A ground rent 'oops'
A bunch of Maryland ground-rent owners were shocked when they discovered, too late, that they had to register their property by Sept. 29 of last year or it would cease to exist. One of those owners got a second surprise when he noticed that the state declared in its tax booklet -- incorrectly, as it happens -- that the deadline was September of this year.
Colleague Andrea Siegel reports on that oopsie here, which some ground-rent advocates say is adding to confusion about the law.
Just after the actual deadline passed, I heard from about half a dozen people who say they didn't know and don't see why the state thought its occasional public notices were sufficient.
There were lots of news stories in 2007 when the General Assembly was changing ground-rent laws, one of which was about registration. But the three-year window to apply meant it fell off the radar until the very end. Some of the folks I talked to remembered the '07 hoopla but didn't catch on to the fact that the changes had implications for all ground-rent owners, not just the big investors whose aggressive tactics prompted a Baltimore Sun investigation.
One man didn't have the heart to tell his elderly mother that the bills she was carefully sending out had no legal standing anymore.
The idea of registration is to make it absolutely clear who owns each ground rent and how to contact them, something that title companies say has proved difficult in the past. So it seems like a useful idea, but it also seems a shame that some folks were in the dark. One suggested a do-over period. What do you think?
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Comments
How can it be legal for the state to confiscate property that is legal owned by someone without any due process? And do these ground rents now belong to the state to collect ground rents annually or do they get wiped off the books so that some grounder renter unfairly benefit from this confiscation of real property? Having to register something that is already recorded as part of the deed? It is just one more sign of out of control government regulations (look at all the other new regulations related to real property that have been passed in just the past few years... many redundancies and all with a fee) These legislators need a time out.
Posted by: Bunny Smith | January 18, 2011 3:30 PM
Jamie: I enjoy your blog, but you've fallen prey to a notion that has become one of my pet peeves- asking laypeople to opine on constitutional law! There's a reason why you must go to college and then 3-4 years of grad school (and then pass a 2-3 day Bar Exam after earning your J.D.) in order to practice law- it's arcane and complex stuff! Frankly, you might as well ask folks if a certain set of symptoms indicates that one needs an apendectomy! Personally, I'll defer to the greater wisdom of someone with an M.D. Okay, I'll stop ranting now!
Posted by: Enzo | January 18, 2011 4:57 PM
Other than the prohibition against any state from passing any “Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts” (Article I, section 10), or the Fifth Amendment (among its other prohibitions) provision that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation” what could possibly be wrong with the legislature abolishing a contract that has existed for years?
Posted by: Howard Citizen | January 18, 2011 5:02 PM
Enzo, I'm not particularly curious what people think about the state of appendectomies, but I do admit curiosity about whether they think ground-rent owners ought to be given another shot at registration. I didn't think I could ask that question without giving folks the option to say the whole thing (registration or ground rent) is wrong-headed, since there are lawsuits to that effect.
Presumably, an unscientific poll will not influence any judges that might be musing over the matter. At least, I sure hope not.
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | January 18, 2011 5:09 PM
The problem is this snafu is screwing the little guys among ground rent owners. You better bet the big guys, and the ones who were abusing the system, had their registrations in tout suite. I'm betting it's the grannies and small nonprofits that have lost out.
Posted by: brooksiefan | January 18, 2011 5:26 PM
How does one find out whether the ground rent on their property was registered or not?
Posted by: Eli | January 18, 2011 6:15 PM
Eli, go to this blog post: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/business/realestate/blog/2011/01/what_to_do_about_an_extinguished_ground_rent.html
Posted by: Jamie Smith Hopkins | January 18, 2011 6:31 PM
Jamie: I completely understand your interest in determining whether or not people think the concept of ground rents (or the requirement to register them) is "wrong-headed", but that's a VERY different question than whether such matters are constitutional- the latter is not a question on which laypersons are qualified to opine.
Posted by: Enzo | January 18, 2011 7:41 PM
As I recall, didn't this latest "controversy" about ground rents arise in the first place because some folks were losing their properties for failure to pay a ground rent they didn't know they had, or were not--get this--getting adequate notification about their debt of such?
Although I'm pretty sure that the same folks who were grabbing back properties aren't the ones that are just now discovering their ground rents gone...... what is it that they say about karma and a word that rhymes with "witch"?
Posted by: Alexander D. Mitchell IV | January 19, 2011 1:19 AM