Motor Vehicle Administration – Access to Digital Records – Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development
HB0709 authorizes Maryland counties to adopt local “good cause” eviction laws for residential leases and holdover tenancies. Under a county ordinance adopted under the bill, certain landlords could not refuse to renew a lease or terminate a holdover tenancy unless one of the bill’s specified good-cause grounds exists. The bill also defines what counts as good cause, including substantial lease breaches, repeated disorderly conduct, illegal activity, refusal of access, habitual late rent, landlord or family occupancy, major renovations, and permanent removal of the unit from the rental market.
The bill also creates notice and disclosure requirements. Landlords in affected counties would have to tell tenants whether they are subject to the local good-cause law, use forms developed by the Office of Tenant and Landlord Affairs, and include specific ownership information if they claim an exemption from the local requirements. In court filings seeking possession, landlords would have to state the good cause or explain why the local law does not apply, and provide supporting documentation and affidavits. The bill takes effect October 1, 2025.
HB0709 would amend the Real Property Article by adding a new local-option framework in § 8-402.3 and related disclosure and pleading requirements in §§ 8-208 and 8-402. It would not impose a statewide good-cause eviction rule, but would allow counties to adopt such protections for qualifying landlords, while limiting the grounds counties may recognize and restricting the law to landlords owning six or more residential rental units in the state. It also requires the Department of Housing and Community Development’s Office of Tenant and Landlord Affairs to create standardized forms and makes those forms publicly available.
The bill appears to have been introduced as a tenant-protection measure and is framed around expanding eviction and lease-renewal protections at the local level. Because there are no committee transcripts or recorded votes provided, there is no direct evidence of floor or committee debate in the supplied materials. The sponsor later withdrew the bill, which suggests the measure did not advance through the legislative process in this form.
The main points of contention likely involve the balance between tenant stability and landlord discretion. Supporters would likely favor the bill’s good-cause standard, disclosure rules, and limits on nonrenewal for larger landlords as protections against arbitrary displacement. Opponents would likely object to the added compliance burden, the restriction on landlords’ ability to decline renewal, the ownership aggregation rules used to determine coverage, and the requirement to justify possession actions in court. The bill also narrows county flexibility by listing exclusive good-cause grounds and prohibiting additional or alternative grounds, which could be contentious for both landlord groups and local governments.