Heritage Greens

Heritage Greens sits off Immokalee Road in North Naples, 527 homes laid out around a golf course. Building started in 1998 and stopped in 2003, and nothing here has gone up since. The homes divide two ways: 163 detached houses, and 364 that are attached and titled as condominium. It's gated, and the gate keeps hours.

Start with what a home here costs to hold, because a listing's association fee is not the whole of it. On every resale, the buyer owes the master association a capital contribution at closing. That's the purchaser's obligation and not the seller's, and an amendment recorded in 2006 attached a continuing lien to the home. Pin the amount down at the start, not at the closing table.

A second annual charge comes from no association at all. It arrives each November with the Collier County tax bill, paid directly or through a mortgage escrow. It covers the streets and sidewalks, the gate and its gatehouse, a security contract, drainage, and the lakes and preserves. No construction debt sits behind it, so there's no balance to pay off and nothing to assume at closing.

Do you get golf with the house?

No. The course inside the gate is ArrowHead Golf Club, and it's public, separately owned and separately run. Tee times and memberships are sold to the general public, and buying a home here buys no golf membership, no golf privileges and no golf dues. The course and its water take up about 140 of roughly 250 acres, so more than half the ground inside the gate is golf.

The homes along the fairways carry something else: a permanent golf easement, written into the recorded declaration and running with the land. Balls may fly over those lots and land on them, golfers may come onto the property to fetch them, and the association is not liable for what a ball damages. Because the course is public, the golfers with that right are the public, which makes course-side or interior the real decision here.

Which association writes your rules?

Your neighborhood's, first. One master association, Heritage Greens Community Association, sits above nine neighborhood associations, and each of the nine bills separately under its own recorded documents. Which of the nine a home belongs to decides who bills it, which rules bind it and what the monthly cost is. The declaration puts enforcement of the covenants on the neighborhood association, not the master, so community-wide rules are a floor rather than an answer. The nine are:

• Heritage Greens Single Family Homeowners
• Colonial Links Villas and Colonial Links Condominium
• Club Homes I, II, III and IV
• Crestview Villas and Crestview Condominium

Read that neighborhood's own declaration and budget, and establish which body bills the monthly fee.

What do homes sell for?

Two markets, not one. Detached houses have sold between about $530,000 and about $1.2 million, and the attached and condominium-titled homes between about $315,000 and about $560,000. The floor of the first sits at the ceiling of the second, so one span across all 527 homes describes neither half.

What can you use inside the gate?

The pool and spa at the community center are open to every owner, and some neighborhoods have their own additional pool. The center at 2215 Heritage Greens Drive has a fitness room as well, plus a social room owners can book for private gatherings. Outside are tennis, pickleball and basketball courts, and a playground. The fitness room runs 5am to 10pm daily, the courts 8am to 10pm, with the lights available until 9pm.

Nobody is on duty: the rules mark the fitness room, the courts and the playground "use at your own risk, no personnel on duty".

Inside one gate, the golf course takes bookings from anyone and the facilities are closed to everyone else. "Access to and use of the Community Association facilities, property and areas by persons other than an Owner, family member, guest, invitee, or tenant are strictly prohibited."

What are the rules on renting and pets?

Both are allowed, inside limits. No lease may run for fewer than 30 consecutive days, and February is the one exception: 28 or 29 days is allowed that month. "A living unit shall not be used as a short-term rental business." Every lease goes on file with the master association before the tenant arrives, and a tenant's gate stickers are cancelled each year with the lease.

Pets are allowed and must be leashed outdoors. Not on the golf course, though, and not in the pool, the pool area, the recreation facilities or the community center.

What does the gate actually do?

It restricts entry after 7:00pm. A gatehouse sits at the community center address, and owners get in with a windshield sticker, the first two per household provided at no cost. What it does not do, the declaration says in capitals. "ALL PERSONS USING OR OCCUPYING ANY PORTION OF THE COMMUNITY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN SECURITY AND THE SECURITY OF THEIR OWN PROPERTY. NEITHER THE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION, THE DECLARANT NOR A BUILDER ARE INSURERS OR GUARANTORS OF SECURITY FOR PERSONS OR PROPERTY WITHIN THE COMMUNITY."

Privately owned golf carts belong on the streets inside the gate and not on the sidewalks, except to cross them, and Florida's golf cart law applies. Sixteen lakes sit between the homes and the fairways.