It’s always a pleasure to welcome a new member into the family of resident owned communities.

On September 15, the resident purchase and conversion of the communities of Country Lakes I and II in Manatee County was completed. 

The proud owner of this 471 site community is Country Lakes Co-op, Inc.  Kudos to the residents that participated in the purchase effort and especially to Marty Pozgay and his Florida Community Services Group for helping the residents realize their dreams of ownership.

The HOA officers received the 45 day notice from the owner of Country Lakes I and II on June 28, 2010.  At that time, about seventy per cent of the homeowners had left those communities for their summer residences and Marty and the remaining thirty per cent were faced with the daunting task of raising six million dollars for an earnest money deposit (to be applied to the total purchase price of 32.2 million dollars) in a very short period of time.  

The blanket loan was provided byBank of America and individual share loans were provided by Patriot Bank andWhitney Bank.

Congratulations to the residents at Country Lakes and to everyone that helped Country Lake Co-op, Inc. become the newest ROC in Florida!

Those of you in the Sarasota, Manatee, and De Soto County area, please don’t forget to rsyp for the upcoming Dowd Whittaker Community Association Festival on either October 19 or October 20.   John Dowd promises a morning of education and fun for all and I’ll be one of the speakers–plus you’ll get to see me in one of my flashiest Hawaiian shirts.

See you there!