I apologize. I have obviously offended you. I'm sorry.

Uh.. You've posted in this thread 18 times. Barefoot, 9.. Just sayin..

Thank You for that info! i didn't want to be the one to rub there nose in it.
Sometimes you can't fix stupid!

Barefoot, you are a much better woman than I am.

I have been sitting here chewing my typing fingers off.

I guess I have reading comprehension problems, too. I cannot possibly be reading that screen name correctly.

I have never reported anybody for lawn ornaments and in all my 3,000 plus posts and a hundred years on TOTV, I have reported only three posts — and one of them was me reporting myself. (blush)

But I was about to make it 4. (I didn’t though. Such an attack speaks for itself around here.)

You, Barefoot, are a really nice lady and so much classier than I am. :)

Seriously?!?!

The sad thing is none of this is going to change a thing

The birds, the bronze birds are almost always permitted when ARC is asked. That and nicely done fountains. Not so much a bunch of ceramic mushrooms or little bunnies.

I see nothing wrong with someone reporting deed restrictions. But some do. I have only reported one and that was my neighbor in Hadley. But there is one in my friends neighborhood where the driveway is lined with schlocky things and I have to think that she has to have been reported many times up to the limit. And she probably has a lien on her home. I am always tempted to call when I go by there, but I don't.

Let me apologize to everyone. I was out of line. I guess since this topic affected me personally I got too close to the subject. Let this be my last post on this thread.

It happens to the best of us. But it takes a big person to apologize. Kudos to both of you.

The nature of quickly written posts, like e-mails, is that without the benefit of voice tone and facial expressions, it is very easy to misunderstand each other's intentions. I believe, for the most part, we are all good people who just want the best for ourselves, our loved ones, our friends, and, in most cases, our neighbors.

The "submit" button should have a 15-second delay.

Personal attacks are against the rules. But I won't report this. Instead, I'll respond, since clearly it went right over your head.

People are saying to abide by the rules, and stop complaining if they get caught breaking them.

I am saying - the rules might not be good rules, and perhaps it's time to rewrite them.

Case in point, the rule about antennae. The rules of the Villages says they're not allowed. Federal law says they are.

So which rule is wrong, which rule needs to be changed? They can't both be right.

If being capable of cognizant thought is equal to being stupid, then color me guilty. I wonder though, if this makes me stupid, then what label would you assign to yourself?

Thank you Barefoot and Happydaz for the peace.

BK001, thank you for a nice summary of the situation.

The federal law and state law always preempts any HOA restriction Period.
If you haven't learned that by now i can't help you!. Also just to clarify Federal law trumps State law, but it depends when and where. That should confuse you for a while. And for what you classify yourself as its up to you.
It seems you have tried to pick a fight with some of the post on this forum.
People come here to brainstorm and not fight with people. Have a good night.

Well, I was kind of thinking the same thing, or else someone is just a literal person by nature, in which case letting "gray areas" of rules lie just doesn't seem too easy. Throw in the fact that a person may be moving here under duration may be exacerbating things. Spell check had to help me with exacerbating.

Federal law supercedes community rules. That means the community rules are invalid. This means, from a legal standpoint, that the rule needs to be removed. It -cannot- be complied with, yet new homeowners who don't spend hours reading government websites and the deed restrictions of a 100k+ community aren't likely to know that, nor would it occur to them to even check. It's not a grey area. It's clearcut. The Villages is not, by law, allowed to impose this particular rule on its residency.

This makes one wonder what OTHER rules it's imposing on its residency, that it isn't allowed to impose, that people are following blindly because they a) don't know better or b) don't care. Everyone tells each other right here on this very forum, that if we don't like the rules, either don't move in, or move somewhere else.

Seems no one knew about the antennae part. Why not? Why didn't any of YOU - who already live there - know about this? Why didn't you know it was a rule, AND why did you not know that the rule was not legal to impose? Why did you sign to agree to abide by this rule, that is legally not allowed to exist? What OTHER rules have you agreed to abide by, that isn't legally allowed to exist? Which illegal rules have cause the Community watch group to infract homeowners, who should not have been infracted, because the rules were not legal to exist? How much money in fines have been paid to the Development group as a result of infractions of rules that were illegal to enforce?

I'm not calling for a protest, or mutiny, or rile up the masses. I'm asking why people who live here and say "stop complaining, you knew the rules coming in" don't already know about this stuff? I'm asking them to "know of what ye speak" before coming down on people asking questions here. Yes, I know the rule going in. But thanks to this forum, I also know that one of those rules cannot legally be enforced (the antenna rule). That makes me wonder why the rule was put in, in the first place. Maybe it was put in before federal law decreed otherwise, and the authority of the Villages just never bothered to remove that rule. How many people are paying for cable, when they could have antennae and no cable instead? How many residents would have preferred it that way, but read the rules, saw it was a restricted activity, and just sucked it up and paid for some other method when they didn't have to, because federal law allows it?

And why would anyone here be upset about my pointing it out? ESPECIALLY when I'm just repeating back what Chellybean posted - that federal law supercedes community rules. If it does, then it stands to reason that the community rule is invalid and needs to be removed.