Maryland related & miscellaneous statutes

Maryland does not leave this to the governing documents. Real Property § 14-118 defines a “governing body” to cover a homeowners association, a council of unit owners and a cooperative housing corporation, and then routes the claim: a person injured by the tortious act of an officer or director acting within the scope of their duties “may recover only in an action brought against the governing body”.

Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 5-422 supplies the substance. A director or officer may not be held personally liable if they acted within the scope of their duties, in good faith, and “[d]id not act in a reckless, wanton, or grossly negligent manner.” Those three conditions are the whole test, and the third is the one that fails. Subsection (d) goes further: a claimant shall name only the governing body as defendant, and may name an individual only where the governing body cannot be identified when the action is filed — at which point the governing body is substituted in as soon as it can be.

There is a second shield with a different trigger. Courts § 5-406 — the Maryland Associations, Organizations, and Agents Act — protects an agent of a community association, a homeowners association, a council of unit owners or a cooperative housing corporation where the association carries insurance covering the act, with a limit of at least $200,000 per claim and $500,000 per occurrence (or $750,000 per policy year and $500,000 per occurrence) and — as conditional alternatives rather than cumulative requirements — a deductible no greater than $10,000 per occurrence or a coinsurance rate no greater than 20 percent. Where it applies, the plaintiff recovers only to the extent of the insurance — but an agent who acted with malice or gross negligence is liable for the excess.

And a third, for the corporate side: under Corporations and Associations § 2-405.1(e), a director who met the statutory standard of care gets the immunity in Courts § 5-417 — “no liability in any action based on an act of the director.” The standard itself, and the charter's power to expand or limit liability under Courts § 5-418, are on the nonstock corporation page.

Prince George's County. Real Property § 14-131 applies only in Prince George's County and creates a Community Association Registry run by the County Office of Community Relations. Both sides register and renew by 31 January each year: any entity providing community association management services in the county, and every community association located in the county. The governing body is responsible for its association's compliance. The teeth are in subsection (j) — a person who fails to register, or makes a false statement on the form, may not file a dispute under the county's administrative hearing process until they do. A willful violation is a misdemeanour carrying a fine of up to $1,000.

Local Government § 16-114 is the funding half: by ordinance, Prince George's County may impose a fee to provide administrative hearing services for the resolution of disputes involving a common ownership community in the county, and may specify which remedies must be exhausted first.

Montgomery County runs a Commission on Common Ownership Communities under its own county code. Neither county code is reproduced on this site and nothing here characterises them — this project only asserts what it holds the text of, and the county codes are not part of the Annotated Code of Maryland. Take the county's own published code as the source for those.

One more county-specific rule worth knowing, because it is easy to over-read: Real Property § 11B-104(c)(2) lets a county establish a homeowners association commission — with authority to hear and resolve disputes between an association and a homeowner about enforcing the governing documents, by alternative dispute resolution “including binding arbitration” — but only where it is “a code home rule county located in the Southern Maryland class” as identified in Local Government § 9-302, which is Calvert County, Charles County and St. Mary's County, and nowhere else.

This is on no other page of this site and almost no board knows it is there.

Residential street service. Local Government § 5-301 defines a “private community” as a community governed by a homeowners association, a condominium, or a cooperative housing corporation, and “residential street service” as removing snow, ice or other obstructions from roadways; lighting roadways and maintaining the lighting equipment; collecting leaves, recyclables or garbage along roadways; or maintaining roadways.

Section 5-302 then lets the governing body of a municipality that provides residential street service make an agreement with a private community either to provide that service, or to reimburse the community up to what it would have cost the municipality to provide it. Two conditions: the community must lie wholly or partly in the municipality, and must have at least one-quarter mile of roadway. The agreement may require the community to pay for an insurance rider covering municipal vehicles and — as to a roadway that is to be used to provide the service — to allow it to be dedicated to public use and, unless the municipality maintains it, to keep it at a satisfactory level of service.

Infrastructure funds. Local Government § 1-1319 lets a county or municipality establish a local trust fund to repair or rehabilitate infrastructure within condominium and homeowners association communities. It may be spent on infrastructure the county traditionally maintains for the public — roads and stormwater management facilities are named — and may not be spent on recreational facilities for the exclusive use of members and their guests.

The funding formula is the striking part. The fund consists of property tax revenues paid by the unit or lot owners themselves, plus appropriations, gifts and investment earnings, and the county shall assign 25% of those revenues per year for an association that has not yet drawn on the fund, and between 10% and 25% for one that has. Priority goes to the communities showing the greatest need.

Establishing either programme is permissive — they authorise the local government, they do not oblige it. But once a county has set up a § 1-1319 fund, the assignment percentages and the need-based priority are mandatory: the statute says the county shall assign the revenues and shall prioritise the communities showing the greatest need. So the thing to ask your county or town for is the fund itself.

The District Court has exclusive original civil jurisdiction over an action in contract or tort where the debt or damages claimed do not exceed $30,000, exclusive of interest, costs and recoverable attorney's fees (CJP § 4-401(1)). It also has exclusive jurisdiction over landlord-and-tenant, distraint and wrongful detainer actions regardless of amount.

A small claim is narrower still: CJP § 4-405 defines it as a civil action for money where the amount claimed does not exceed $5,000, again excluding interest, costs and recoverable fees. That is where a great many assessment disputes belong. (The relaxed evidence rule that goes with the small claim track is in the Maryland Rules, not in this statute.)

Two thresholds sit either side of it. Above $5,000 a plaintiff may elect the circuit court instead of the District Court (§ 4-402(d)(1)(i)) — except in replevin, landlord-and-tenant, distraint and wrongful detainer, grantee suits, and the property injunction petitions, which are carved out. And a jury trial cannot be demanded at all where the amount in controversy is $25,000 or less (§ 4-402(e)(1)) — above that, a timely demand transfers the case out of the District Court entirely.

Three years is the default: CJP § 5-101, a civil action at law must be filed within three years of accrual “unless another provision of the Code provides a different period of time within which an action shall be commenced.”

But check whether your declaration is under seal. CJP § 5-102(a) gives twelve years to sue on a specialty, or twelve years from the death of the last to die of the principal debtor or creditor, whichever is sooner — a list that includes a contract under seal, a promissory note or other instrument under seal, a bond, and a judgment. Recorded covenants and declarations are frequently executed under seal, and the difference between three years and twelve is the difference between a stale claim and a live one.

Separately, an action to foreclose a lien recorded under the Contract Lien Act must be brought within 12 years of recording the statement of lien, and the notice that starts that whole process must be given within 2 years of the breach.

Maryland gives you one procedure if you are in a homeowners association and a different one if you are not, and the split is deliberate.

If you are not. Real Property § 3-112 lets an owner — or a nonprofit that enforces neighbourhood covenants, or a county or municipality after notice and a 30-day opt-out — record a restrictive covenant modification: a complete copy of the original instrument with the unlawful language struck through, plus an intake sheet on the Administrative Office of the Courts' form. The county attorney reviews it before the clerk of the circuit court may record it, checking both that the original really does contain an unlawfully restrictive covenant and that the modification strikes only that language. Once recorded, the modified restrictions are the only ones the original instrument imposes — and they take effect as of the original instrument's own date.

If you are. Section 3-112(b) expressly does not apply to such a covenant that is part of a declaration, uniform general scheme or plan of development of a homeowners association. Those go through Real Property § 11B-113.3, which puts the work on the association rather than the owner: the governing body shall delete a recorded covenant restricting ownership by race, religious belief or national origin from the common area deeds or declarations, may do so without a vote of the lot owners notwithstanding the governing documents, and must record the amendment. On a lot owner's written request it must be done within 180 days.

Section 11B-113.3 is reproduced in full on the Homeowners Association Act page. There is no condominium or cooperative equivalent of it — checked across Titles 11 and 11A and Corporations and Associations Subtitle 6B, not assumed — so for those communities § 3-112 is the route.

Courts and Judicial Proceedings § 5-406 protects the agents of a “community association”, among other bodies — and its definition of that term, in § 5-406(a)(7), begins with a condition most people miss: a nonprofit association, corporation or other organization “that registers with the Secretary of State under § 7-108 of the State Government Article” and then meets one of three size-and-age tests — broadly, at least 25% of the adult residents of a community of 40+ households with annual dues and defined boundaries; or at least 100 adult residents but under 25%, organised on or before 1 January 2000 and continuously operating since; or a federation of such bodies.

State Government § 7-108 is the other half, and it is two sentences long. An organization that has existed for at least 5 years and promotes social welfare and general civic improvement may register with the Secretary of State as a community association by filing an affidavit — a written statement made to the best of the affiant's knowledge, information and belief, affirmed under penalties of perjury — that it meets the § 5-406(a)(7) requirements.

Note which associations this is about. A homeowners association and a council of unit owners are named separately in § 5-406(a)(3), so they do not depend on registering. The registration route matters for the civic association or neighbourhood organization that is not one of those — the kind that has dues and boundaries but no recorded declaration.

Land Use § 25-201, in one sentence: “Notwithstanding any other State law”, the district council may allow in its rules and procedures a duly elected officer of a bona fide civic association or homeowners association to represent the association before the county planning board, the district council, the zoning hearing examiner or the board of appeals “regardless of whether that individual is an attorney.”

It is permissive as to the district council — it authorises the rules, it does not write them — but the phrase that opens it is doing real work, because representing an entity before a tribunal is otherwise the practice of law.

The neighbouring provision matters for the same communities. Land Use § 22-407(a)(1)(ii) gives standing to seek judicial review to anyone aggrieved by the decision who is also “a civic or homeowners association representing property owners affected by the final decision” — membership in the class is necessary, not sufficient of a district council decision, including a map amendment — alongside the property owner and the applicant. The petition goes to the Circuit Court for Prince George's County within 30 days of service of the decision, and filing it does not stay enforcement unless the council or the court orders a stay.

Section 25-201 sits in the Land Use Article's Prince George's County title; § 22-407 sits in the Prince George's County subtitle of the zoning title. Neither is statewide.

Real Property § 14-117 is the general contract-of-sale disclosure section, and its first subsection is about something peculiar to Maryland: a deferred private water and sewer assessment recorded as a covenant, which passes to whoever buys the house and can run for decades.

A contract for the initial sale of improved residential real property to a member of the public who intends to occupy or rent it must disclose the estimated cost of any deferred water and sewer charges for which the purchaser may become liable, as established by the appropriate authority. And § 14-117(a)(5) reaches the resale buyer: where deferred charges are recorded against the property, the contract must carry a prescribed statutory notice, with rescission rights if it does not.

In Prince George's County the disclosure is itemised. Where there are deferred private water and sewer assessments recorded by covenant, the contract must state: their existence; the amount of the annual assessment; the approximate number of payments remaining; the amount remaining including interest; the name and address of whoever most recently collected it; the interest rate; the estimated payoff amount; and a statement that payoff is allowed without a prepayment penalty.

And there is a hard ceiling on the arrangement itself: a person establishing water and sewer costs for an initial sale may not amortise costs passed on to a purchaser by imposing a deferred water and sewer charge for longer than 20 years after the date of the initial sale.

This is separate from anything the association owes you. The Homeowners Association Act resale disclosure and the Condominium Act resale certificate are their own obligations, reproduced in full on those pages.