A homeowner in a Spring Hill subdivision bought a preassembled shed from a home improvement store, set it up in the backyard, and thought nothing more of it. The neighborhood's homeowners association thought differently. A representative told the homeowner directly that a shed on that lot would violate the subdivision's deed restrictions. The homeowner put it up anyway. The association sued, a trial court ordered the shed removed, and when the case reached Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeal in 2000, the judges sided with the association again. The homeowner had argued that "placing" a shed was legally different from "erecting" one. The court was not persuaded.
That case, McMillan v. Oaks of Spring Hill Homeowner's Association, is a real dispute from a real Spring Hill subdivision, and it is still good law today. The Oaks of Spring Hill still operates as an active association, still runs an Architectural Control Committee, and still requires approval before a homeowner adds so much as a fence. The case is worth knowing not because sheds are common flashpoints, but because it shows something that a scroll through current Spring Hill listings will not: deed restrictions in this county can carry real teeth, and whether they do depends entirely on a legal distinction that most listing remarks never spell out.
Two Different Facts, Squeezed Into One Phrase
Search Spring Hill listings right now and "NO HOA" shows up constantly, sometimes on its own, sometimes stacked with "NO DEED RESTRICTIONS" and "NO CDD" as if the three were interchangeable. They are not. A homeowners association and a deed restriction are two separate legal things, and a property can have either one without the other.
Florida law draws the line clearly. Under Florida Statute 720.301(9), a homeowners' association only exists as a regulated HOA under Chapter 720 if membership is mandatory for every parcel owner and the association can impose assessments that become a lien on the property if unpaid. A group of neighbors who collect voluntary dues for a welcome sign does not meet that test, even if they call themselves an association and even if they enforce rules informally. That voluntary group falls outside most of Chapter 720's protections and powers.
Deed restrictions are a different animal entirely. They are covenants written into the chain of title, recorded in the county's official records, and binding on whoever owns the lot regardless of whether an HOA exists to enforce them. A subdivision can have a fully recorded declaration limiting sheds, fencing, home businesses, and boat parking, and still have "no HOA" in the sense that matters to a buyer: no dues, no board, no lien authority. The restrictions do not disappear. They just sit there, enforceable by whoever has standing to sue, whether or not anyone currently is.
What the Oaks of Spring Hill Case Actually Reveals
The shed was the headline violation in the McMillan case, but the record shows how far the association's declaration reached. The homeowners' affirmative defense rested on claiming the association had looked the other way on other violations for years, including illegally parked boats and a recreational vehicle at two homes, an illegal home business, improper fencing, a storage tank, two wooden wishing wells, a greenhouse, a satellite dish, solar panels, a tree shade structure, and two separate gazebos.
The trial court sorted through each one. It found the association had, in fact, let some short-term boat parking slide because enforcing it consistently would have required what the court called "extraordinary means." It found gazebos were technically a violation of the same paragraph that barred sheds, but that the association had a "reasonable, colorable argument" for not treating them as one, since a gazebo typically lacks the footers of a permanent structure. None of that inconsistency saved the shed. The appellate court affirmed the injunction and rejected every defense the homeowners raised.
The lesson for a Spring Hill buyer is not that sheds are dangerous. It is that a single recorded declaration in one ordinary subdivision covered boats, an RV, a home business, fencing, a storage tank, wishing wells, a greenhouse, satellite dishes, solar panels, tree shade structures, and gazebos, and that an association with the will to enforce it can win even when its own enforcement history is spotty. Read the listing remarks for a home in a deed-restricted Spring Hill community and you will rarely see any of this. You will see square footage and a new roof.
The Reverse Problem: Restrictions Nobody Is Watching
The opposite situation is just as common in Hernando County and just as easy to misread. Many of Spring Hill's original platted sections, built on quarter-acre and smaller lots, carry no deed restrictions at all. Buyers there really can park a boat in the driveway or build a shed without asking anyone.
Other established subdivisions sit in between: a recorded declaration exists, but the association behind it is dormant, voluntary, or was never properly reconstituted after the developer left. In that scenario, the restrictions are still technically binding on the deed, but there is no board collecting dues, no lien authority, and no one with an obvious institutional reason to file suit. Enforcement, if it happens, falls to an individual neighbor willing to hire a lawyer, which is a much higher bar than a functioning HOA with dedicated reserve funds for exactly that purpose.
This is the mirror image of the Oaks of Spring Hill case. Same legal instrument, recorded deed restrictions, but without an active association standing behind it, the practical odds of enforcement drop close to zero until someone with standing decides otherwise. A buyer who assumes "no HOA" means no rules exist is wrong. A buyer who assumes recorded restrictions always get enforced is also wrong. Both assumptions come from the same shortcut: reading the listing instead of the county record.
Same County, Same Price Band, Different Legal Reality
Stellar MLS data for Spring Hill puts the median list price at $338,000 as of July 2026. Active listings advertised specifically as carrying no HOA cluster in almost the same band, with a median asking price close to $335,000 as of this August. That overlap matters. It means price alone tells a buyer nothing about which legal category a property falls into. A $335,000 home with an active, lien-authorized HOA and a $335,000 home with zero recorded restrictions can sit three streets apart, and the listing sheet will describe both of them the same generic way.
New construction adds a third layer that gets conflated with the first two: the Community Development District, or CDD. A CDD is not a homeowners association. It is a special taxing district that funds infrastructure like roads and amenities, and it shows up as a line on the county tax bill rather than a monthly HOA statement. Some of Spring Hill's newer developments, including Caldera and Sandal Key, carry CDD assessments. Others, including Anderson Snow and Avalon West, do not. None of that has anything to do with whether the same community also has a mandatory HOA enforcing architectural review, and buyers regularly confuse the two line items when they compare monthly costs across neighborhoods.
What To Actually Check Before You Write an Offer
Listing remarks are marketing copy, not legal documents. Before treating any Spring Hill property's restriction status as settled, it is worth working through a short sequence:
- Pull the recorded declaration, if one exists, directly from Hernando County's official records rather than trusting the MLS remarks.
- Confirm whether the "no HOA" claim means no association exists at all, or simply that no dues are currently being collected by a dormant one.
- Ask specifically whether any voluntary association operates in the neighborhood, and whether it has ever attempted to enforce the declaration.
- If a CDD is involved, get the current annual assessment for that specific lot in writing, since it is separate from any HOA due and appears on the tax bill instead.
- For homes inside a known association like The Oaks of Spring Hill, request the current architectural guidelines before assuming a shed, fence, or addition will be approved.
None of this takes the place of a title search handled by a closing attorney or title company, but knowing which questions to ask before that point saves time and avoids a surprise well into an active contract.
Why This Is Worth Getting Right Before You Sign
Florida law requires sellers in a mandatory HOA community to disclose the association's assessment and enforcement authority to a buyer, and a buyer who does not receive that disclosure has a limited right to void the contract. That protection only applies once a mandatory HOA is confirmed to exist. It does nothing for a buyer trying to figure out whether a "no HOA" subdivision is genuinely unrestricted or simply unmonitored for now. That distinction sits entirely on the buyer's side of the transaction to investigate, and it is exactly the kind of contract detail that gets glossed over when a deal is moving fast.
Summer Philhower built her practice on reading contracts and title documents the way a lawyer reads them, not the way a listing sheet summarizes them. In a county where the same MLS phrase can mean an active association with lien authority in one subdivision and an unenforced, decades-old declaration in the next, that difference is not a technicality. It is the difference between knowing what you are buying and finding out after closing.
If you are comparing Spring Hill neighborhoods and want to know what is actually recorded against a specific property, not just what the listing implies, The Philhower Group can pull the declaration, walk through what it covers, and tell you honestly what enforcement has looked like in that community. Get your free home valuation and consultation before you write an offer, not after.
A Few Direct Questions
Does "no HOA" mean I can park a boat or build a shed without asking anyone? Not necessarily. Deed restrictions recorded against the property can still limit both, whether or not an active association exists to enforce them. The absence of an HOA tells you there are no dues and no board, not that the underlying restrictions are gone.
How do I find out if a specific Spring Hill property has deed restrictions? The declaration, if one exists, is recorded in Hernando County's official records tied to the property's legal description. A title search during due diligence will surface it, and it is worth asking for that document before the inspection period runs out rather than after.
Are CDD fees the same thing as HOA dues? No. A CDD is a taxing district that funds infrastructure and shows up on the property tax bill. An HOA is a private association that can collect dues and, if mandatory, place a lien for nonpayment. A community can have one, both, or neither, and they are billed and enforced through completely different channels.
