Crazy maintenance fee increase for Lake Denham
 

Editing this post to remove the stuff I put that is irrelevant.

Lake Denham District 14 is having a 56% increase in maintenance fee after only one year. Seems excessive.

https://i.imgur.com/MZYkZR5l.jpg

Well I'd certainly attend the budget meeting for your district. The biggest jump in your budget is for the Eastport Maintenance Advisory Committee which is the new committee down there for project wide fees for districts 14 and 15. That seems to account for about 77.5% of the increase in appropriations in next year's budget.

And comparing a veranda in your district to one in mine (12) it seems next year's assessment is about 29% higher in district 14.

Certainly some questions to get answers for.

We asked lots of questions and certainly knew about the maintenance fee as somebody has to pay for maintenance and upkeep. Did you think it was free?

Why it went up so much is a good question and suggest you go to a meeting and find out.

Did I think it was free? I mean, maybe you missed this in my post...

As I said, yes I knew about the maintenance fee. I actually happened upon it while checking other things. They certainly aren't up front about it, but a 56% increase in 1 year?

Anyhow I'm only part time so I can't go to the meeting as I won't be there. Still working.

That's a shame. If you were here all of the time you could see how well this place works and how well it is run. I do not find any shady dealings and I have lived here 18 years now.

I'm there enough to know how well it's run. But my warning to people buying new, first check out the bond and the payment and the interest, that they do not mention. They tell you there is a bond paid over 30 years. They never mention the interest and you have to go onto the CDD website to find payment info.

Second, the maintenance fee that they never mentioned at all. I'm sure it's buried in the closing docs somewhere. Even then, I'm perfectly fine with the fee that I signed up for because I did my research. I also expect increases because maintenance costs obviously increase. But to raise the fee by $330 (56%) after only 1 year seems absurd to me.

A lot of Extra Costs
 

There are many extras rarely mentioned. Everything is going up significantly to live here. Perhaps it’s the Fire fee, the maintenance fee or whatever. There are a lot of extras and they do add up.

This isn’t a pay once and you’re set type of place. To top it all off, insurance is going through the roof and grocery prices have gone off the charts. Just wait till you figure out your irrigation vs. household water bill and how it compares to homes north of 466.

Commercial Area
 

I believe those maintenance fee increases are for the commercial areas, Lake Denham, Brownwood, Magnolia Plaza,Colony Plaza, etc.

Something doesn’t seem right, one would reasonably expect a relatively low maintenance fee for residents in a new area, with all new stuff to be maintained? Based on your 56% increase, it appears your annual maintenance fee is well over $900. Our Village, north of 466, is approaching 30 years old and our annual maintenance bill is just below $400. Appears to be yet another compelling reason for prospective Villagers to consider a pre-owned home.

Never mentioned at all:
On my annual bill I have six lines, property tax is one, the bond is another, and the maintenance fee is a third. I don't recall the realtor sitting down with me and going over each of the lines on the bill. I can say it probably wasn't mentioned but then neither were three other lines on the bill.

Interest on the bond:
Not as significant as it might be since it is probably low (maybe not for Denham) and you can't make advance payments to lower the amount of interest you pay. You have a choice, pay the 360 months (or whatever) or pay the current balance on the principal. We chose to pay the principal to have no bond payment going forward. Since the interest might vary for each "unit" (neighborhood) I wouldn't expect a realtor to have the number handy. The information on the payments is readily available on districtgov.org.

Maintenance increase:
56% is a huge increase, no doubt about that. $900 is a lot to pay for maintenance fee, no doubt about that either. Three possible reasons for the increase: 1. A new CDD is just now finding out what its expenses really are; 2. A new PWAC for some of the southern districts might have just found out what its expenses really are; or, 3. The SECO lighting increase might have hit the maintenance fee (though $330 seems steep for this). Along with the bond amortization info, districtgov.org also has a link to the minutes of your CDD board meetings. Find the recent meeting where the maintenance fee increase was discussed and see if any reason was given.

I don't know what the SECO lighting is, electric company? We have Duke Energy.

But apart from all of this, we don't even have an adult pool in Lake Denham. It's frustrating.

Our interest on the bond is about 5.5%.

SECO Energy is a not-for-profit electric cooperative providing reliable, safe, and affordable electric service to over 240,000 members or roughly 500,000 consumers. Our seven Central Florida counties include Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Levy, Marion, Pasco, and Sumter. SECO Energy is the third-largest electric co-op in Florida and the seventh largest in the nation. One of the most important distinctions between other types of utilities and SECO is that we are member owned

SECO is an electric coop that serves a lot of the Villages but apparently not your area. They are significantly increasing the rental rates for light poles which may result in my maintenance assessment increasing. Since you are under Duke Energy, this does not apply to you.

Unless you have $30K or so that you want to use to pay off the bond, the interest rate doesn't matter much to you. It would certainly be a consideration for determining whether to find the $30K but if you have no intention to spend it then the bond payment is what it is.

I looked at the CDD14 budget. By far the largest increase is in your contribution to EMAC. EMAC is the CDD14/CDD15/Eastport version of our PWAC. It looks like EMAC was stood up in the second half of 2023. Now that Eastport is coming together there is maintenance work to be done. The landscaping cost covered by EMAC increased from $400K this year to $2.7M in the upcoming year. This appears to be the primary cause of your maintenance increase.

Thanks for the info. Never heard of EMAC or PWAC or any of that. Regarding my bond, I will pay it off, most likely, in 2 years when I sell up north and pay off my house down there. Of course that is if we decide to stay in Lake Denham. Never know what new is coming. But I like Lake Denham and our lot and the price we paid. Everything newer is more expensive.

Thanks Bill!

What does "It looks like EMAC was stood up in the second half of 2023." mean?

I don't follows the connection between CDD 14 &15?

VCDD Districts Map