Commercial Evictions in Maryland

I have handled a number of commercial evictions in Maryland. Most of these cases occur in District Court, which has relatively short time frames for an eviction.  If an eviction is for failure to pay rent, you can normally get a hearing within two weeks after you file suit.  An order of possession is not the same as a money judgment, however, so, if your tenant owes substantial back rent, you may want to make sure that you serve your tenant personally, in which case the court can issue a money judgment as well as an order of possession. Once you have an order of possession, if you actually have to get the sheriff to evict the tenant, this can often take several weeks to get this on the sheriff's schedule. If you are going to simply change the locks, and keep all of the tenant's property (which you can if your lease allows you this right), you can generally schedule this sooner than if the sheriff has to supervise the removal of property.

A couple of tips about dealing with tenants who can't or won't pay rent:
(1) Send notification letters by overnight delivery or certified mail whenever rent is late. State what late fee will apply and give the tenant a very short period of time to make up the past due rent and late fees;
(2) Don't let a tenant get too far behind. If a tenant is more than 45 days behind, I recommend filing an eviction action. Even if you don't have to go through with the eviction process, this will send a message to the tenant that you are serious;
(3) Begin to look for a new tenant. Tenants will try to delay you, and you want to remove any leverage that they have because they think that you would rather have some rent coming in rather than no rent for a while;
(4) Don't accept excuses--tenants have used them all, and things generally get worse, not better when a tenant gets behind.

I hope this is helpful.

Keeping your Maryland entity in "good standing"

After you file your incorporation or certificate of organization of your Maryland corporation, LLC or other entity, there is one major requirement to keep it in "good standing." This is the filing of the Annual Property Tax form and the payment of the fee. Even if you don't own any personal property in this entity, you must file this form and pay $300 to the State Department of Assessments and Taxation in order to keep your company alive.  I have found that many companies lose their corporate status inadvertently through failure to file this form, because they never got or simply didn't get it filed.

Here are a few tips to keep your entity in "good standing":
(1) If you serve as your own "registered agent", make sure that you file a change of address form when you move your residence or office. Often these forms are not forwarded and this may cause you to fail to get the proper form. While the form is available online, it is generally mailed to each company in active status during February and this will remind you to get this filed.
(2) If you use someone else to be your "registered agent", make sure that they file the form annually. My office serves as a resident agent for many of my clients and we charge a nominal fee to do so.
(3) If your entity gets a notice that its charter has been "forfeited", you still generally have 60 days to get the form filed with no penalty.

Remember that your company cannot file a lawsuit or open a bank account or do many other things if your corporate or LLC status is not "active".  Losing your charter also can cause you problems if the entity gets sued, as the creditor may attempt to reach your personal assets. If you do lose your corporate status, you can regain it by filing all missing tax forms plus a "Certificate of Reinstatement" and paying all unpaid taxes plus a $100 reinstatement fee.

Welcome to my new Maryland Business Law blog

I have just created this new blog to discuss Maryland business legal issues with the legal community and the business community. I hope it will be helpful to you, so please feel free to suggest issues that you would like discussed. Thanks.