Amenities Fees Question
 

My wife and I are visiting the end of May and hope to find a rental in the fall, for a one month stay, to see if TV are for us. While doing research on TV I see the following terms and hence the question. Are amenities fees another way of saying HOA fees? If not are there two separate fees in TV and what is the difference between the two fees if they are not the same thing? Thanks in advance, cycler.

There are no HOA fees because the homeowners don't own the amenities. The Villages owns and maintains the amenities and charges homeowners a monthly amenity fee to cover the cost. There is also an annual maintenance fee of about $300 to $500 that appears annually on your property tax bill. That fee covers the cost to maintain the infrastucture such as utilities.

There is no HOA fee here. There are 2 organizations, an HOA and a POA, but they are not like HOA's in other communities and don't collect fees other than a $5 or $10/year membership. The amenity fee is only about $179/month, a real bargain compared to other places, and for that you get over 80 recreation centers of various types, over 100 pools, 44+ executive golf courses, a community watch that passes by every property at least 3x/day and golf cart access to just everything you might ever need. But I don't need to sell anyone on TV, just come and see for yourself.

Golf isn't free
 

I wanted to add that no golf is free. You can pay as you go at executive golf courses or if you play a lot, you can pay an annual "trail fee" - either way it's pretty cheap golf but not free. You can play the championship courses but not free. I've not stayed up with the cost of the premier membership but it only reduces the cost to play. For us, the executives are challenge enough.

If you walk the course it is free.

And if you take your cart, it's $4/ round or $132/ year unlimited. Hardly a hardship.

Check to see if their is a bond. If there is/was I think you have annual maintenance fees associated with the property.
You can go to the tax collectors web site and look up the bills for homes in the area you are interested in to see the extra charges that are included with the real estate bill.
This site might help you find a rental. Also explore the surrounding area while you are here. VH4R Home Rentals in The Villages Florida The Villages Rentals

Question. Don't all Villages houses have a bond when they are built?

There are bond amortization schedule for Districts 1-14. I think that covers all homes but I could be wrong.

If this is true than I have been misunderstanding the system. Not sure what you mean by "The Villages" when you say they own the amenities. My understanding is that The Developer owns the amenities in the newly developed areas until a certain point in time when the developing phase has ended, and then the amenities are bought by that particular CDD. Each separate CDD does not, however, administer the finances. There are 3 entities that do that. One of them is the developer for the aforementioned areas still owned by the developer, and the others have acronyms I don't remember, but they pool the money and administer the funds to pay for the amenity infrastructure and maintenance.

You may be technically accurate as to legal ownership, but the amenities are operated by Villages employees, almost all amenities are available for use by all Villages residents, and The Villages establishes consistent rules for using the amenities. Are you saying that a CDD could restrict access to a rec center or pool to residents who don't reside in their CDD because they own it?

In my opinion, the answer is Yes.

We pay a monthly Amenity Fee of about $170 and there are a lot of things we can do for free. The executive golf courses are free, the pools at the recreation areas are free, and the other activities like shuffleboard and pool tables are free.

We have over 100 swimming pools and we can use all of them. We often go for walks or bike rides on the many walking/biking trails in the Southern Area and then hop in the closest pool. Life is good for us here.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong...

- The Developer owns everything initially - houses, roads, rec centers, dog parks, etc
- People purchase homes
- Most roads are turned over to the County
- A CDD is established for local governance and for maintenance of common areas
- Amenities (golf courses, pools, rec centers, dog parks, etc) are turned over to the Villages CDD covering the area (North of 466 = VCCDD, 44 to 466 = SLCDD, South of 44 = ???).
- "Turning over" might involve payment to the Developer

When the dust settles:
- The resident owns the home
- The numbered CDD owns the common area and the Villa roads
- The County owns the non-Villa roads
- The Villages area CDD (VCCDD or SLCDD) owns the amenities

Amenity fees are paid monthly monthly on your utility bill and go to the CDD covering the area (VCCDD or SLCDD). Amenity fees pay for gate attendants, rec center employees, neighborhood watch, pool chemicals, new roofs on the rec centers, etc.

Maintenance fees are paid yearly on your tax bill (about $500) and go to your numbered CDD (CDD10 gets mine). These fees are used for maintenance of common areas such as entrance signs, painting some villa walls, flowers, maintenance of villa roads, filling sinkholes near retention ponds, etc.

A portion of the Maintenance fees from Districts 5-11 (currently) are pooled for project-wide maintenance activities (mowing common areas, flowers in common areas, fixing sinkholes, etc). The Project Wide Advisory Committee (PWAC) is a group of supervisors from Districts 5-11 that advises the SLCDD on the use of the pooled funds. They also make recommendations to the SLCDD on the use of Amenity fees.


For those who are already owners, the Resident Academy is the place to learn about District Government from the experts.

I have to disagree with the "yes" answer to HOA

Generally, HOAs are run by a bunch of busy body malcontents who take pleasure in trying to run other people's lives

Here, there are deed restrictions that are spelled out clearly for each unit. Violations can be reported anonymously, but Community Standards are responsible for investigating and homeowners are responsible for getting any changes approved through ARC. Neither of these oversight bodies has the same stigma as most HOAs nor are they run by the cabal of Karen, Karen, and Karen.

No, that is not what I said, nor meant to say.