Saltgrass at Heron Bay: Toll's 52 Parkland lots on the old golf course

Section 17.13 bars a Saltgrass sale until "all sums due to the Association have been paid in full and an estoppel certificate shall have been received". That estoppel is the association's statement of what the seller owes. Chapter 720 sets its own delivery time and fee limits, so order it early. The master's estoppel is due within 10 business days of a written request by the owner, a mortgagee or a prospective purchaser, at the fee it charges its own Members (Agreement § 15). Under Agreement § 2.1, the master's duties began on 14 November 2025, when "the first plat subdividing property within the Saltgrass Community" was recorded. That was four months before the Agreement's stated Effective Date and its recording, so the master's estoppel should say when its assessments on the lot began.

• Buying from Toll. Neither the Property Appraiser nor the County's records, through 20 October 2026, show a lot sold since Toll took title, so every sale for now is Toll's. The buyer pays Saltgrass the $1,500 Initial Contribution. Ask the master whether it charges a Capital Payment, which Agreement § 5.2 makes due when a lot is conveyed to a later owner.
• Buying from a later owner. The buyer pays the $1,500 Resale Contribution "upon every subsequent conveyance" and Heron Bay's Capital Payment. Until every home is sold, the seller's listing agent needs Toll's written approval of the marketing materials.
• On any sale. Pay the seller's Saltgrass arrears from the estoppel, since § 17.7 makes the buyer jointly and severally liable for them. Owners pay the master directly under Agreement § 5.1, yet Saltgrass's own expenses also include "all costs related to the Association's obligations under the Cost Sharing Agreement" (Declaration p. 5). Compare the two estoppels so that no charge is counted twice.

Insure each lot as a lot of SALTGRASS, Plat Book 184, Page 40, since page 4 of the Declaration defines a "Lot" as "any platted lot shown on the Plat(s)". Until turnover, when owners take the association over from Toll, § 8 lets Toll create special taxing or community development districts. These documents create none, but check the tax bill.

The master declaration excluded the golf course, so Saltgrass is not Committed Property, the land that declaration binds directly (Agreement Recital D). The 2026 Agreement treats its association "as a 'Neighborhood Association'" and binds each lot and its transfers (p. 2). Its § 5.4 attaches the master's lien on a recorded claim of lien, and under § 11 the two boards may amend or end it by recorded instrument.

Declaration § 10.12 also lists the 2023 City agreement as binding Saltgrass. There the master waived its right to enforce the golf course covenant against about 65.029 acres of former course, except the covenant's §§ 12–13 and the maintenance assessments they describe. It also gave the City access easements over master land (§§ 1–3). The master declaration's own covenants are untouched. Residents need the master board's approval to use the Trails End Road construction access (§ 3.c).

• "Each holder of fee simple title" to that land owes the master those assessments (§ 2.c). The golf course covenant is Exhibit 4 to WCI's 1997 deed of the course (Official Records Book 27435, Page 538, at page 573). Its § 12 has the course owner pay the master each year a sum "equal to fifteen Property Units" under the master declaration, quarterly in advance and not to be raised without the owner's consent. Its § 13 makes an unpaid one a lien on the land once a claim is recorded (pp. 44–45). The covenant runs 30 years, but § 12's assessment continues as long as the master levies assessments (§ 18, pp. 45–46). How that one sum is shared among the course's present owners, Toll among them, is stated nowhere we have read, so ask the master whether it bills the lot under it.
• The City agreement let the master bring in homes on the former course only by an amendment recorded "prior to the transfer of any Residential Home to a homeowner" (§ 2.d). None is recorded through 20 October 2026. Underwriting decides whether that window has closed and how Chapter 720's relation-back rule treats a lien under the Agreement.
• Its easement exhibit reads "EASEMENT LEGAL DESCRIPTIONS TO BE PROVIDED" (p. 25). With that exhibit blank, where the easements lie and how the agreement reaches a lot are open questions we flag for underwriting.
• Saltgrass retraces the northern part of the 65.029 acres, including a line the agreement calls "a northern boundary of 'The Heron Bay Golf Course'". A surveyor should confirm the match.

Section 12.23 sets a one-year minimum term and allows no more than two leases of a Home 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. A lease must be in writing, with a copy to the association, and cover the whole Home, so rooms, bed-and-breakfasts and transient tenants are out. The owner gives up use of the Common Areas while the Home is leased. Section 3.5 sets no rental cap, owner-occupancy rule or waiting period.

The master's leasing rules, tenant Security Deposit included, also bind Saltgrass lots (Agreement § 4.1(b)). Where the two sets of rules conflict, § 12 lets "the more restrictive provisions" control, as Heron Bay's comparison of Neighborhood declarations notes. These limits came with the Declaration as first recorded. A later rental amendment by either association would be read against § 720.306(1)(h), which Heron Bay's leasing section explains.

• The Saltgrass lien reaches back. Under § 17.15 it starts with a recorded Claim of Lien but "shall relate back to the date that this Declaration is recorded". Section 17.16 puts a Lender's first mortgage recorded before that claim first, and leaves a foreclosing lender liable only as Chapter 720 provides. Whether relation-back defeats later interests is an underwriting call.
• Access over Heron Run Drive. Saltgrass's one street, Tract R, is dedicated on the plat to the Saltgrass association "and not the public", with an easement for "the present and future owners of lots". Changing or abandoning it takes a majority of Saltgrass members and the City. Tract R meets Heron Run Drive, which is Parcel H of the Heron Bay East plat and is listed by the Property Appraiser as the master's. The Agreement gives owners a perpetual easement over the roads in the master's Association Common Area and through its gates, and any termination of the Agreement must preserve it (§§ 3.5, 11). WCI quit-claimed Parcel H to the master in 2007 with Parcels B-12, B-13 and T, and the deed's first page does not call it Association Common Area (OR 44003/77, p. 1). Whether anything later does was not searched, so whether Parcel H is Association Common Area turns on the Heron Bay East plat's dedications, and we confirm access in the search. The plat also marks Official Records Book 27435, Page 685 beside Heron Run Drive (sheet 3). That is WCI's 1997 "Cart Crossing" easement to the golf course owner for pedestrian, vehicle and golf-cart passage and underground irrigation and drainage (p. 1), and its sketch names no road.
• A stormwater permit. The water management district's permit notice "is not intended to be a lien, encumbrance, or cloud on the title". Still, a buyer of land that holds part of the system, such as swales, ditches, berms, inlets or roads, needs a permit in the buyer's own name to alter or operate it. The permittee must tell the District within 30 days of a transfer. The notice gives 21.834 acres without saying what they measure, against the plat's 20.8955, which is a survey question.
• Environmental covenants to come. Section 12.13 and the Declaration's definition of "DRC" expect at least one Declaration of Restrictive Covenants required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. It would restrict groundwater and activities on Lots, Homes and Common Areas. A Soil Management Plan or Engineering Control Maintenance Plan may follow, and § 24.3 appoints Toll to sign for owners. None came with the Declaration, the permit notice is not one, and our search found none recorded through 20 October 2026. The City's deed to Toll lists none among its permitted encumbrances (Instr 120426296, p. 15). If a later search turns one up, we flag it for underwriting.
• The golf course chain. WCI deeded the course to Tournament Players Club at Heron Bay, Inc. in 1997 (OR 27435/538). It passed to HB Partners I, LLC in 2007 and, by a deed in lieu of foreclosure, to ClubLink Heron Bay LLC in 2010 (OR 43716/1634; OR 47497/723). Yet the 2021 deed to NSID is from ClubLink US LLC (Instr 117646528). No deed or merger linking the two ClubLink companies has been found yet, so the title search on a Saltgrass lot must close that gap.
• The City's right of first refusal. The City's 2025 deed to Toll reserves one, except "for contracts to sell portions of the Property to future homeowners" (Instr 120426296, p. 2). Toll's sale of a lot to a homeowner falls within that exception. Whether the right reaches any other transfer, such as a bulk sale of lots, is for underwriting.
• Toll's reserved powers. Until turnover Toll may amend the Declaration alone (§ 4.3) and veto association action (Bylaws § 6.3). Until all homes are conveyed, §§ 3.4 and 21.7 let it replat lots and grant or relocate easements over conveyed lots where the owner's use is not materially and adversely affected. Under §§ 5.1 and 5.3, a supplemental declaration may add or withdraw land.
• Arbitration and a release. Owners take disputes, Toll's included, to mediation and binding arbitration, "and not by or in a court of law or equity". They also release Toll "from any and all liability" respecting the Declaration (§§ 21.16, 26.1–26.3). Whether either holds up is a question for counsel, but buyers should know both are there.