We buy houses in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Montgomery County is the most populous county in Maryland, and its government touches a home sale in more places than any other county we buy in. County law requires a radon test before settlement, twelve months of utility bills handed to the buyer, an annual license for every single-family rental, a cap on rent increases since 2024, and a recordation tax that climbs in tiers once a sale passes $500,000. Most sellers in Silver Spring, Rockville or Gaithersburg only learn about these rules from a title company a week before closing. We buy Montgomery County houses for cash, as-is, and we already know where each rule bites, so none of it has to slow you down.

The county makes you test for radon before you can settle

Montgomery County is one of the few places in the country with a radon law written into the real estate code. Section 40-13C of the county code says a single-family home, detached or attached, cannot settle unless a radon test was performed less than one year before the settlement date. The seller can run the test or let the buyer run it, and both sides have to receive a copy of the result. Condominiums and co-ops are exempt, and so are a few kinds of transfers: a sale exempt from transfer tax, a lender selling after foreclosure or tax sale, a personal representative selling for an estate, and a house the buyer plans to demolish or convert to another use. The law does not require anyone to fix a high reading, only to test and share it.

Most of the county sits in the EPA’s highest radon potential zone, so high readings are common in basements from Bethesda to Damascus. When you sell to us, we schedule and pay for the test as the buyer, and whatever it finds is our problem to mitigate after closing. You do not install a fan, and the number does not change our offer.

Twelve months of utility bills go to the buyer too

Since 2009, Montgomery County has required the seller of a single-family home or condo to hand the buyer copies of the electric, gas and heating oil bills, or a usage and cost history, for the twelve months before the sale, along with a county Department of Environmental Protection sheet on energy audits and efficiency improvements. If the house sat empty or was only occupied for part of the year, the seller provides what exists for the months it was occupied.

This one trips up families selling a parent’s house who have never seen the Pepco or Washington Gas login. We take whatever history you can pull, or none, and it does not hold up our closing. A retail buyer’s agent will keep asking for it until settlement.

Every single-family rental needs an annual DHCA license, and rents are capped

Montgomery County licenses rental housing through the Department of Housing and Community Affairs, and a single-family house or condo needs its own license every year. The license year runs July 1 through June 30, renewal payments are due by July 31, the fee is $130 per single-family or townhouse unit for the year beginning July 1, 2026, and the fee is not prorated if you only rented for part of the year. Rockville, Gaithersburg and Takoma Park run their own rental programs on top of that, so an address inside city limits can answer to two offices.

Since July 23, 2024, the county has also capped annual rent increases at the local CPI-U plus three percent, with a hard ceiling of six percent. The law exempts buildings less than 23 years old, owner-occupied units, licensed care facilities and landlords who rent out two or fewer units, which covers most people who ended up renting a house they never meant to be a landlord for. Either way, none of it decides whether we buy. We purchase Montgomery County rentals licensed or not, tenant in place or not, and sorting out the license and the tenant’s lease becomes our job at closing.

Recordation tax climbs in tiers, and the county transfer tax is 1%

Montgomery County’s recordation tax is $4.45 per $500 of the sale price, which is 0.89%, on the first $500,000. Above that it steps up: $6.75 per $500 on the portion between $500,000 and $600,000, $10.20 per $500 on the portion between $600,000 and $750,000, and higher rates again above $750,000. The county transfer tax is 1% and the State of Maryland adds 0.5%. A buyer who will live in the house gets the first $50,000 exempt from the county transfer tax and an $890 recordation credit; an investor buyer like us does not, so on our purchases the full amount is due.

On a $600,000 sale, that works out to $4,450 plus $1,350 in recordation tax, $6,000 in county transfer tax and $3,000 in state transfer tax, close to $14,800 combined before anyone negotiates who pays which line. When you sell to us, a licensed Maryland title company calculates and collects every piece at settlement. You never bring a check for it.

Probate in Rockville: a Circuit Court judge sits as the Orphans’ Court

Montgomery is one of three Maryland counties, with Howard and Harford, where Circuit Court judges hear Orphans’ Court matters instead of a separately elected court. The Register of Wills at 50 Maryland Avenue in Rockville opens the estate, issues letters of administration and receives the personal representative’s administration account, which is due within nine months of appointment. Estates without a dispute usually close in nine to eighteen months, and the house is normally the last thing holding one open.

A sale by the personal representative is one of the transfers exempt from the county’s radon rule, which removes one step. We buy Montgomery County houses mid-probate, coordinate the settlement date with the estate’s attorney, and buy with the contents in place so no one has to empty a house in Wheaton or Rockville on the court’s schedule. Our guide to letters of administration in Maryland covers how long the paperwork takes.

The tax sale is the second Monday in June

Montgomery County sells liens on properties with unpaid county taxes at a sealed-bid sale on the second Monday of June every year, run by the Division of Treasury at 27 Courthouse Square in Rockville. In 2026 the sale was June 8. Once a lien sells, redeeming the house means paying the bidder interest on top of the taxes, and the bidder can eventually file to foreclose your right to redeem. A cash closing scheduled before the sale pays the delinquent taxes out of your proceeds and no lien is ever sold. A listing that goes under contract in May almost never closes in time.

Upcounty well and septic, the Agricultural Reserve and historic districts

Roughly a third of Montgomery County is the Agricultural Reserve, about 93,000 acres of farmland and low-density zoning around Poolesville, Boyds, Dickerson, Damascus and Laytonsville, where houses run on wells and septic systems. Maryland law requires a septic inspection and pumping confirmation before settlement on any property with an on-site system, and the county Department of Permitting Services signs off on repairs and replacements. A failed drainfield is the most common reason an upcounty sale falls out of a financed contract. It does not stop a sale to us.

Closer in, Takoma Park and Kensington are county-designated historic districts where exterior work goes through the Historic Preservation Commission, and a retail buyer’s lender will ask about any unpermitted changes. We price the house as it stands and take on the permit questions ourselves.

What we actually buy in Montgomery County

The largest share of our Montgomery County calls come from the post-war brick colonials and ramblers of close-in Silver Spring, Wheaton, Glenmont and Twinbrook in Rockville, bought in the 1950s and 60s and never renovated. The second group is the 1980s and 90s townhouse stock in Gaithersburg, Germantown and Montgomery Village, often a rental the owner is finished managing. The third is split-levels and colonials in Olney, Damascus and Burtonsville where a family is settling an estate or moving a parent to care. Bethesda and Potomac ramblers on large lots usually sell to builders as teardowns; we buy those too, and we tell you honestly when a builder or a listing will net you more.

The three sales we see most often here are an inherited house in Silver Spring with an original kitchen and a full basement of belongings, a Gaithersburg or Germantown rental with a tenant under the new rent cap, and a house in Rockville or Wheaton whose owner is heading to assisted living and wants one closing instead of months of showings.

Where we buy

We buy throughout Montgomery County: Silver Spring inside and outside the Beltway, Wheaton, Glenmont, Takoma Park, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Montgomery Village, Clarksburg, Olney, Burtonsville, Damascus, Bethesda and Potomac. Any condition, tenant or no tenant, radon fan or no radon fan. If you are weighing a sale against listing, our page on what it costs to sell shows the full math side by side.