We’ve heard a lot recently about how Gov. Wes Moore and the Maryland General Assembly have enacted big tax increases, have caused the state to lose its Moody’s AAA bond rating and have caused the electricity bills of state residents to skyrocket. But all of the news out of Annapolis is not bad. Let me focus on one respect in which the General Assembly should be applauded for enacting legislation that will benefit Maryland citizens.

In recent weeks, The Baltimore Sun has published several articles about a squatting scam that is being operated locally. The operators of this scam are using social media to promote cheap rental housing and are signing “Squatters Leases” with homeless citizens, providing to them rental properties which the scammers do not own and have no right to lease. The citizens make one-time cash payments to the scammers and then move into the unoccupied dwellings and change the locks on the doors. In such cases, when the lawful owner arrives, the squatters tell the owner that they have a lease for the property and refuse to move out.

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger prosecutes these cases, but neither Shellenberger nor the Baltimore County Police Department has the power to physically remove the squatters from the properties. This is because the squatter has a lease that, on its face, appears to be genuine, and neither Shellenberger nor the police department can simply assume that it is fraudulent until it has been determined to be phony in a court of law.

To recover his property, the rightful owner of a property occupied by squatters has to engage an attorney and file a lawsuit against the squatters. After the case is filed, under current court rules of procedure, the squatter has lots of ways to delay the ultimate resolution of the lawsuit, even while the squatter continues to live in the property. Months or even years can pass before the owner of the property finally succeeds in evicting the squatters.

In the 2025 session of the General Assembly, several bills were introduced to deal with this situation. The bills were flawed, however. They provided that the sheriff could make a determination that the lease was fraudulent on the say-so of the owner and then immediately remove the squatter from the property. The problem was that these bills were unconstitutional because they denied the person occupying the property any semblance of due process. No court would have been involved; rather, the sheriff would have been empowered to make the critical decision on his own. Snap decisions by sheriffs do not constitute due process.

The squatting bills were assigned to the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee. As a member of that committee, I took the bills in hand and devised a different approach, which I believe will pass constitutional muster.

I recalled that in 2018, when I was running for State Senate, a person filed to oppose me who I knew did not live in my legislative district. As the law requires a legislator to live in the district that he or she represents, I checked the law to find how it deals with such a situation. The relevant statute is clear. In the event of such a case, a civil action can be filed against the unqualified candidate to remove his name from the ballot, and, once filed, the statute states that the court must hold a hearing and resolve the case within one week after the filing. So why not deploy the same procedure in squatting cases?

That’s just what the committee did. We reworked one of the squatting bills so that it would provide that the lawful owner may file a written complaint against the squatter in the district court of the county in which the property is located. The bill then requires that a trial must be held within 10 days after the complaint is filed. The squatter has the right to be represented by counsel and has the right to trial by jury.

At the trial, the court will either give judgment for restitution of the property to the complainant or, alternatively, give judgment in favor of the alleged squatter (plus court costs and attorney fees) if the lease is determined to be legitimate. The bill permits the squatter to file an appeal of the court’s decision within four days after the trial and requires the appellate court to set a hearing date for such an appeal within no more than 15 days after the appeal is filed. The entire premise of the bill is that due process can be accomplished very quickly.

Our reworked bill passed the General Assembly and was signed into law by Gov. Moore. It will go into effect on Oct. 1.

While unheralded, our reworked bill will enable swift justice to be provided to defrauded property owners. The sort of creative thinking and backroom drafting that produced this squatting bill represents the best of the Maryland General Assembly. For all of the headlines about bad things that happen in Annapolis, Maryland citizens should be proud that our state government also, in its own quiet but effective way, labors to identify problems such as squatting and then fixes them. We can’t stop scammers from trying to cheat people, but we can assure rightful property owners that they will quickly be put back into possession of their property.