Because of their ancient pedigree and lack of regulation, ground rents have long been subject to the classic market failure of asymmetrical information -- one party to the deal knows a lot more than the counterparty. For years this worked to the disadvantage advantage of some unethical ground rent owners who would initiate expensive legal proceedings and sometimes seize people's homes when tenants owned a few hundred dollars in ground rent. Because there was no statewide registry tenants sometimes had trouble knowing who the landlords were and where to send the rent. Ground rents could change hands and tenants would have no idea.

But after the state reformed ground rents thanks to The Sun's investigation, the shoe got switched to the other foot. Maryland required ground rent registration and set a date certain beyond which landlords would lose their title if they hadn't registered. But the informality that required ground-rent reform now worked to landlords' disadvantage. Some lived out of state. How was Maryland to notify everybody that they had to register? There was no list. Where once tenants were ignorant of important legal proceedings and in jeopardy of having their property rights violated, landlords seem to have found themselves in the same position.

As Andrea Siegel writes in today's paper, some landlords sued, and the case has reached the Court of Appeals. If there are indeed legitimate ground-rent owners who didn't know they had to register, an extension of the deadline seems like a a reasonable deal. However the high court probably isn't in a position to impose that kind of remedy; presumably that would be up to the legislature. But property rights are just as important to landlords as to tenants, an indication of why the case has gotten this far.