Straight talk about selling a Maryland house.
No fluff and no scare tactics. These are the questions sellers actually ask us, answered the way we’d answer them on the phone.
What is your preferred closing timeline? How a Maryland cash sale picks its date
A cash buyer asked what closing date you want and you froze. Here is what actually sets the earliest date on a Maryland cash sale, and why the fastest answer is not always the right one.
Read the articleSelling an inherited house in Maryland: how probate really works
Can you sell before probate closes? Who signs the contract? The timeline, the taxes, and the house full of stuff, explained in plain terms.
Read the articleThe Maryland foreclosure timeline, and how late you can still sell
The 120 day rule, the 45 day notice, the $50 mediation program, and the honest answer to how close to the auction you can still sell.
Read the articleHow to choose a cash home buyer in Maryland without getting burned
The five minute background check, the seven questions that expose a shaky buyer, what a fair offer looks like, and the two Maryland laws that protect you.
Read the articleSeller closing costs in Maryland: what comes out of your check, county by county
Transfer tax, recordation tax, commission, settlement fees, and an 8.75% withholding if you moved out of state. Here is the Maryland seller side of the settlement sheet, with the 2026 county rates.
Read the articleWhat to do when your Maryland house doesn’t sell
The listing expired, the showings dried up, and the mortgage is still due. Here are the real options for a Maryland house that did not sell, including what your old listing agreement still controls.
Read the articleLetters of administration in Maryland: how long until you can sell the house
You cannot sign a contract on a parent’s house until the Register of Wills appoints you. Here is the Maryland timeline from filing to letters to closing, and the deadlines the estate has to hit along the way.
Read the articleBaltimore City tax sale timeline: the dates that decide whether you keep the house
Baltimore City sells tax liens every May, and the thresholds are the lowest in Maryland. Here is the calendar from the February notice to the foreclosure filing, and where a sale fits.
Read the articleSelling a house with a reverse mortgage in Maryland: the heirs’ clock and the 95 percent rule
The servicer’s letter says the loan is due and payable and gives you a deadline. Here is what that deadline actually is, what the 95 percent rule does for you, and how a Maryland estate sells the house in time.
Read the articleSelling a vacant house in Maryland: insurance, squatters, fines, and the fastest way out
An empty house is not a paused problem. Insurance thins out, the county starts writing, the pipes wait for January. Here is what vacancy costs in Maryland and how to sell the house without fixing it first.
Read the articleSelling a house with code violations in Maryland: liens, disclosure, and who fixes what
A notice from the county changes who pays and which buyers can close, not whether the house can sell. Here is how Maryland citations become liens, what you have to tell a buyer, and how to sell a cited house without touching the repair list.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland rental with tenants in place: notice rules, the right of first refusal, and what transfers at closing
The lease goes with the house. Since 2024 the tenant may also get first shot at buying it. Here is what a Maryland landlord has to do, in what order, to sell a rental with someone living in it.
Read the articleSelling a house with a ground rent in Baltimore: what the buyer, the title company and SDAT will ask
Thousands of Baltimore rowhomes still sit on a ground lease. The rent is small, the confusion is not. Here is what a ground rent does to a sale, what SDAT lets you do about it, and what we do when a house comes with one.
Read the articleSelling a house with an open permit or unpermitted work in Maryland
A permit that never got its final inspection, or a basement that never had one at all, shows up when a buyer’s lender starts asking questions. Here is how Maryland counties, title companies and lenders treat it, and how to sell the house anyway.
Read the articleSelling a parent’s house with a power of attorney in Maryland: what the title company needs and where it goes wrong
A durable power of attorney is the document that lets you sign a deed for a parent who no longer can. Here is what Maryland requires of it, what the title company will ask for, the sales that get flagged, and what to do when there is no document at all.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house with an HOA or condo lien: the resale packet, the Contract Lien Act, and what gets paid at closing
Behind on dues, or the association recorded a lien, or the fence has been an open violation for two years. Here is what Maryland law makes the seller deliver, how the lien gets paid from the proceeds, and why the resale packet is the real clock on a retail sale.
Read the articleSelling a house with lead paint in Maryland: the federal disclosure, the MDE registry, and what a buyer takes on
Most Maryland houses built before 1978 have lead paint somewhere. The paint itself rarely kills a sale. The paperwork, the rental history and the lender do. Here is what the law actually requires of a seller and how to sell the house without touching a window.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house with an underground oil tank: MDE rules, removal versus closure, and what buyers ask for
Two pipes sticking out of the ground by the foundation mean a buried oil tank, and a buried oil tank means a question from every buyer, lender and insurer. Here is what Maryland law requires of you, what it does not, and how to sell without digging.
Read the articleSelling a house with a judgment or IRS lien in Maryland: what the title search finds, how payoffs work, and what to do when the liens eat the equity
A lien is a bill that gets paid at the settlement table before you do, not a reason the house cannot sell. Here is how judgments and tax liens attach in Maryland, what the title company does about them, and the three places the sale actually stalls.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house with leased solar panels: the UCC filing on your title, the lease transfer, and the buyout math
Rooftop solar spread across Maryland subdivisions over the last decade, and a large share of it was sold at the door as a lease or a power purchase agreement. The panels work fine. The paperwork is what slows the sale. Here is what the title company finds, what the buyer is asked to sign, and the three ways the lease gets resolved.
Read the articleSelling a co-owned house in Maryland when one owner will not sign: partition, heirs property, and the buyout
Three siblings on one deed, a former partner who moved out, a parent’s house that passed to five cousins. When the owners do not agree, Maryland has a court process for it, and a cheaper way around it. Here is how both work.
Read the articleSelling a house with a failing septic system or a bad well in Maryland: inspections, the Health Department, and the as-is sale
Outside the sewer line, from Carroll County farmhouses to south county Anne Arundel ramblers, a sale lives or dies on the septic inspection. What the state actually requires, what the lender requires, and how to sell a house whose drain field has given up.
Read the articleSelling a house after your spouse dies in Maryland: tenancy by the entirety, the mortgage, and what the title company records
For most Maryland widows and widowers the house is already theirs the day their spouse dies, and no court is involved. The paperwork is one death certificate. The hard part is the mortgage company, the tax clock and deciding what to do with a house that is suddenly too big.
Read the articleSelling a house with a life estate deed in Maryland: who has to sign, the Medicaid look-back, and what happens to the step-up
A life estate deed was supposed to make things simple. Then the parent needs to sell, or move to care, or one of the children on the deed will not sign. Here is who owns what under a Maryland life estate deed, how a sale works while the life tenant is alive, and why waiting is sometimes the better tax answer.
Read the articleSelling an underwater house in Maryland: how a short sale works, the deficiency question, and where a cash buyer fits
The payoff letter says more than the house will bring. Here is what a Maryland short sale actually involves, what the approval letter has to say so the lender cannot chase you later, how the foreclosure clock interacts with it, and what a cash buyer can and cannot do when the numbers are upside down.
Read the articleSelling a house with a mechanic’s lien or a half finished renovation in Maryland: the 180 day clock, the 15 percent rule, and the as-is way out
The contractor stopped showing up, the kitchen is studs and subfloor, and now there is a letter about a lien. Here is how a Maryland mechanic’s lien actually gets created, the deadlines that make most threats hollow, what a half finished renovation does to the buyer pool, and how the house sells anyway.
Read the articleSelling a house held in a living trust in Maryland: who signs, what the title company wants, and what changes after the grantor dies
Thousands of Maryland houses sit in revocable living trusts set up to skip probate. When it is time to sell, the trust does its job quietly or it turns up a problem nobody checked. Here is what the trustee signs, what the title company asks for, and how taxes change once the person who set it up has died.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house your insurer dropped: the nonrenewal notice, the Joint Insurance Association, and why a cash buyer does not care
Insurers have been walking away from older Maryland houses over roofs, panels and claim histories, and the nonrenewal letter often lands right when the owner was thinking about selling. The house still sells. Here is what the notice means, how to stay covered until closing, and why the buyer matters more than the policy.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house after the divorce decree: use and possession orders, the trustee sale, and getting a former spouse off the deed and the loan
The decree is signed and the house is still sitting there with both names on the deed and both names on the loan. Here is what a Maryland judgment of divorce can order about the house, what it leaves for the two of you to finish, and how a cash sale closes the file when nothing else is agreed.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house with a squatter or a holdover occupant: wrongful detainer, tenant holding over, and what a buyer will take as it sits
Someone is living in your house and you did not put them there, or you did and the lease ended a year ago. Maryland has a different court case for each, the same rule against doing it yourself, and buyers who will take the house with the person still inside. Here is how the cases work and when selling first makes more sense.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house during a Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 bankruptcy: the automatic stay, the trustee, the motion to sell, and what a cash buyer needs from your attorney
The day you file, your house stops being yours alone to sell. Chapter 7 puts a trustee in charge of it, Chapter 13 leaves it with you but makes the court sign off on any sale, and a title company will not record a deed without the paperwork that proves which one happened. Here is how a sale runs inside a Maryland bankruptcy case.
Read the articleSelling a Maryland house with a high radon reading: the disclosure form, the Montgomery County test rule, mitigation, and what a cash buyer does with the number
The test came back above four and the buyer wants to talk. Radon is common in Maryland basements, it is fixable, and it is one of the few house problems with a county law attached to it. Here is what the state and Montgomery County actually require, what the disclosure form asks, what mitigation involves, and how to sell without doing any of it.
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