Paseo

Paseo sits on Daniels Parkway in South Fort Myers, Lee County, with its own address on Paseo Grande Boulevard. It covers 444 acres and holds 1,146 homes: 749 condominium units, 321 single-family houses and 76 attached villas. Entry is gated, through a guardhouse, and a car gets in on a registered transponder. The homes date from 2006 onward.

Every owner here answers to two associations. The master association owns the village center and runs it. Alongside it sits whichever body governs your own street, the condominium association or one of the separate homeowners' associations over the single-family and villa sections. That second set of documents governs the home itself, and most of what follows is the condominium's. The houses and villas answer to theirs.

What is in the village center?

A clubhouse on two levels, with a gymnasium, a cafe, an ice cream shop and a billiards room, and a separate theater building seating 100. Outside are a heated main pool with an infinity edge, a lap pool, a spa pool and a children's pool. Also a full-service spa and salon, a library, and three places to eat and drink: a bistro, a pub and a poolside tiki bar.

Beside it are courts for tennis, pickleball, basketball, bocce and volleyball, and a fishing pier on the lakes.

What is free and what is not?

Getting in is free. Much of what happens inside isn't.

Use of the complex is a right of the home itself, not a membership an owner buys or applies for. Films at the theater cost nothing with a resident card, popcorn included. Everything served costs money: the bistro, the pub, the tiki bar, the cafe and the ice cream shop all take payment at the counter, and the spa and salon are paid by appointment. The card opens the fitness center at no charge, and the studio classes held inside it carry a charge to attend, which is the one people miss.

Can you just buy a home here?

No. The board approves a purchase before it can close, and it is not a formality. An owner may not sell or give away a unit without the board's prior written approval, and the board may require a personal interview with the buyer and their spouse. Every intended occupant is background-checked, and the association wants the application about a month ahead of closing.

Letting a home runs through the same board. A lease is 30 days at minimum and a year at most, and 30 days must pass between the start of one lease and the start of the next. No home may be let more than 12 times a year, and no tenant or guest may keep a pet. While the home is let, the owner loses the use of the recreation and parking facilities.

What else do the rules reach?

• Parking. Cars, passenger minivans, jeeps and light pick-ups. Golf carts, motorcycles, boats, trailers, campers and motor homes go inside a closed garage or nowhere, and nothing parks on streets or lawns.
• Signs. No "for sale", "for rent" or "open house" sign anywhere on the property, or on a car parked on it, without the board's written consent.
• Pets. Two household animals, two caged birds and a reasonable number of tropical fish. No reptiles, no livestock. A pet outside the home is carried or leashed, never left unattended in a garage or on a lanai.

What does an owner pay?

A condominium owner gets one quarterly bill rather than two: the master association's share already sits inside the condominium assessment, collected on the master's behalf.

Five blocks of the condominium pay more than that, because a Quad is a square of four buildings ringed around a pool, deck and cabanas, and that pool is theirs alone. The association maintains it and bills the cost back to those owners, on top of their ordinary assessment. So two condominium homes can carry different quarterly bills, and that's a question about the address.

A one-time capital contribution goes to the master association at closing, alongside the prorated quarterly assessment, and the amount is worth confirming on the estoppel before you sign. Prices start at the $230,000s, and a home here holds 2 to 4 bedrooms across about 1250 to about 3050 square feet.

What should you ask about a particular building?

The 749 condominium homes stand in 123 buildings, in 22 types and layouts, under one board and one budget. The buildings are not alike though, since most layouts run one or two levels while three run three, with the living space upstairs.

Florida requires structural inspections on condominium buildings, and real money held against what an inspection finds. Whether a given building falls inside that is not one answer for all 123, so the question belongs at the address: has this building been inspected, what did it find, and is the money for the work set aside. Where nothing is put by, the work arrives as a single bill instead of a higher quarterly charge. A single-family house or a villa doesn't carry any of it.

The village center is the master association's own property, and the association runs it day to day, food and drink included. There is no developer's club here and no outside operator, and nothing is leased back to the owners: no home carries a ground rent or a recreational lease.