Baltimore City and state lawmakers Monday announced new proposals to modernize the state?s ground rent system, which provides homeowners with protections against losing their homes over small ground rent debts.
City council and Annapolis lawmakers joined Gov. Martin O?Malley outside Vernon Onheiser?s home in Canton, a row house Onheiser almost lost before Christmas to a $24 ground rent payment he said he didn?t know about. Lawmakers presented Onheiser ? who paid nearly $18,000 in interest and attorneys fees to keep his home ? with a sign reading “Ground Sweet Ground.”
New legislation, they hope, will help other homeowners avoid similar battles.
“Homeownership is one of the building blocks of a strong middle class,” O?Malley said. “This is progress for the working people of our state.”
O?Malley earlier this year introduced emergency legislation that stopped the creation of new ground rents in Maryland. A legislative package introduced Monday in the House of Delegates would stop the use of “ejectment” ? when ground rent owners sue to confiscate a house ? as a remedy for nonpayment, said Del. Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore, chair of the house?s Environmental Matters committee.
The proposal also requires ground rent owners to create a lien for nonpayment, notify the homeowner and give them first chance to buy a ground rent before selling it to a third party. It calls for a registry and online database of all properties subject to ground rents, estimated at 120,000 homes in Baltimore City.
City council members plan to introduce similar legislation giving homeowners the first right of refusal for ground rent sales Feb. 12, Councilman Jim Kraft, D-1st District said.
“We?re going to attack a problem that?s really been going on too long in the city,” Kraft said. “They?ve got to come to you first.”
The initiatives follow a series of stories published in The Baltimore Sun in December. The report estimated at least 521 homes were turned over to ground rent owners between 2000 and the end of March 2006 for unpaid rent.
