L'Hermitage at Heron Bay: 60 Coral Springs homes where the HOA keeps every lawn

Article 6 lets no owner sell until everything owed the association is paid and the owner has its estoppel certificate (p. 15). Being "in recordable form", the certificate can go on record with the deed. Without the certificate, a sale "shall be wholly null and void" and confers no title, though the association may later approve it and so validate the deed. Underwriting weighs Article 6's ten-day deadline and $50 cap, and the Board's § 11.11 power to index the declaration's dollar figures to consumer prices (p. 21), against Chapter 720's own estoppel rules.

• No resale contribution. Section 4.16's Capital Contribution, three months' assessments, was due once, on the Declarant's conveyance of each Lot.
• No master Neighborhood Expenses. The 1996 covenants make L'Hermitage "not a Benefitted Neighborhood" (Art. I ¶ 5, p. 3). Their one-time $500 a home, $30,000 for 60 Property Units, was the builder's, due by 31 December 1999 (Art. III ¶¶ 1–3, pp. 8–10). The master's estoppel shows if any is still claimed, and Heron Bay's resale Capital Payment is a separate charge to the buyer.
• The seller's arrears. Under § 4.8 whoever acquires a delinquent Lot, even at a judicial sale, may not occupy it until the arrears are paid, unless the acquirer is a mortgagee or purchaser that § 4.9 protects. Fifteen days after a missed installment, the association may charge a late fee up to its amount or accelerate the next twelve months.
• The recorded deed. Give it to the association after closing, since a new member's rights start only then (Exh. B Art. V, p. 31).

A L'Hermitage owner may rent out the entire Lot and Unit, for at least a year, once the association approves the lease in writing (§ 5.18, p. 14). Approval may not be unreasonably withheld, but unpaid assessments are deemed "a reasonable basis for withholding approval". Leases must use a form the association approves, which lets it end the lease for the owner if the tenant defaults. The owner escrows up to $250 against tenant damage and is jointly and severally liable with the tenant beyond it. The rest, less up to $50, is returned within ninety days after move-out.

Section 5.18 sets no decision deadline, deemed approval or application fee, and we found no recorded rules, so ask the manager for the application. A tenant staying on after closing needs approval too. No leasing amendment is recorded through 20 October 2026, so nothing in § 5.18 postdates 1 July 2021, the date Chapter 720 uses for rental amendments. The master's one-lease-in-12-months rule applies as well.

Section 3.3 has the association maintain, insure and replace the Common Areas, "together with the lawns and sprinkler systems on Lots". Those areas take in paving, drainage, street lights, fountains, walls, entrance features, sidewalks and landscaping, all kept to Coral Springs' code, a standard Mizner Village and The Enclave share. The owner keeps up trees, shrubs, the roof, the driveway surface and the rest of the Lot. After thirty days' written notice, the association may do an owner's neglected work and lien the Lot for its cost (§ 4.4, p. 8).

Insuring the home is the owner's job, because § 8.1.1 leaves the Units off the association's policy. The Board may elect under § 8.1.5 to insure them as a common expense, and the manager can say whether it has. Flood cover is the association's choice under § 8.1.3, and if it buys none, flood insurance for each Lot falls to its owner. L'Hermitage's declaration contains no party-wall article, but §§ 3.7.1–3.7.2 (p. 6) give each owner an easement over adjoining Lots to maintain air-conditioning equipment and meters and, where a home encroaches, to keep up its exterior walls and roof overhang.

Section 1.13 of L'Hermitage's declaration holds the land subject to WCI's 1996 covenants, Exhibit 1 to WCI's deed to the builder. Filed inside a deed, as on The Pointe, they can escape a search by document type. Supplement No. 1 (Instr 96004139) brought the same land under the master declaration.

Under the covenants' Article II ¶ 3, a house needs at least 2,000 square feet of living area, plus, under ¶ 5.A–B, a garage for at least two cars, with no carport and vehicle repairs kept inside it. Paragraph 2.D caps height at 35 feet, or 22 feet along the south 196.73 feet of the west perimeter line. Under ¶ 7.A roofs are pitched cement or clay tile, or slate, never cedar or asphalt shingle. Paragraph 8.A limits driveways to stamped concrete, paver block or brick, never asphalt, loose stone or plain concrete. Paragraph 1 bars any business or professional office.

WCI keeps the final word on conflicts with the master declaration (Art. III ¶ 11, p. 13), under the conflict clause several Heron Bay declarations share, and may lien a site for the cost of curing an owner's maintenance failure (¶ 6.B, p. 13).

Outside, nothing changes without the ACC, L'Hermitage's architectural committee, whether roof, paint or landscaping (§ 5.12, p. 13). It may refuse on looks alone, but a request left unanswered for thirty days is deemed approved. No garage may be converted, and the master's exterior approval is needed too. Under § 5.6 no "for sale" or "for rent" sign may go on a L'Hermitage Lot, Unit, structure or vehicle, and Heron Bay's own § 3.13 sign ban covers every lot in the community.

Each Lot is a metes-and-bounds part of Parcel A, described by survey lines. We found no recorded instrument designating the Lots, and the by-laws cite an "approved site plan" that is "unrecorded, on file with the City of Coral Springs" (Exh. C, p. 45). The plat is stamped as amended by OR 24732/384, which the County indexes not as a plat amendment but as a 1996 agreement between Broward County and the builder over parts of Parcels A, A-1 and A-2. We have not read it, so order a copy when a closing depends on the plat's lines. In the Property Appraiser's descriptions, Lot 44 overlaps Lot 43, Lot 47 leaves a gap and Lot 48 repeats Lot 49's rectangle. The deeds show where the trouble lies. Each Lot is a 60-by-130-foot rectangle on Parcel A's north boundary, starting a set distance east of its Northwest corner.

• Lot 47's 2000 deed starts at 372.30 feet, and Lot 48's deeds of 2000 and 2025 at 312.30, 60 feet apart (OR 30665/1418 and OR 30652/883, p. 3; Instr 120425031, p. 1).
• Lot 49's first deed, of 2001, started at 252.30 feet. The builder's corrective deed, recorded in 2002, moved it to 312.30, Lot 48's rectangle, if the scan's "312.30" is read right (OR 31354/557 and OR 33037/698, p. 3).
• Lot 44's deeds of 2004 and 2012 both start at 642.31 feet, half a lot off that 60-foot spacing (OR 38154/653, p. 2; OR 49289/512, p. 3).

On a sale of Lot 44, 48 or 49, the description goes to underwriting with a survey, and may need a corrective deed. On any Lot, check the vesting deed's description against Parcel A, not the Appraiser's.

Article 6 also governed every earlier resale, so a prior deed with neither a certificate nor the association's later validation goes to underwriting.

Parcel A carries $307,920.00 of the County's school impact lien, adjusted annually, under the Educational Impact Lien Agreement recorded the same minute as the plat (OR 24213/65, ¶¶ 1–2, p. 2). WCI's deed had the builder "assume and agree to pay" it. No County satisfaction or recorded assignment and assumption has turned up. The County has released single Lots, though: the index links 33 partial releases to the agreement, mostly from 1999 to 2005, among them Lot 38's (Instr 105376580). So the title search looks for a partial release naming the Lot, and without one Parcel A's school impact lien stays open for underwriting.

Parcels A-1 and A-2, the plat's "PLANTING AND NON-ACCESS STRIP" (sheet 3), began as L'Hermitage Common Areas (§ 1.6, p. 2) and were taken out by the two 1998 amendments in the table. The master joined neither amendment. The builder deeded both to the master on 15 June 1998, adding them to the master's "Association Common Area" and limiting their use to landscaping, utilities, signage, entrance walls, irrigation and drainage (OR 28495/669, pp. 1, 3). So check that a L'Hermitage legal description says Parcel A.

The 1996 covenants turned 30 on 3 January 2026, and L'Hermitage's declaration reaches 30 on 12 May 2027. Those are the first dates when Florida's Marketable Record Title Act, which can cut off old covenants after 30 years unless they are preserved, could free a Lot of either set. Our search through 20 October 2026 found no preservation notice for either set, and neither is listed in the master's 2024 notice, so underwriting applies the chapter 712 test Lot by Lot.

Only tax liens, and a first mortgage a Preferred Lender recorded before any claim of lien, outrank the association's § 4.9 lien. That lender, or its foreclosure buyer, owes only assessments falling due afterwards. Under § 4.1 each assessment is the personal obligation of the owner when it falls due "and all subsequent Owners until paid", on top of Chapter 720's buyer liability.

Under § 7.3 the Board may fine up to $100.00, $500.00 and $1,000.00 for a first, a second and any later violation, after a hearing on at least six days' notice. It collects the fines as assessments (§ 7.3.5, p. 17). That six-day Board hearing conflicts with Fla. Stat. § 720.305(2)(b), which requires at least 14 days' written notice and a hearing before a committee of three or more members who are not directors, officers or employees. No fine under $1,000 can become a lien, so a $1,000 fine may surface on the estoppel and in the lien search alike.

Underwriting also weighs two signing points. The declaration's notary also prepared and witnessed it and left the printed-name and commission lines blank, though the seal supplies them (pp. 24–25). The builder's 1998 amendment has no subscribing witnesses, and its acknowledgment leaves both "personally know[n]" and "has produced his Florida driver's license" standing (Instr 98390582, the County's instrument number, p. 2).

Section 11.4 let the builder amend alone while it or an affiliate held a Lot, and otherwise requires a meeting at which 66-2/3% of the entire membership, as in the resale-restriction form, approves. No assignment of the builder's rights is recorded through 20 October 2026, and nothing shows when it sold its last Lot, though its deeds run at least into 2002 (OR 33037/698). SunTrust Bank's joinder put its mortgage, OR 24337/714, behind the declaration but not the assessment lien (p. 26), so confirm that mortgage is released. We have not seen that mortgage. Nor have we found the power of attorney for WCI's 1998 amendment to its covenants. The book and page we had for it, OR 26908/845, is a 1997 City of Fort Lauderdale lien (Instr 97449347). WCI's other 1998 deeds cite one at OR 26308/845–850, by which its general partner let its officers sign deeds, declarations and plat documents (Instr 97200076, pp. 1, 3), but whether the amendment relies on it is unconfirmed.