Fall 2011 Maryland Change in the Law Reminder:  Check your Maryland contracts, leases and promissory notes and add language to effect:  "the obligation to pay attorneys fees provided herein shall not be merged into any judgment".  Consult your attorney and the recent Maryland Court of Appeals Suntrust case issued 09-30-11 for specific advice.

We now know from the Court of Appeals that ground rents that were thought to be extinguished by operation of law by failure to register with the Maryland State Department by October 2010 are in fact not extinguished.  So assume for now as most cautious practitioners have that if the land record title chain shows a ground rent you must continue to account for it in your deed and title policy, regardless of whether a State Department filing was made or not.  This may be a point of confusion to…

Boundary Disputes can be expensive and difficult to resolve.  Boundaries, at least older ones, are subject to interpretaion and the land at dispute is often not worth the cost to fight over, at least in rural areas.  If there is any way to resolve them by agreed survey work or land swaps go to your lawyer and have this done.  Your attorney will reduce the agreement to a formal document for recording in the land records, sometimes called a deed and land swap agreement or boundary line…

Jeff  Scholnick is one of our Baltimore County Bar historians and we thoroughly enjoy his posts. An all around great guy.

How many of you know modest Jeff has a great history himself?  He and I were part of a small contingent of the class of 82 and 83 at the University of Maryland law school (yup downtown Baltimore) that stayed in the dorms, almost everyone else commuted.

I was the wise sophomore, the randomly picked roommate to freshman Jeff and broke him into dorm life. …