Saltgrass at Heron Bay: HOA rules, fees and closing points

Two estoppel certificates, and fees to two associations.

• The Saltgrass estoppel is a condition of the sale. "No Owner shall sell or convey its interest in a Lot or Home unless all sums due to the Association have been paid in full and an estoppel certificate shall have been received from the Association by such Owner." The Declaration gives the association fourteen (14) days from an owner's written request, and the owner pays for it (Declaration § 17.13, pp. 46–47). Chapter 720's estoppel statute sets its own delivery time and fee limits (Fla. Stat. § 720.30851; see HOA approvals and estoppels), so order early.
• $1,500 to Saltgrass from the buyer. On a first sale from Toll, which is every sale today, the buyer pays a $1,500 Initial Contribution (Declaration § 17.11, p. 46). Once "the Lot has been conveyed by the Declarant", every later buyer pays a $1,500 Resale Contribution, "collected from the purchaser upon every subsequent conveyance of an ownership interest in a Lot by an Owner" (§ 17.12, p. 46).
• The master's estoppel and Capital Payment. The master association must issue an estoppel for a Saltgrass lot within ten (10) business days of a written request from the owner, a mortgagee or a prospective purchaser, for the fee it charges its own Members (Agreement § 15, p. 11). Its obligations began when "the first plat subdividing property within the Saltgrass Community" was recorded (§ 2.1, p. 2), which was 14 November 2025, four months before the Agreement's stated Effective Date and its recording, so the estoppel should say from what date the master assesses. A Capital Payment under the master declaration is due each time a Saltgrass lot is conveyed to a later owner (Agreement § 5.2, p. 6); the current amounts are on the master page.
• Two sets of assessments. Owners pay the master directly (Agreement § 5.1, p. 6), and Saltgrass's own expenses include "all costs related to the Association's obligations under the Cost Sharing Agreement" (Declaration p. 5), so compare the two estoppels for double counting.
• Golf course maintenance assessments. Under the 2023 City agreement, "each holder of fee simple title to the Property or any portion thereof" must pay the master "the maintenance assessments as set forth in Section 12 and Section 13" of a golf course covenant recorded at OR 27435/573 (Instr 118621008, § 2.c, p. 2). That covenant is not in our set, so the amount, and whether it carries a lien, are unknown. Ask the master's estoppel whether it bills the lot under it, apart from the Agreement.
• Insure the platted lot, as a lot of SALTGRASS, Plat Book 184, Page 40. A "Lot" is "any platted lot shown on the Plat(s)" (Declaration p. 4). The plat dedicates the one street, Tract R, to the Saltgrass association "and not the public", with an easement to "the present and future owners of lots"; amending or abandoning it needs a majority of Saltgrass members and the City (PB 184/40, sheet 1).
• Tell the listing agent. Until all homes are sold, Toll must approve in writing the marketing materials for "any sale of property" in Saltgrass "by any party" (Declaration §§ 21.17, 21.19, pp. 60–61).
• Check the tax bill. Toll may create special taxing or community development districts until turnover, though these documents create none (Declaration § 8, pp. 12–13).

Yes, within two sets of rules. The Declaration's own (§ 12.23, p. 32):

• the whole Home only — no rooms, bed-and-breakfasts or transient tenants;
• written leases, with a copy to the association;
• "No Lease Agreement may be for a term of less than one (1) year, and no Home may be leased more than two (2) times in any calendar year unless otherwise approved by the Association in the case of hardship"; a replacement lease after a tenant's default does not count;
• the owner gives up use of the Common Areas while the home is leased;
• no rental cap, owner-occupancy requirement or waiting period (§ 3.5, pp. 7–8).

The master's leasing rules apply to Saltgrass lots as well, including its tenant Security Deposit (Agreement § 4.1(b), p. 6): one lease in any 12-month period, with tenants registered before they move in (master page). Where Saltgrass's and the master's restrictions conflict, "the more restrictive provisions shall control" (Declaration § 12, pp. 26–27). Read together: a lease of at least a year, no more than once in any 12 months, registered with the master.

The Saltgrass limits are in the Declaration as first recorded, not in an amendment. A later rental amendment to either association's documents would be read against Fla. Stat. § 720.306(1)(h).

• Bound by agreement, not by the master declaration. Each lot is to be "held, transferred, sold, conveyed and accepted subject to this Agreement" (Agreement p. 2), and the master's lien for its charges attaches when a claim of lien is recorded (§ 5.4, p. 7). Chapter 720 makes an association's lien relate back to the recording of the original declaration; against a first mortgage of record, it runs from the recorded claim of lien (Fla. Stat. § 720.3085(1)). The two boards can amend or end the Agreement by a recorded instrument (§ 11, p. 10). The master declaration never covered the golf course, and the 2023 City agreement let the master bring homes on the former course into the community only by recording an amendment "prior to the transfer of any Residential Home to a homeowner" (Instr 118621008, § 2.d, pp. 2–3). None is in our set, and the Agreement recites that Saltgrass is not Committed Property (Recital D). Whether that window has closed, and how § 720.3085(1) applies to a lien that arises under the Agreement, are questions for underwriting.
• The Saltgrass lien relates back. It is effective when a Claim of Lien is recorded, but "shall relate back to the date that this Declaration is recorded" (Declaration § 17.15, p. 47). It is subordinate to a Lender's first mortgage recorded before the Claim of Lien, and a foreclosing lender is liable only as Chapter 720 provides (§ 17.16, p. 47). The statute caps what a first mortgagee owes when it takes title by foreclosure or deed in lieu (§ 720.3085(2)(c)). It owes the lesser of the unpaid common expenses and regular periodic or special assessments that came due in the 12 months before it took title, or 1% of the original mortgage debt. The cap applies only if the lender "filed suit against the parcel owner and initially joined the association as a defendant", unless the association was dissolved or had no office or agent the lender could find. Whether relation-back works against later interests is a question for underwriting, so pay any Saltgrass balance at closing, from the estoppel. The buyer is jointly and severally liable for it either way (§ 17.7, p. 45).
• The 2023 City agreement, and a covenant we do not have. The Declaration names Instr 118621008, a "Declaration of Restrictive Covenant, Waiver of Enforcement of Covenant and Grant of Easements", as one of the Agreements binding Saltgrass (§ 10.12, pp. 22–23). Recorded 13 January 2023 by the master association and the City of Parkland, it waives the master's right to enforce the golf course covenant at OR 27435/573 against the former course land, except that covenant's §§ 12–13 and the maintenance assessments they describe, and grants the City access easements over master land (Instr 118621008, §§ 1–3, pp. 2–3); residents may not use the Trails End Road construction access without the master board's approval (§ 3.c). It does not touch the master declaration's own covenants. The golf course covenant is not in our set. The City took the land from the North Springs Improvement District by a special warranty deed dated 28 December 2022 and recorded just before the agreement (Instr 118621005, corrected by Instr 119168134 and 120253548). It later sold the Saltgrass land to Toll (Instr 120426296). The exhibit meant to locate the City's easements reads "EASEMENT LEGAL DESCRIPTIONS TO BE PROVIDED" (p. 25). Where the easements lie, and how the agreement applies to a given lot, are questions for underwriting.
• Road access runs over Heron Run Drive. Tract R meets Heron Run Drive, shown on the plat as Parcel H of the Heron Bay East plat, "80' R/W (PRIVATE ROAD)", beside a road and utility easement at OR 27435/685 (PB 184/40, sheet 3), which is not in our set. The Agreement gives owners a perpetual easement over roads within the master's Association Common Area and through its gates (§ 3.5, p. 4), and any termination must preserve it (§ 11, p. 10). The Property Appraiser records the master association as owner of Parcel H, citing a multi-parcel quit-claim deed dated 10 April 2007 (OR 44003/77), which we have not read. Whether Heron Run Drive is Association Common Area under the Agreement still turns on that deed and the Heron Bay East plat's dedications, so we confirm the access in the search.
• A water-management permit notice. The South Florida Water Management District recorded notice of Environmental Resource Permit No. 06-112265-P, "Grantee: Saltgrass", for the stormwater system on this land (Instr 120218862, recorded 14 May 2025). It "is not intended to be a lien, encumbrance, or cloud on the title" (p. 2). A buyer of land holding part of the system — swales, ditches, berms, inlets and roads among others — may not alter or operate it without a permit in the buyer's own name, and the permittee must tell the District within thirty days of a transfer (p. 1). It gives an area of 21.834 acres without making clear what that measures, against the plat's 20.8955 (p. 4): a survey question, not a lien.
• Environmental covenants are expected. The Declaration anticipates at least one Declaration of Restrictive Covenants required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, with restrictions on groundwater and on activities within Lots, Homes and Common Areas, and possibly a Soil Management Plan or Engineering Control Maintenance Plan (definition "DRC", p. 3; § 12.13, pp. 30–31). Owners appoint Toll to sign them (§ 24.3, p. 62). None was recorded with the Declaration, and the 2025 permit notice is not one; one found in a search from 11 February 2026 goes to underwriting.
• Execution and dates, each a question for underwriting:
  • the Saltgrass association's joinder is dated 6 February 2026 but acknowledged on 4 February, and Toll's signature was notarized by a person the articles name as one of the association's first directors (Declaration pp. 69–70, 79);
  • both associations' signatures on the Agreement were acknowledged on 5 February 2025, a year before the Declaration was recorded, yet its recital cites the Declaration's instrument number, written in by hand (Agreement pp. 1, 14–15);
  • its Effective Date reads 17 March 2025 with the last digit overwritten to a 6, and Toll's joinder is acknowledged on 17 March with the year's last digit overwritten and leaves blank the party it signs for (pp. 1, 16);
  • whether authority given in 2025 covers the Agreement as recorded in 2026;
  • the plat calls the owner "Toll Southeast LP Company, Inc., a Delaware limited liability company" (PB 184/40, sheet 1), while the Declaration calls it "a Delaware corporation" (p. 2).
• Toll's control. Until turnover Toll can amend the Declaration alone (§ 4.3, p. 9) and veto association action (Bylaws § 6.3, p. 92), and until all homes are conveyed it may replat lots and grant or relocate easements over conveyed lots where the owner's use is not materially and adversely affected (§§ 3.4, 21.7, pp. 7, 58). Search from 11 February 2026 forward, including for a supplemental declaration adding or withdrawing land (§§ 5.1, 5.3).
• Arbitration and release. Owners agree that disputes, including those with Toll, go to mediation and then binding arbitration, "and not by or in a court of law or equity", and release Toll "from any and all liability" respecting the Declaration (§§ 21.16, 26.1–26.3, pp. 60, 66). Whether they are enforceable is a question for counsel, but buyers should know they are there.