The changes in ground rent law were a result of a very good Baltimore Sun Expose (Part 1, Part 2, and part 3) about how a relatively small number of ground rent holders are regularly using this to screw people.

These people should be hung by their tongues and their genitals.

Ground rent suit is filed
Action challenges new laws reforming a system that had cost hundreds their homes

By June Arney
sun reporter

June 26, 2007

A trustee for a ground rent owner has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of new laws intended to reform a system that had cost hundreds of people their homes.

In the suit filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, Charles Muskin seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to block measures that end ejectment – the seizure of a property for nonpayment of ground rents – and require a registry of ground rents.

The laws, which would take effect July 1, were part of a reform package enacted in the last session of the General Assembly in the wake of an investigative series published by The Sun . The articles reported that ground rent holders had sued to get possession of homes nearly 4,000 times over six years – sometimes over unpaid sums of as little as $24. Baltimore judges awarded houses to ground rent holders at least 521 times between 2000 and the end of March 2006.

In many cases, ground rent holders used their power under state law to oust homeowners, then sold the properties, sometimes for tens of thousands of dollars in profit. Some homeowners were able to reach settlements to regain their houses by paying legal and other fees many times the amount of ground rent owed.

In addition to stopping ejectments and creating the registry, the package of reform laws also banned the creation of new ground rents and made it easier for homeowners to redeem – buy out – ground rents.

Muskin, a trustee for two trusts from his grandfather’s estate that include about 300 ground rents in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County, testified against some of the bills before the General Assembly last session.

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Rick Abbruzzese, spokesman for Gov. Martin O’Malley, said yesterday the state will stand by the new laws.

“We will defend, and we are confident the court will uphold this important legislation,” he said. O’Malley supported the reform package and signed it into law.

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, said the suit had been received and was being reviewed, but declined further comment.

Brian E. Frosh, chairman of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, which considered the bills, said lawmakers “got advice from the attorney general that the legislation was constitutional, particularly with respect to the claims made” in the suit.

The laws changed “not a property right, but a remedy,” said Frosh, a Montgomery County Democrat. “It used to be you could toss somebody out of their house for a $20 payment. Now you can get the 20 bucks, but you have to follow a different procedure.”

Under the new laws, if all else fails and a house is sold, Frosh said, the ground rent holder collects only what he is owed, and the homeowner gets the balance.

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