can't put up a fence around your designer home in the Village of Bonita. You can't put lawn decorations in /most/ of The Villages but there are some areas where that restriction doesn't exist - mostly in the "Historic Section."

If you WANT to live in a neighborhood where all your neighbors must conform to the same standard of care, design, color, scheme, then there are neighborhoods for you here. If you WANT to live in a neighborhood where you have lots of wiggle-room to exercise your creativity, imagination, and interests, there are neighborhoods for you here as well.

Personally I love the old section. I like seeing the different personalities of homeowners displayed on their yards, in the color schemes of their houses, in the painted designs on their driveways. It's not for everyone, but you couldn't pay me to live in a courtyard villa where you're basically a sardine living in a nicely-painted can, sitting on a bed of rocks. Some people like that cookie-cutter concept though.

Not enough restrictions, not strong enough enforcement.

Deed restrictions tend to be worded very generally, to stop people finding loopholes.

If I do want to make changes that appear to be caught by the restrictions, I have always found that asking ARC will clarify the issue, often in my favor if they deem them to be unobtrusive.

Generally, the deed restrictions are a hodge podge of restrictions that have evolved over the years and thus vary somewhat in different areas. To me they seem to be a bureaucrat's delight with prompt and strict enforcement of the petty items and delayed, partial, or ignoring of the more serious and significant problems. Usually there is quick action or dire results for a little white cross, or for using last year's color chart to paint your home, a bird bath without flowing water, or for some violation created 15 years and 2 previous owners ago, etc. On the other hand, anything that may need possible legal action, or a real effort to enforce is partially addressed, delayed or seemingly ignored until it hopefully goes away on its own. And, it seems fines, assessments and reimbursement of costs on many major problems are eventually greatly reduced or forgiven. Abandoned properties, junker cars, extended stay of minor children, very short-term rentals, disruptive businesses operated out of a residential home all come to mind as violations that should be as sternly and quickly enforced as the "little white cross problem" seemingly is.

On the other hand, there are many examples of gaps in tasteful restrictions. It seems that in many areas you can cover your driveway with any material and whatever color you want and with whatever picture or design you desire, including a BIG white cross (if you so wanted), or fly obnoxious flags, or post obscene signs in your windows, or have whatever characters or words displayed and hanging from your lamp posts.

I am happy to reside in an area with few minor restrictions. The few garden ornaments displayed by the neighbors seem to be a tasteful reflection of the personalities and interests. And best of all we aren't tattling at each other for petty "violations".

A bit of irony concerning some of the restrictions applicable to residential areas apparently do not apply to the town squares, where it becomes part of the "ambiance" and "cultural esthetics" of the area. Broken down inoperable trucks, rusty gas pumps and other equipment, "faded" and "bleached" signs and murals, statues and sculptures, all come to mind. But heck, I like it the way they did it.

Does TV have Too many deed restrictions.
Because you asked for "thoughts" here goes...... I think that is a question one needs to ask before buying here, not after. :rolleyes:

The deed restrictions were one of the reasons I chose to buy in TV. All my enhancements have been approved by the ARC, and I have found that entity to be very friendly and helpful to deal with. I don’t understand people who buy here, and then complain about the deed restrictions that they agreed to abide by at the time of their closing. Some people just enjoy complaining - sad way to spend one’s retirement years.

Wonder what they wanted to do that was restricted?

Too many restrictions? Sort of a moot point. We all knew the score (or should have) when we moved here. If the number was acceptable then, there is no reason it should not be acceptable now.

That is not to say that the system is perfect. It is not. One glaring flaw is the selective enforcement. Two houses next to each other could conceivably have the same violation, but only the one reported will be made to correct it. I suppose there might be--somewhere--a logical explanation as to why this, but I fail to see it.

The second glaring flaw might be summed up in five words: "Its not MY job, man!". I applaud Community Watch and what it does for The Villages, but there's a place in our village about six blocks away from here that has been having an ongoing "garage sale" every day for over three weeks. I know Community Watch has seen it: how I know is that this house is one that my wife and I walk and I've seen a Community Watch vehicle going by the place when we were on our walk. I know it is their goal to patrol all homes daily (each driver has a quota of something like 4,300 homes. "That equates to 18 patrol driver per shift across 90 square miles" (********-****, 3/19/24). It is a safe bet the Community Watch has seen the place anywhere from 15 to 20 times. But repeated mention in The Paper That Shall Remain Nameless indicates that Community Watch does NOT report violations, even though this one could conceivably be seen as a traffic and pedestrian hazard. I also know of (secondhand info, this) a person in another Village who reported a chronically barking dog in his neighborhood to the appropriate in-Village office, only to be told that it would be a law enforcement matter--but when he called law enforcement, he was told that it was a VILLAGES issue! Lots of bucks get passed in The Villages.

Not much bothers me about yard decor, and the taste (or lack thereof) that goes into it. I don't mind the crosses, just like I don't mind the BVM statues, various angels, numerous Buddha statues, the Stars of David, the pentagram (only one spotted), etc. One guy had an interesting Christmas decoration: a depiction of a dead deer with a red nose lying under one of his trees, and another place had a "Christmas" tree in his yard decorated with about 50 empty blue wine bottles. I thought both were pretty funny, actually. But other people might not agree with me, and if they make a report on an issue that is a clear violation, then they should be able to expect action, not just another buck being passed.

The problem is not too many deed restrictions… you don’t like, you don’t buy… that simple. Problem is that deeds are enforced based on complaints. We have no bi-law officers or something like that. Rely on the residents to upkeep the community. Then when the deed is finally enforced, some proletariat squeal about it.

You want to personalize? Just sell and buy in a non-deeded community.

For me the issue is more the non-application or uneven applications of the rules. On my drive into my village we have a number of properties that make no effort to take care of the lawn, or they spent all their money putting a pool and birdcage in and have no money to repair the work. If it backed up to a reserve or something like that, I would not care, but since everyone drives by it....

i dont want my neighborhood looking like a dump. what you think looks good , may not look good to others. keep the rules.

Deed restrictions are a good thing. That is one reason we purchased in a master planned community that has deed restrictions to keep our properties looking nice.

Glad we don't have any of those Air B&Bs in our neighborhood. That surely is a deed restriction that needs to be looked into, IMHO.

The courtyard villas have a deed restriction that prohibits homeowners from parking their vehicles in the visitor parking spaces. But, when I complained to the deed compliance office about a non-homeowner, a non-resident, and a non-visitor parked/stored a vehicle in a visitor space for almost a year, the answer I got was that he was not violating the deed restriction because he was not a homeowner. Go figure.

Strange that you think the natural result of "no deed restrictions" must be "looking like a dump." Maybe that's how it was in the neighborhood you grew up in?

Where I grew up, we had no deed restrictions, no gated communities. Our neighborhood was a typical New England suburb, and no one's home ever looked like a dump. No one had junk cars on cement blocks in the driveway, or a broken refrigerator on the front lawn. Or broken windows, or bent-over antenna, or trash piled up outside the back door, or lawns that were overgrown or vines crawling up the side of the garage.

We took care of our properties because of a little thing called "pride in ownership." Again - maybe they didn't teach you that where you grew up but in my neck of the country, it was a thing. I would never expect that a non-gated, or non-deed-restricted community would "look like a dump" until I moved to Florida.

Although we don’t live in the historic section, we love it there also. We rented there long term during our search for a home and still visit there often to golf, bike ride, walk our dog around Paradise Lake, and use the outdoor exercise equipment. It’s probably the only area we visit where we just drive around in our golf cart with no particular place to go simply because it’s such a unique and beautiful section of the Villages.

I like the restrictions. As part of my job, I go to other retirement communities as well as “regular” housing developments.

I see some pretty tacky lawn ornaments, crazy color schemes on garage doors and driveways, brown gravel in place of lawns……shall I go on?

I hardly know there are deed restrictions there are so few of them.

I like the deed restrictions. I mean, look at it from the other side. Most of them are to prevent lawn art from becoming projectiles in the case of a hurricane. And you know your neighborhood could look very bad if there wasn’t rules. There is a town called Fountain Hills, that sits right next to my neighborhood, and the street I had to drive down whenever going to town, had some pretty garish houses on it. There was one I swore had to be a payback for something the neighbors had done which was bad.

So, think about it whenever you start getting anxious about a rule.

I seem to recall that a Florida law was passed not too long ago that prohibits them from being banned by any local government or HOA type thing.

It would be interesting to know specifics, as pretty much any nearby retirement community is going to have restrictions, with many having much more restrictive HOAs.

That might just be what they tell people, with the real reason being something else (many who chose On Top of the World over The Villages seem to be much more reserved/introverted, some bordering on anti-social).

We all know what happens when there are no deed restrictions. Only need to leave TV boundary in any direction to see examples.

If there is a deed restricted community nearby that is less restrictive, might be informative to drive around that community and take a look.

There is nothing restricted at my home that causes the slightest bit of heartburn.

Are the restrictions the perfect type and amount? That discussion is a waste of time IMO. So many different opinions on the subject (which is why the restrictions are necessary in the first place).

The most significant problem with Deed Restrictions in The Villages is that they are not consistently" and firmly enforced. "Good Fences make Good Neighbors".

We live in a courtyard villa south of 44. Every single home in here is different. Whether it is a different color or different landscaping, from beautiful rock/desert designs to lots of greenery and palm trees, they are all different. It’s one of the reasons we bought in the southern area, the villas have more personality and definitely are not “sardines in a nicely painted can on a bed of rocks.”

Quick answer, no.

I don't mind deed restrictions, it keeps property values up IMB. But that said, I live in the historic section and I LOVE seeing all the quirky stuff on some people's lawns. But the point made about not having anything that could blow around during storms is a good one.

Just for informational purposes

Certain states, including Florida, have adopted the 1956 Marketable Record Title Act, which says that deed restrictions expire within 30 years of inception. That means after 30 years, a homeowners’ association is technically unable to enforce the rules and can no longer collect monthly dues from community homeowners. However, Associations can take steps to “preserve” and protect covenants and restrictions from the operation of the Act.

Taken from

What You Need to Know Before Purchasing a Florida Home with Deed Restrictions - Munizzi Law Firm

:BigApplause:

I have no problems with deed restrictions in TV. You sign a deed and follow the rules, which seems to be a problem for certain people. I bought here because they do have them, a minor inconvenience , at best. The deed restriction changes from district to district are probably based on experience. I have no admiration for junk sitting in peoples yards and propose that enforcement is lacking.
You play golf, rules.
You vote, rules.
You drive, rules.
You are married, rules.
If you do not like rules, go live in a desert somewhere.

So glad we don't have quirky stuffed lawns.

Deed restrictions are good, they keep the place from looking like a circus. Can't believe the junk people put on their lawns.

Few restrictions are enforced and few are followed. What difference does any of it make?

Yes, I believe that the deed restrictions are generally way too restrictive. That said, I don't have any problem in my neighborhood because we have more leeway than other, newer areas. I enjoy how some personalize their properties and I don't have any problem with those that I think are gaudy because that is their preference and none of my business. I don't want to live in a cookie cutter neighborhood, like military base housing. In my opinion, there are way too many former apartment dwellers from up North that feel their need to get into everyone else's business and seem to have a need to make everyone else as miserable as themselves. But, those types will never be satisfied, no matter what their neighborhood looks like. They just want to exert some form of authority over others, even if it is just little gripes such as stickers on a mailbox, cars parked in driveways instead of in garages and little white crosses that are hardly noticeable in a neighbor's yard. You would think that those folks would spend what little time they have left, getting right with their maker instead sticking their noses in what other folks are doing.

OK, here is a "thought". Show me a person who asks if there are too many deed restrictions and I'll show you a person who does not want to follow deed restrictions.

I actually think that there should be more.

lol

Deed restrictions? Maybe down South
 

If “personalization” mean putting up stuff hanging from your house, or junk spread around your yard, it seems the developer allows plenty of that in our section of the Villages. Those of us in the deed restricted “forgotten zone” can attest that we have to tolerate the lack of enforcement.

The ARC does do a good job of controlling new work but there’s a lot that needs to be done keep so many older homes compliant.

But in reality the juxtaposition of old and new, junk yard and sterile is what creates the unique community known as the historic section. It is an architectural and urban planning study that needs to be taught in all urban planning schools.

My dad always said to learn from other people’s mistakes!

TV supporter of Deed Restriction ENFORCEMENT

Maybe try thinking more efficiently. Here's my "thought":

I live in one of the less-restricted areas of The Villages, because I think there are way too many restrictions in the rest of The Villages. I follow the deed restrictions we do have, and I have no trouble following them, and have no issue with them at all. Most people who live on my side of The Villages are content with our deed restrictions. But that's because they're not as restrictive as the rest of The Villages. We want to follow the ones we have, and so we do.