[schotzyb]

A friend who owns in Liberty Park has used these people for renting his home and home watch service. His home was rented Jan, Feb and March. He only received his "rent" for Jan. He has been unable to reach them by phone or email since the end of March. He is here in the Villages now and went to the Sheriff's Dept today and found out the owner of the business had his home foreclosed on and has apparently skipped town. There were nine(9) other homeowners there filing complaints.

[nONIE]

This does not surprise me.

We used lst Village Rentals the first time down to TV to rent. When we arrived at our house it was dirty and they told us basically to go take a hike for a few hours and they would send someone over to clean. It was 9:00 at night, where were we supposed to go??? Whenever we tried to reach them by phone there was no answer and we had to leave a message. They also never refunded our full security deposit.

I have heard complaints from others in The Villages who have used their services. It surprises me that they stayed in business as long as they did!!!!!

[Campbell soup]

Hello you guys,
Wow that is scary..
We are thinking of renting our 3 bedroom CYV in December and January. This will be our first time renting. Could you possibly give us some tips..or maybe a website with the rules...special insurance etc?
Thanks a Million!

[MelZ]

[QUOTE=Campbell soup;202409]Hello you guys,
Wow that is scary..
We are thinking of renting our 3 bedroom CYV in December and January. This will be our first time renting. Could you possibly give us some tips..or maybe a website with the rules...special insurance etc?
Thanks a Million![/QUOTE

Make sure you tell your insurance company you are going to rent the house. I rent with The Village Property Management and find it to be pretty painless.

[schotzyb]

In a different post on this same subject(First Village Rentals) there was an entry stating to contact The Millhorn Law Firm in Lady Lake with any issues concerning this company. Well., my friend in Liberty Park did contact them and was told that they have no association whatsoever with First Village Rental and does not have any idea how this rumour got started.

[Bryan]

There are two ways the "so called" rumor got started. Some people got a "sorry" letter from First Village Rentals saying we are out of business, sorry but contact our registered agent - The Millhorn Law Firm. That is one way the rumor got started. Others have gone to the web site for the Secretary of State for the State of Florida, Division of Corporations, and looked up the incorporation papers for First Village Rentals as a limited liability corporation (LLC). Therein you will find that their "Current Registered Agent" is The Millhorn Law Firm. You also find the registered managing members/managers of the company - Chris and Danyell Norris, and, if you look carefully, you also find the names of the other companies they operate under, such as Southfork Holdings, LLC and It's All About Me Investments, LLC.

[randyb]

Wow!!! I just purchased a ranch home and plan to rent it as I am a few years from retirement. I guess I am lucky that I did not take on a crook to rent the house. I have decided to do my own rental. I have a blog that I post interesting Villages info and have my home there for rent. I also use one other website for villages that is very reasonable per year. I have had alot of inquirys but no takers yet. I am just getting the house furnished and did not have any good photos. I do now and hope I will be successful on my own. It also helps to have your best friend here in TV full time to watch over everything. Someone I can TRUST!

[Jeff & Judy]

First Village Rentals managed my rental properties in The Villages. They collected rent on my property for February, March and half of April 2009. I have received none of the rental income due me (>$6000). Additionally, I've discovered that they took deposits on my property for rent in 2010 which have not been returned, and also they have not paid the security deposit to at least one of my renters this year.

So folks could be impacted in three different ways:
1) non payment of rent
2) loss of deposit on future rent
3) loss of security deposit
and there might be a fourth, where if any of their properties were rented already, like for June 2009, those folks may not have any inclination that there is no property for them until they arrive.

I've already gone to the Villages and located their business address which is a box at a Pack and Ship store. I've further located their store front office (which they never publicized) and lastly I've located their home address. The store front and home are both vacant now. The Pack and Ship will refer you to their Registering Agent law firm. I've also spoken a couple of time to them as well. I've filed a complaint with the Sumter County Sheriff's office (as several others have as well), as well as filed a Small Claims against them, have contacted legal console and sent certified letters of such to the owners by name, by company and by the Registering Agent of the company. Further I have spoken to the State Attorney's office about this situation. Earlier I received a certified letter stating that they have closed the business "due to the global economic recession's effect on the Real Estate Market and Property Management Industry". I due not know if people in all the situations above received this letter or not. I would really like to understand this as I feel that as the property owner, I paid for everything (management fee, maintenance, advertising, cleaning, repairs, etc) except their salaries and possibly office space - for which they took 20% of the rent and they made a profit on other items charged the renters like getting their Villages passes (cost=$50, charged=$150). So I fail to understand how they could have gone under. I hope to find out the details on this matter eventually.

Furthermore, as a property owner, I would expect them to provide the owners with the name and contact information of past renters so that possible further surprises could be avoided. - which they have not done. So if you are involved with this company and would like to know more about that I have done and learned, I would be glad to share this with you so that you may consider taking some similar actions as well. Minimally, you should contact the Sumter County Sheriff’s office (who might direct you to Seniors Against Crime as well).

If you want to contact me, I would ask that you contact me with your: - name - contact information (e-mail minimum) - the address that you either own or rented (let me know which it is) - any additional information you want to share. I will try and send you e-mail(s) with the information I have collected so far and all information I get I am forwarding to the Sheriff (and eventually to the State Attorney once the Sheriff’s office turns this case over to them).

Further if the rental property address matches, I will try and provide all renters with the contact information of the owners so that you can consider contacting them for future rentals.

I am simply a very upset home owner who doesn’t want to let them get away with this and am willing to help others in the same situation (time permitting) because I know that many of you are out of state (I live in Florida) and have also lost money with this company. So if you are interested, I’ve set up a temporary e-mail to field these questions: hunt4fvr@comcast.net. Thanks.

[thegreenerside]

Only licensed real estate agents are allowed to rent property in Florida and if the rental is 90 days or less you must also collect tax on the rental (please correct me if I am wrong on this information). There are several if not dozens of people claiming to be property managers, rental agents, etc, but if they do not have a real estate license they are subject to arrest. I am not sure if the folks from 1st Village Rentals had a real estate license or not, but for any people looking to rent your property please make sure the rental agent you hire does have a license.

[Bryan]

I'm not sure about all the details TheGreenerSide placed on here about real estate licenses but I do know that First Village Rentals had the proper licenses. In fact they have (had - since one expired recently) three. Their real estate license numbers, according to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation web site, are DWE4513949 which expired 4/01/09 and is shown a "Deliquent" by DBPR, DWE5202446 which expires 6/01/09, and DWE 7000406 which expires 2/10/2010. These are all in the Resort Dwelling License category for real estate agents and I am not 100% what that means exactly.

[spk7951]

We used to have a rental house near Disney in Osceola County. We were required to be licensed to rent the property but that was not a real estate license. We were also required to collect state and county taxes for any rental regardless of the length of time.

[schotzyb]

Article in the Daily Sun today about First Village Rental. The list of clients scammed continues to grow.

[Jeff & Judy]

There are lots of folks who were frauded by First Village Rentals. There is a group (now about 30+) who are somewhat organized. If you or your friend was actually taken by this company. Just send me an e-mail or note (hunt4fvr@comcast.net) and we'll make sure that they get all the info collected so far by other homewners such as myself.
"Jeff and Judy"

[Casino]

Sorry to hear about this. We rented our home but we were told that we had to collect the money and deal directly with the renters. The only person that could do this was either a person who held a real estate license or the homeowner. ( this is per FL law). We had a "property manager" who basically looks after the home when it is empty. That person reports to us any problems, and we take it from there. This plan works well. We do not have to pay anyone to collect our fees. We had very little expenses. We also new who was in our home and when.

I wish you luck.

[rje4961]

I am also a home owner who has been "ripped off" by First Village Rentals, LLC. I am collecting the names and address of anyone who owns a home or has rented a home through FVR. We are currently meeting with the Sumter County Sheriff's office and the FBI. If you are affected I would like to receive your name or email address. My e-mail address is richeaton@comcast.net. The larger this case gets the more attention we get from the authorities. We have had two articles published in The Village Daily Sun.