"The home you may purchase in Rancho Solano located at ____ is subject to an easement for errant golf balls." That sentence sits in the Fairfield Municipal Code, waiting to be typed into a transfer disclosure statement any time a home abutting the Rancho Solano Golf Course changes hands. Most sellers have never seen it. Most agents have never had to explain it. And it is only the smaller of two disclosure surprises that come with listing a home in this neighborhood right now.
The bigger one is not written into any ordinance yet. It involves a landscape assessment, a 2023 vote that Rancho Solano homeowners thought they'd won, and a 2026 refund program that every other Fairfield maintenance district received except this one.
The Golf Ball Clause Nobody Reads Until Escrow
Fairfield's local disclosure code, Chapter 18A, was adopted specifically to make sure buyers in a handful of named communities know what they're inheriting before they sign. For any parcel that touches the Rancho Solano Golf Course, the seller has to attach language stating that golfers are responsible for their own shots, that the city will not redesign the course or pay for damage, and that the easement runs with the land. Paradise Valley homes touching its own course carry the identical clause under the same ordinance.
This is not a scare tactic. It is a straightforward, decades-old piece of local law, and it only applies to course-adjacent parcels, not the whole neighborhood. But if your listing agent doesn't know the ordinance number, they're drafting the language from memory or skipping it, and either one creates a disclosure gap that follows the sale.
The Assessment That Comes With Every Rancho Solano Home
Every property in Rancho Solano also carries a line item that has nothing to do with the golf course: Landscaping and Lighting Maintenance District No. 5, known to the city as Smith Ranch and to residents simply as the LLMD. Fairfield formed the district in 1990 to fund the common-area landscaping and lighting that makes the entrance monuments and street medians look the way they do.
The assessment has not stayed flat.
| Year | Per-parcel rate | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1999 | $350 | Cap set with automatic CPI adjustment |
| 2020 | $418 → $540 | Single-year increase effective July 1, 2020 |
| 2022-2023 | Insufficient to cover costs | City projects funding shortfall |
| 2023 | Ballot proposed | New district, higher assessment |
| 2025-2026 | Most recently published rate | Set under Resolution No. 2025-129 |
That 2020 jump was steep enough that the Daily Republic covered it directly, reporting the district "will see a jump of more than 29% from the previous year's assessment." Homeowners noticed. The city noticed the money still wasn't enough.
The Vote Rancho Solano Thought It Won
By 2023, Fairfield concluded the original 1999 formula could no longer cover the contractor costs of maintaining the district, so it put a new, higher-assessment version to a Proposition 218 ballot. Under state law, that kind of vote isn't a simple majority of ballots returned. It's weighted by each parcel's assessed financial stake, meaning a smaller number of high-liability no votes can outweigh a larger number of yes votes.
Rancho Solano's count, held on June 7, 2023, produced 603 returned ballots out of 1,218 mailed: 337 in favor, 262 opposed. The new district still failed, because the weighted opposition outweighed the numeric majority. A protest was formally filed, the proposed replacement district was never formed, and LLMD No. 5 kept operating under its original 1999 formula with CPI adjustments layered on top, the same structure that produced the 2020 jump.
At the time, this read as a homeowner win. Rates stayed under the old formula instead of resetting to a new, likely higher one. Landscape maintenance is now handled by contractor True North Landscapes on a month-to-month basis, with the city anticipating a new long-term contract in fall 2026.
Where the Story Turns
Here is the part that changes how a 2023 "win" looks in 2026.
A separate legal fight, Thacker v. City of Fairfield, worked its way through the courts after a Rolling Hills resident challenged how the city had raised LLMD rates without following Proposition 218 procedure correctly. The First District Court of Appeal sided with Thacker. In response, the Fairfield City Council voted this year to issue automatic partial refunds, the difference between each district's current 2025-2026 rate and its 1996 pre-Proposition 218 rate, going back four years under the statute of limitations, to eight Fairfield maintenance districts: Gateway, Waterman Highlands, Peppertree, Rolling Hills, Kolob Estates, Paradise Valley, the Downtown Business District, and North Cordelia.
Rancho Solano, formally LLMD No. 5, is not on that list.
Vice Mayor Pam Bertani flagged the gap herself in April 2026, writing that she requested city staff investigate whether Rancho Solano residents "are also entitled to LLMD refunds," with the matter set to continue at the city's May 5, 2026 council meeting. That is the most recent public update on the record, and it left the question unresolved with no stated timeline for an answer.
The likely reason is structural, not political. The eight districts that received refunds appear to be the ones still operating on rates traceable back to their original pre-1996 formulas. Rancho Solano's district went through the 2023 ballot fight specifically because the city tried and failed to reset it onto a new formula. Whether that unresolved 2023 attempt puts LLMD No. 5 inside or outside the Thacker refund math is exactly the kind of question that hasn't been answered yet, and it is currently sitting unresolved in the same neighborhood where every home sale requires a disclosure packet.
What This Actually Means for Your Disclosure Packet
If you're preparing to list a home in Rancho Solano, three things belong in your conversation with your agent before the sign goes in the yard:
- Confirm whether your parcel abuts the golf course. If it does, the Chapter 18A easement language has to appear on your Local Option Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement. If it doesn't, that specific clause does not apply to you, though the LLMD assessment still does.
- Pull the latest engineer's report. The most recent one on file covers FY 2025-2026 under Resolution No. 2025-129. Ask Fairfield's public works department whether a newer fiscal-year report has since been adopted before you finalize the number that goes in your disclosure packet.
- Say plainly that the refund question is open. A buyer's agent who finds the Thacker refund news independently and discovers Rancho Solano isn't on the list may read it as a hidden liability rather than an unresolved city process. Disclosing that the city itself is still investigating is more useful than staying silent and letting the buyer connect the dots during their own due diligence.
None of this changes what your home is worth today. It changes what your agent should be able to explain when a buyer's attorney or lender asks about it, which they increasingly do in communities with active assessment districts.
A Short FAQ
Does this affect every home in Rancho Solano equally? The golf ball easement only applies to parcels abutting the course. The LLMD No. 5 assessment applies to the whole district regardless of proximity to the fairway.
Will the refund question be settled before my closing? There's no way to know that in advance. The city was still discussing it as of the May 2026 council session, and there's no published timeline for a resolution.
Who manages the assessment now? Landscape maintenance runs through contractor True North Landscapes on a month-to-month basis. HOA management for the Rancho Solano Master Association transitioned to FirstService Residential in April 2025, with Howard Edelman serving as board president.
Where can I look up my current LLMD rate? The city's engineer's reports for LLMD No. 5 are published on Fairfield's public works site. The most recent one on record covers FY 2025-2026 under Resolution No. 2025-129, so confirm whether a newer report has been adopted before you rely on that figure.
If you're weighing a sale in Rancho Solano and want a disclosure packet that actually accounts for both of these issues, Michael Hulsey has spent years pricing and marketing homes across Fairfield's golf communities and can walk you through what belongs on paper before a buyer's agent asks. Start with a free home valuation and we'll build the disclosure conversation into the listing plan from day one.
