Glades Country Club

The Glades is 1,169 condominium homes and two 18-hole golf courses in East Naples, in unincorporated Collier County. The homes sit in twelve separate condominiums, numbered 1 to 11 plus a 3A, standing in 307 buildings along Teryl Road and Palm Drive. Sections run from 22 homes to 192. The first of them was recorded in 1971, the last in 1979.

One fact shapes every other answer here: the association is the club. Glades Golf and Country Club, Inc. is the condominium association, and it owns the golf courses, the clubhouse, the tennis courts and the pools outright. Nothing is leased, and no separate club company exists to lease it from.

Do you have to join the club at the Glades?

No: owning a unit is what membership means. There's no application, no initiation, no wait list, and no membership to buy or sell. The recorded declaration gives every owner "the right to use the Recreation Areas, including the golf facilities, as an appurtenance to the unit". Any attempt to separate it from the title is void. The right is capped per home, not per household: "2 persons on the deed", in the club's words. Guests and tenants pay greens fees.

How do the monthly fees work?

One assessment, with two parts inside it. Running the golf courses, the clubhouse, the tennis courts and the pools is a common expense of the association, and so is water and sewer service to the unit. What the total comes to depends on the section, because each of the twelve condominiums is budgeted on its own. The association states it directly: "There are 1169 units in the Association which is split up into 12 individual sections. Each section has their own monthly fee, but all unit owners pay the same towards common expenses."

Can you rent a home out at the Glades?

Three rentals a year, and none longer than six months. A 2021 bylaw amendment caps it at three times in a calendar year, "with the minimum lease term being thirty (30) continuous days and the maximum lease term being six (6) months. No option for the lessee to extend or renew the lease for any additional period shall be permitted." Subleasing is out, and every lease needs board approval, 21 days' notice and a signed copy. The amendment took effect on 24 August 2021 and binds everyone who has taken title since. The club's own website still shows the one-year maximum it struck out, so that page isn't where to check the rules.

While the home is under lease, the golf passes to the tenant. Rule 300.02E says an owner with a tenant in place "may not use the Association Property or Common Elements (including, without limitation, the parking and golf facilities) during the lease term", and the tenant holds them. Rent the place out for January and you give up January on the course. Pets are limited too: one cat or dog under 25 pounds plus tropical fish, and no pet at all in a leased home apart from the assistance animals fair housing law requires.

What is there to do here?

Thirty-six holes, in two shapes. The Pines is an 18-hole par 70 with lakes, sand traps and twisting fairways; the Palmetto an 18-hole par 55 executive course, and both can be walked or ridden. The club runs more than 300 organized golf events a year, with weekly league play year-round.

Six Har-Tru clay tennis courts sit off the courses, with instruction from a certified professional. Twelve permanent pickleball courts, individually fenced, plus a three-court practice facility, bocce courts and swimming pools spread through the property. The 19th Hole, the clubhouse restaurant, looks over the golf course and a pool.

Fairway Oaks, Hidden Oaks and Naples Sunrise IV are separate communities with their own associations, and they use some Glades facilities under contract, carrying Glades identification cards. Some of their addresses sit on the same streets as Glades homes, so a listing on Albi Road or Penny Lane isn't automatically a Glades listing.

What should you settle before making an offer?

Start with the board, because it approves every sale before closing. The seller gives the board at least 30 days' notice of the intended closing, plus the signed contract and the buyer's application. The board then has 20 days to decide, and it can refuse only on listed grounds, including certain felony convictions and a record of financial irresponsibility. Silence counts as approval if the board doesn't act in time.

Florida's newer structural inspection and reserve rules reach condominium buildings of three stories or more. The association states that it has none that tall, which keeps a mandated inspection and a mandated reserve top-up off the assessment here.

Two things to nail down on a particular home:

• The monthly assessment for that section. Twelve budgets, twelve answers, and a figure quoted for the community is none of them.
• Any one-time money due at closing, beyond the purchase price and the fee charged for processing the application.

The land under the golf belongs to the association, deeded to it by the original developer, The Glades, Inc. Selling or mortgaging real property the association owns needs the approval of the owners of at least 585 units, a majority of the 1,169. That vote is the answer to what happens if the course is ever sold.