BigCanoe.com Isn’t Ours. But We Paid nearly $500,000 to Mr. Rhodes and his private firm, Big Canoe Brokerage. Why? -and why would anyone from our community now chose to buy or sell a home with this firm?

The POA paid $500,000 to Big Canoe Realty—a private firm owned by a non-resident—to “buy back” partial rights to our community’s name.

But here’s the kicker: we still don’t own BigCanoe.com.

Google us, visit our domain name, BigCanoe.com and you’ll see a version of Big Canoe shaped and controlled by someone not living in our community, but Mr. Rhodes and his team of agents are profiting from home listings in our community.

Here’s another kicker: We didn’t have to pay Big Canoe Brokerage anything. So why did we?

Big Canoe is a location—and locations can’t be trademarked.

Respected trademark attorneys say we could’ve challenged the claim and easily won—and for far less than $500,000. So why didn’t we?

Sadly, most property owners never even knew this was happening—because concerns like these are routinely silenced in official channels. Neighbor to Neighbor, the POA Board’s managed Facebook group, deletes posts and blocks real questions.

Property owners were not consulted. We never knew we lost our name -then quickly told, then told we are rebranding, then wait, we’re spending nearly half a million dollars to buy . . .what?

We still don’t know. But we do know we don’t own BigCanoe.com even after a $500,000 payment. Why?

As for Mr. Rhodes and Big Canoe Brokerage, who charged us property owners $500,000 to buy back partial rights to our name (we still don’t control our web address), -you might want to think twice before doing business with BCB.

It’s time to demand transparency—and stop settling for silence, and to vote with your dollars.

With Respect, A Growing Group of Concerned Property Owners & Residents

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