Right on. Yours is also a right. We don't have to agree and it seems like we don't here.

On this we agree. Wear and tear is a real thing. I'm just saying that it is not substantial compared to the fixed cost portion of the cost.



Definitely nothing wrong with it. My point is you aren't charging the landlord, the guest will pay it so it will do nothing (or very little) to dissuade renting and will increase the cost for your non-renting neighbors to have guests.

I've weighed in on it before. Everything I hear is about the proverbial friend that experienced some problem. I think problems should and can be handled individually. I don't see a proliferation of nightmare AirBNB rentals and parties. I see a ton of worry about them.

You can guess anything you want but if you kept score on your lifetime guesses I bet you are wrong more than you are right. My two posts simply indicate that I don't see a huge problem with guest pass use and I don't see a huge problem with rentals in The Villages. I just see a lot of worry about them. For me, the Amenity fee is what I bargained for when I bought, the increases are based on CPI. When I use facilities, I am able to use them and the others there are treating everything respectfully.

For this issue, if I had a vote, today that vote would be to leave it how it is. Others feel differently.

Music in the squares is not a Villages Amenity. It's open to the public. I *think*, but someone smarter than me can chime in, that it is paid for by the merchants and possibly subsidized through some county tourism grants.

I think a limit on guest passes per household is a great idea for mitigating short term rentals. My guess is 10 passes per year. No extras at any cost, or else it'd still be too easy to put that cost onto short term visitors.

Here's an idea, piggybacking on your comments:

The Rec dept. can sell guest passes for registered guests for $10/week, or $25/month, per person. If a pass ends up not being used, then the money is refunded. If it's used even once, no refund. And all guest passes must be presented with a photo ID, so someone can't just use someone else's guest pass to get away with free amenity use. That would need to be actively enforced. That means if some unknown people are in the pool and the ID checker person comes by, they can order those people to get out of the pool and show their ID. If they refuse, the police can be called.

A can agree to that
 

For sure, 20 passes may be too generous. One thing seems certain, costs currently are not going down. Mitigating the increase with renter pass premiums could only help. Some might say it won’t amount to much, some say it will. The bottom line is it’s something, either big or small, it’s something.

Landlords admit (at least on this forum), that renters would pay for use of our facilities. Whether it’s with higher rental rates or out of a landlord’s pocket, who cares? The free ride on the rest of us should be terminated.

I like the idea. First 10 for free and then $10 each for more.

All this feels to me like a big reason not to buy in The Villages. Pay all that money for amenity fees and one can't even enjoy time here with family and friends without a big surcharge. Ah, the joy of living with miserly old people day after day. What's not to love?😬

I don't really see the downside of charging a fee for guest passes if they were to decide to go that way. If the numbers I have read in this post are accurate, there are hundreds of thousands of passes issued in a year. Even a fee as little as $10 would generate millions of dollars of revenue for the districts. The cost burden on applicants for passes would be minimal unless the number of passes was very large.

I actually think 20 passes is a bit high, I would suggest 10-12 and then have the fee start, I do understand some actual homeowners might need a few more than this limit, but so they might have to pay $20 for the last 2 guests in a busy year! The idea is to get the weekly rental units to pay the $10 for each guest!

Just remember you have set the table for higher fees for everything. It's the same as the way our government works, just increase funding little by little by little. To me, all this points out is the fact The Villages is not self sustaining and get ready to pay. IMHO, this is the tip of the iceberg.

///

Guest Passes
 

All,

I fortunately have my Children and Grandchildren visit often. One of the amenities was use of our recreation facilities, when we decided to move here. One of my Children has four kids. They usually visit us about every couple or few weeks. We are owners not Renters. That would kind of be kind of expensive. FYI that does not include my other family and Grandkids. What about our friends that come from all over the US? They all enjoy our amenities.

Our visitors are attracted to all our amenities, and we all have fun. And maybe some of them buy a home here because of the visit and the great amenities that we enjoy.

On the other hand, there are Homeowners that run Air B &Bs. They make money from the property. Those should take the brunt of the Guest pass fees, not the residents, their families and the guests.

The smack down should be to charge the outsiders that use our amenities. Charge them or remove them from our community amenities.

DO NOT CHARGE THE RESIDENTS AND THEIR FAMILIES AND FRIENDS.

Renters sure charge just like the $50 residents pass.

However, for us what children, or grandchildren do we forbid coming to see us at holidays, with 10 passes no exceptions.

3 kids, 3 spouses, 6 grands + 2 fiancé’s. It’s hard enough for some to get family to visit. Your idea to limit, would only cause hardship. Choose who is special and who is unloved.

3 kids come 3 times a year, twice with spouse’s, 6 grands once a year for parks, along with fiancé’s.(gone 4 days out of 7 day visits).
One child is nearing hospice, so visit is difficult yet important for all.

All come for two holidays per year. None go to any public pools because we have our own. All frequent restaurants, so great for economy.
2 kids and 1 grand + fianc, are avid golfers each belonging to private clubs. Each value playing time with their dad and grandpa.


So in your opinion who would you choose for only 10 passes. Some would say dump the 49yo stage 4 brain tumor, visits can be sad.

They need to be accompanied if they are under 19, otherwise no.

$10/week and $25/month for temporary unlimited use of amenity passes (except regional and sports pools) seems reasonable to me. It's not a "big" surcharge. All the swimming, basketball, archery, bocci, billiards/pool, video games, and opportunity to get in on many rec center classes, for just $10/week? How is that a "big" surcharge?

And many landlords don't inform The Villages that the people staying in their homes for a long weekend or a couple of weeks are tenants, not guests. They get the same guest passes you get, in the same way you get them. There is no way to know that the person staying there is paying for the privilege, or visiting as a guest.

A solution to that would be to limit FREE passes to an arbitrary number of adults, and children under 19 who are accompanied by those adults, would always be free. So if you did the 10 passes per year...

Then up to 10 ADULTS would get passes for free. AND all kids under 19 would get passes for free. If an 11th adult wanted a pass, and brought 3 kids with them, then the adult would pay for an adult pass. And the kids would still get free passes.

True, but the neighbors will know. Since anyone can anonymously report an 8-inch garden gnome, why not accept anonymous reports of someone running a STR business?

That would require the Developer and all the CDDs to agree to enforce the internal deed restrictions consistently.

I mean, I'm 100% in favor of the idea. But there's no hope, no prayer, no wish that'll make it happen. So I'd rather try for things that can actually be enforced.

I replied to the above post from LaLamy on 10 pass’s NO exception.

Our family of 16 is 25-55yo, zero under 19, ever.

So then you'd have to pay for six out of the 16 people who visit, if you want them to have a guest pass. I don't see the problem.

If one doesn't have children, grandchildren, or family or friends I can see where this arrangement would be glorious for keeping only old people around them.

That’s part of the problem - those who would impose restrictions or fees would not be affected by those restrictions or fees and don’t see a problem. Others would be affected and for them it understandably is a problem.

Nothing to report.

A STR is probably not considered to be “running a business out of the home” but clearly is not one of the two business types explicitly prohibited by the deer restrictions.

The Amenity Divisions have been successfully running the amenities for how many decades now? There was a period of time with no amenity fee increases, the area north of 466 is pushing for another freeze now, and the area south of 466 is struggling to explain why they don’t want a freeze. To me, this shows the amenities are successfully self sustaining, are funded very well at the moment, and don’t need additional sources of revenue.

I hope that assessment is correct. I wonder if Sumter county will pick up on the fact that they can add additional fees for things and Villagers won't mind. Such as: golf cart fees, library charges every time you use it, parking meters, seems that if extra charges are okay with Villagers they won't mind kicking into the county coffers. All the surrounding coffers I should say..
Marion, Lake and Wildwood, there's a whole bunch of change out there ready to be collected.

As an aside, I've wondered how your child was managing with the difficult diagnosis. I'm sorry to learn there was no success in treatment. Thinking of your family in these final days. Been there, done that with a family member, it's a rough road.

I’d be totally in favor of restrictions that hit my wallet, as long as they are severe enough to prevent short term rentals. I’m sure I’m not alone in that opinion.

Yet everyone knows IT IS a business being run out of a home. What else would one call it?????

You most certainly are not!

Yes, do get rid of those short-term rentals! And then watch the housing market in The Villages collapse.:crap2:

Like It Already Isn’t Hurting
 

I wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water yet. Nothing has been done and the market is already collapsing. The market is virtually frozen in the resale market.

That is what I'm talking about, I don't think Villagers have any idea how much their market is propped up by rental income for owners. Ban all rentals and see what happens.

I knew a guy that owned house near me had over 10 family members with resident ID. Some say how that possible? I guess they was all on deed? IMO there multi-ways to game the system and some are doing it.

4 houses in my neighborhood sold in less than two months, one didn’t last week. Houses are selling just market flooded with new and resales and interests rates are high.

IS IT?

When I look up Avis locations in Alaska I don’t see Homer, Seward, or Talkeetna yet I will be in my Avis car there. Does the location of the rented property define the location of the business or is the location of the business defined by where the actual transaction is conducted?

If you are buying to “live off “ other people, yeah, then please DON’T BUY in The Villages. See if there is anywhere (in the world) where one can do that. As far as old miserly people… so how many retirement homes (with all our amenities, or even without) are free?

Maybe just ban short term rentals? You still could allow long term rentals. Just no motel type renting for 2 or 3 nights. One wonders what percentage of these short term rentals are being reported to Florida tax authorities and paying the sales tax for STR’s? I believe after three years of continuing to not pay the sales tax on these rentals it can result in a serious charge under Florida law. Maybe someone else has more knowledge on this subject.

From the mouth of the developer, running a STR out of one’s home is definitely considered running a business out of the home, if the landlord is concurrently living in the home. Renting out one’s home, WHILE NOT CONCURRENCY LIVING THERE, whether it be by the night, week, month, year, or longer, is not considered running a business out of the home. Whether or not it violates a deed restriction apparently depends on which CDD the home is located in. It violates deed restrictions in the older districts but over time the deed restriction language has changed. It’s highly unlikely the likes of AIRBNB’s were even considered when CDD1 was being developed.

Again, from the mouth of the developer to my ears, in my District (CDD1), renting out one or more rooms in a home, while concurrently living there, violates not one, but two deed restrictions. First, it is considered running a business out of the home, and second, it violates the deed restriction that homes are to be used as single family residential units. Unfortunately, enforcement of internal deed restrictions falls on the developer, and is not required but instead is optional at their discretion, and they have chosen not to enforce STR’s.