The Villages - Understanding Your Restrictive Covenants
 

It seems as though a week does cannot go by that I read a comment/question on TOTV related to what can or cannot be done to one’s home here in The Villages. For those of you who are looking for answers to these types of questions I offer the following simple two word response that you can apply to just about any issue you can bring up ……….”It depends”. Can I paint my house pink with purple trim? It depends! Can I remove all my grass and concrete the entire area? It depends! Can I have 5 cats, 2 dogs and 2 sheep? It depends!

Each and every person or entity who owns a home within The Villages is legally bound to comply with a set of covenants, conditions and/or restrictions which are tied to your specific property. Depending upon your county of residence, your district and even your unit/house number the answer to your questions may be different. Guidelines for designer homes are different from patio homes or courtyard villas. A courtyard villa located in District 7 may have different rules than the same model villa located in District 10 and so on. Even if you are willing to state the location and type of home for which you are making an inquiry the chances of getting an accurate response from your fellow readers are probably less than 50% even from the best hearted of those that reply. Add to the mix the trolls who love to stir the pot with comments like “Do whatever you want. After all you are the one paying for the home” and the accuracy percentage is probably even less.

Why take a chance without first doing your homework. Just because your neighbor did something does not mean that it was in compliance. Just because your landscape contractor says you do not need ARC approval does not mean he is correct. More importantly understand that you as the property owner are the one required to sign any ARC request forms and you are ultimately responsible for making sure all work is done in compliance with any covenants, conditions or restrictions.

One simple phone call to Community Standards can put you in contact with a staff that can provide you with accurate, up to date (yes, sometimes the rules change) and helpful information. Are you 100% certain whether your property contains easements and how far they extend? How often have you read about someone deciding to remove all his grass and installing stone because they no longer wanted to keep cutting the grass only to end up paying someone to come back and remove the stone and install new sod? How about the poor folks who spent significant funds landscaping their property only to be told that the area was actually a special easement and everything must be removed? Guess who ended up footing the bill for all the rework? Certainly not the contractor and most certainly not your fellow TOTV followers! Many folks try to transfer the blame to the complainant when confronted with a violation and potential fines but I have never heard of the complainant having to pay to fix the problem either! Be smart and be safe. Understand the rules and save yourself the aggravation.

Now before the negative responses about the unfair reporting systems or the “I never agreed to any restrictions” group start to chime in think about these issues:

• Where is it written that we are a 55+ restricted community?
• Where is it written that we agree to pay amenity fees?

The answer is these issues are also part of your Declaration of Restrictions. Surely you read and understood those parts of the agreement. You cannot cherry pick the items you agree to and those you do not. It is an all or none. You live here so obviously somewhere along the line you signed a legal document that said you agreed to abide by these rules and regulations. Otherwise, you would not be the legal owner.

Just to be clear, I am not an attorney nor am I an employee of the developer. I am simply a fellow resident of The Villages and one of the main reasons I moved here is because I liked what I saw and how things were managed. Having lived in other areas where such rules and regulations did not exist and seeing the what can happen minus reasonable controls no longer agrees with me or my pocketbook. Do I agree 100% with everything? Of course not, but if it really bothered me that badly I also know there are proper ways to try and incorporate changes. Obviously, ignoring the current rules and regulations is not, in my opinion, an option.

Time to fight and end these restrictive deeds issues.

Great for the esteemed, honored, all saintly Developer...praises and blessings be upon him....but....
That still sells houses to the cornhuskers who need to see the same thing over and over.
Sorry, place is getting too big to still cater to people from Mayberry.

Its a city now..

We need diversity

My eyes glazed over half way through , some people have lots of time on there hands

LOL I cannot disagree with Charlie however my strong feelings on this issue overloaded my sense of brevity. Hope this helps those with sleep deprivation issues.

Picture a community without these rules and regulations and step outside TV.
I think you will be happy to honor the system we have.

Like I wrote many times before: "Old Florida and New Florida"

Lot of thought went into this post………..

Yes, but he is right!

sarcasm ??

yes he is , when I’m living in a city I enjoy the chaos when I’m in villages I enjoy the order

When we bought here, we were presented with the covenants/restrictions which we CHOSE TO READ before we signed on the dotted line. There was no one with a gun to our head, nor were we given 5 minutes to review the paperwork-our obligation before signing a legally binding document was to read and understand, and if we didn't agree, then JUST SAY NO to buying here.

There were no guarantees anywhere in the documents that The Villages would stop building, nor was there an exclusion based upon race, creed, political affiliation, or sexual orientation (throw in any I may have forgotten since I would have remembered them HAD THEY BEEN LISTED). The restriction that we were presented with was that this was an age restricted community (55+) and that people under 19 could not live here. So what diversity is needed?

One always has the option to sell their home and move elsewhere if one finds these deed issues too restrictive, since there are people, myself included, who moved here in part BECAUSE OF these covenants.

I approve this post

the villages
 

The day that all the restrictions are removed we all lose $100000. in the value of our house. They need to have stronger enforcement not less.

Even most townships and counties have zoning laws and many special laws restricting what you can do for your property, most people would not want to see as an example of commercial dump truck opposite them every single day parked in front of their house. Many years ago I lived in New Jersey where my neighbor across the street stored his sailboat in his backyard and he was unfortunately sued by his real neighbor. There are also many cases of Long haul truckers parking near rigs in front of their homes. Of course the villages is very strict for a good reason they wanted controll totally, so whether you live in a town home a villa an apartment or a million dollar home you are restricted here for very good reasons and I don't understand people who don't research before they buy here and then complain

Sometimes I don't think they are restrictive enough. Neighbors across from us have three vehicles and a construction trailer parked in their driveway all the time and a motorcycle on the front porch. Legal ? Yes !

There's always those who want to change the rules to suit their likes etc. Up North we called them NIMBY's (not in my back yard). They moved into a community because they "liked" what they chose to see but didn't want change to come that would alter that. We've moved a fair amount of times and always, depending on the community, there were restrictions and rules. I think there will be folks always wanting to press against that and see how far they can get. We all moved here because we were attracted to the area for one reason or many. Early on.....there were some naysayers on ToTV that sounded much like the ones here (against the developer and such). The question was put to them, "so why don't you move?" The answer came back, "because I like the life-style!" Really???!!!! The Life-style is what brought us here along with the ambiance of the place. It's NOT a city as someone said and not set up as that, though the size is increasing. Just by living here we ALL are contributing to what we see and experience (traffic etc.).