Maryland HOA Fining Authority

Maryland HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview - Fining authority in Maryland

Maryland regulates association fines through two separate statutes, plus a distinct lien statute — and every enforceable fine depends on notice and a chance to be heard. Condominiums answer to the Maryland Condominium Act, Md. Code, Real Property § 11-101 et seq.1 Planned communities answer to the Maryland Homeowners Association Act, Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-101 et seq.2 The Condominium Act spells out the power directly: it lets the council of unit owners "levy reasonable fines" after notice and an opportunity to be heard, under § 11-109(b)(16). The Homeowners Association Act works differently — it grants no comparable power outright. An HOA's authority to fine comes from its own governing documents, while the statute supplies the mandatory procedure at § 11B-111.10.3 Maryland never adopted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so don't read its two-statute structure through UCIOA features.4 Assessment liens don't spring up on their own, either. The Maryland Contract Lien Act, Md. Code, Real Property § 14-201 et seq., creates and enforces them, and it demands a prescribed written notice, a 30-day window for the owner to dispute the claim in circuit court, and a recorded statement of lien before any lien exists.5 Reasonableness governs the dollar amount; neither statute caps a violation fine.3 Here's the question that matters most to a treasurer: can an unpaid fine become a lien and support foreclosure? A Condominium Act fine qualifies as "damages" the Contract Lien Act can secure — but § 14-204(d) blocks a condominium or homeowners association from foreclosing on any lien that includes fines.6 The Quick-Reference table below breaks down these mechanics parameter by parameter, and Section 3C works through the lien-and-foreclosure question in full.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

Here's the fining picture at a glance for a board member or manager facing a live enforcement question. The Condominiums column reflects the Maryland Condominium Act (RP § 11-101 et seq.); the Planned Communities column reflects the Maryland Homeowners Association Act (RP § 11B-101 et seq.). Assessment liens in both columns run through the Maryland Contract Lien Act (RP § 14-201 et seq.) — a court-supervised process, not a self-executing remedy. Section 3 sources every value below, where the controlling statute for each parameter appears.

# Parameter Condominiums Planned Communities
1 Statutory fining authority Yes (§ 11-109(b)(16)) No express statutory grant; governing-document-derived (procedure at § 11B-111.10)
2 Controlling source Statute (§ 11-109(b)(16), § 11-113) and governing documents Governing documents plus statute (§ 11B-111.10)
3 Pre-fine notice required Yes; written cease-and-desist demand (§ 11-113(b)(2)) Yes; written cease-and-desist demand (§ 11B-111.10(b)(2))
4 Minimum notice or cure period Not less than 15 days to abate a continuing violation (§ 11-113(b)(2)); no fixed period for non-continuing violations Not less than 15 days to abate a continuing violation (§ 11B-111.10(b)(2)); no fixed period for non-continuing violations
5 Opportunity to be heard required Yes (§ 11-113(b)(3)-(4)) Yes (§ 11B-111.10(b)(3)-(4))
6 Hearing request or scheduling deadline Owner given not less than 10 days to request; hearing set not less than 10 days after request (§ 11-113(b)(3)-(4)) Owner given not less than 10 days to request; hearing set not less than 10 days after request (§ 11B-111.10(b)(3)-(4))
7 Written notice of decision required Yes; results and sanction entered in minutes (§ 11-113(b)(4)) Yes; results and sanction entered in minutes (§ 11B-111.10(b)(4))
8 Fine amount standard "Reasonable" (§ 11-109(b)(16)); no dollar cap Reasonable, governing-document-set (no statutory grant or cap)
9 Per-day / continuing fines permitted Not specified by statute; set by governing documents, subject to reasonableness Not specified by statute; set by governing documents, subject to reasonableness
10 Published fine schedule required Not specified by statute; set by governing documents Not specified by statute; set by governing documents
11 Fines collectible as assessments Not specified by statute; set by governing documents Not specified by statute; set by governing documents
12 Fines securable by association lien Yes, via Contract Lien Act (§ 14-201(c) includes Condominium Act fines in "damages") Restricted; HOA fines not named in § 14-201(c); lienability rests on governing documents and § 11B-117(b)
13 Fines as basis for foreclosure Prohibited (§ 14-204(d)(2)(ii)) Prohibited (§ 14-204(d)(2)(ii))
14 Suspension of voting or amenity rights Governing-document-derived; when exercised, subject to notice-and-hearing procedure (§ 11-113(b)(1)) Governing-document-derived; when exercised, subject to notice-and-hearing procedure (§ 11B-111.10(b)(1))
15 Due-process source Statutory (§ 11-113) for demands arising on/after Oct. 1, 2022; plus governing documents; appealable to Maryland courts Statutory (§ 11B-111.10) for demands arising on/after Oct. 1, 2022; plus governing documents; appealable to Maryland courts

Condominiums column reflects the Maryland Condominium Act (RP § 11-101 et seq.); Planned Communities column reflects the Maryland Homeowners Association Act (RP § 11B-101 et seq.). Assessment liens are created and enforced through the Maryland Contract Lien Act (RP § 14-201 et seq.). Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

On the condominium track, the fining power comes straight from the statute. Real Property § 11-109(b)(16) empowers the council of unit owners "to impose charges for late payment of assessments and, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws, and rules and regulations of the council of unit owners, under § 11-113 of this title."3 Two limits ride along with that single sentence: the fine must be "reasonable," and the board can't impose it until the § 11-113 due-process sequence has run.7 The Condominium Act sets no dollar cap, no per-day ceiling, and no aggregate limit on violation fines. Reasonableness is the only statutory standard; the specific dollar amounts come from the declaration, bylaws, or a duly adopted rule.

The planned-community track works differently. The Homeowners Association Act contains no section that affirmatively grants a lot-owners association the power to fine. Instead, § 11B-111.10 assumes a board may fine, and then regulates how: it provides that the governing body "may not impose a fine, suspend voting, or infringe on any other right of a lot owner" until the prescribed procedure runs its course.8 Here's the practical consequence: an HOA has to locate its authority to fine in its own governing documents — the declaration, bylaws, or recorded rules — while the statute supplies the mandatory procedure and the appeal right. Where the governing documents don't authorize fines, an HOA has no fining power to exercise, period. As with condominiums, no statutory dollar cap applies to HOA violation fines; the amount must be authorized by the governing documents and stay reasonable.

Maryland never enacted the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so don't import UCIOA concepts here — no single common-interest-community statute, no UCIOA-style fine and lien provisions.4 Maryland keeps condominiums and planned communities in separate titles, and the governing documents remain the primary source of substantive fining terms in both. One point of confusion is worth isolating on its own: a "late charge" for a delinquent assessment is a different instrument from a violation "fine." Under Condominium Act § 11-110(e)(2), the late charge on a delinquent assessment caps out at "$15 or one tenth of the total amount of any delinquent assessment or installment, whichever is greater," and a board can impose it only once per delinquent payment, only after the delinquency "has continued for at least 15 calendar days." The parallel Homeowners Association Act limit sits at § 11B-113. That statutory cap governs assessment late charges alone — it doesn't reach violation fines, which answer only to the reasonableness standard and the governing documents.9

3B. The required fining procedure

Both statutes impose a two-stage notice-and-hearing sequence, and the two tracks run close to identical because lawmakers modeled the HOA provision on the condominium one.10 Take condominiums first. Under § 11-113, the board must first deliver a written demand to cease and desist — one that specifies the alleged violation, the action required to abate it, and, for a continuing violation, a period of "not less than 15 days" during which the owner may abate the violation without further sanction. If the violation continues past that period, or the owner breaks the same rule again within 12 months, the board must send a second written notice: the nature of the violation, the procedure for requesting a hearing, a period of "not less than 10 days" to request that hearing, and the proposed sanction. If the owner requests a hearing, the board must give written notice of the time and place "not less than 10 days" after the request, and at the hearing the owner gets the right to present evidence and to present and cross-examine witnesses. The board must enter proof of notice, the results, and the sanction in the meeting minutes, and the owner can appeal the decision to the courts of Maryland.7

Section 11B-111.10 sets out the identical structure for homeowners associations — the "not less than 15 days" abatement period for continuing violations, the "not less than 10 days" hearing-request window, the evidentiary hearing, the minutes requirement, and the appeal to Maryland courts.8 Both provisions apply, by their own terms, to complaints or demands "formally arising on or after October 1, 2022," unless the declaration or bylaws say otherwise. Neither statute fixes a single deadline for holding the hearing or issuing a final decision. The "not less than" language sets floors, not ceilings, and the governing documents can add further steps. Whatever each statute leaves open — the precise number of days from request to hearing beyond that 10-day floor, or a deadline for the written decision — falls to the governing documents and the board's reasonable practice.

Montgomery County adds its own forum on top of all that. Its Commission on Common Ownership Communities (CCOC) provides mediation and quasi-judicial adjudication for disputes between residents and associations registered in the county under Chapter 10B of the County Code.11 The CCOC has already decided fine disputes. In Kim v. Montrose Woods Condominium (case #28-13) — described in Commission minutes as "the first CCOC ruling to discuss the issue of fines in detail" — the hearing panel "held that the purpose of fines was to encourage compliance with the rules, and it invalidated the fines imposed in this case ... because the fines themselves were unreasonable."12 But the CCOC stays a county feature only. It can't hear disputes for communities outside Montgomery County or in non-participating municipalities, and it isn't a statewide regulator — Maryland has no statewide HOA regulator, and the state doesn't require a separate statewide license to work as a community-association manager.13 The operational takeaway is direct: a Maryland fine imposed without the required cease-and-desist demand, hearing opportunity, and minuting is procedurally defective, and it's vulnerable to reversal on appeal — whether the challenge lands in a Maryland court or, within Montgomery County, before the CCOC.

3C. Enforcement of unpaid fines: assessments, the Contract Lien Act, and foreclosure

An unpaid fine doesn't automatically become an assessment, and neither statute says fines are collectible "as" assessments — how a fine gets characterized for collection purposes depends on the governing documents. The lien route runs through the Maryland Contract Lien Act, the defining feature of Maryland enforcement, so each step matters here. Under § 14-202, a contract can create a lien only if the contract — which § 14-201(b) defines to include a covenant running with the land and, expressly, a declaration or bylaws recorded under the Maryland Condominium Act — provides for the lien and identifies the party and the property. And a lien "may only secure" damages, costs of collection, permitted late charges, and attorney's fees.14 Section 14-203 then requires the association, within two years of the breach, to serve written notice by certified mail or personal delivery stating the claim and the owner's right to a hearing. The owner gets 30 days to file a complaint in circuit court contesting the lien, where the association bears the burden of proof. Only after that window closes — or a court orders otherwise — may the association record a statement of lien, which takes priority from its recording date.5 The lien doesn't spring up on its own: the recorded declaration alone doesn't create a lien until the association follows every one of these steps.15

Whether fines can be secured differs by community type. Section 14-201(c) defines "damages" to include "fines levied under the Maryland Condominium Act," so a condominium fine falls within what a Contract Lien Act lien may secure.14 That definition never names Homeowners Association Act fines, so an HOA's ability to secure a fine by lien is less certain — it rests on the governing documents and on § 11B-117(b), which authorizes an HOA to enforce "assessments and charges" by a lien under the Contract Lien Act.16 The foreclosure question, though, gets answered the same way across both tracks, and against the association. Section 14-204(a) lets a Contract Lien Act lien foreclose like a mortgage, but § 14-204(d) provides that, notwithstanding the governing documents, a condominium or homeowners association "may foreclose on a lien against a unit owner or lot owner only if" the secured damages consist of delinquent periodic or special assessments and interest, plus reasonable filing costs and attorney's fees not exceeding the delinquent assessments, and "do not include fines imposed by the governing body."6 A lien that includes fines simply cannot be foreclosed. Fines also stay outside the four-month, $1,200 super-priority lien that jumps ahead of a first mortgage or deed of trust recorded on or after October 1, 2011, under § 11-110(f) for condominiums and § 11B-117(c) for HOAs — each provision states that the priority portion "may not include ... Fines" and "may not exceed a maximum of $1,200."17 Section 14-204(d)(3) preserves other collection routes, so an association can still sue an owner for a money judgment on unpaid fines — it just can't take the home to satisfy them.6 Suspension of voting or amenity use isn't independently granted by either statute. It's a governing-document remedy, and when a board uses it, the same § 11-113 or § 11B-111.10 notice-and-hearing procedure applies.7

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the past 24 months amended the fining, due-process, or lien provisions of the Condominium Act, the Homeowners Association Act, or the Contract Lien Act. One recent enactment touched both governing statutes at once, though, and it's worth flagging so managers don't mistake it for a fining-related change.

Status Signed
⌾ Last verified July 14, 2026
Docket

SB 758 / HB 1534 · Chapter 512 · 2025 Regular Session

Effective
Oct 1, 2025
Sunset
N/A
Real Property - Condominiums and Homeowners Associations - Elections and Related Provisions
Synopsis

Governor Wes Moore signed this bill May 13, 2025, after the Senate passed it 46-0 and the House passed it 137-0.[18] It requires that condominium and HOA elections — "including the collection and counting of ballots and certification of results" — run through independent parties who aren't candidates and carry no conflict of interest, and it states that management "is not considered an independent party for these purposes." It also requires associations to accommodate owner organizing activities, and it bars them from charging owners to examine financial statements in person or to receive them electronically.[19] None of that touches fining authority, the § 11-113 or § 11B-111.10 due-process sequence, or the Contract Lien Act, so the fining and lien framework described above stands unchanged. It's included here because it's the current-cycle amendment to the two statutes a fining question sits inside, and because a manager reviewing 2025 changes should confirm the fining process wasn't among them.

Operational impact
What this means, by role
Property managers The 2025 amendments changed election and records-fee practice, not the fining or lien steps — your existing violation-hearing procedures remain valid.
HOA board members Don't assume the 2025 law altered how to fine — the cease-and-desist, hearing, and minutes requirements are unchanged.
Community association attorneys Advise clients that Chapter 512 is election and records legislation, distinct from §§ 11-113, 11B-111.10, and the Contract Lien Act.
Homeowners Your rights on fines — notice, hearing, appeal — stay governed by the pre-existing statutes, not by the 2025 election law.

B. Recent appellate rulings

A targeted review of the Maryland Judiciary's reported-opinions database and specialist practitioner sources turned up no published opinion from the Appellate Court of Maryland or the Supreme Court of Maryland, decided in the past 36 months, that addresses association fine enforceability, the Contract Lien Act as applied to fines, association due process under § 11-113 or § 11B-111.10, or assessment-lien foreclosure. One 2026 Supreme Court of Maryland opinion does involve a community association — Council of Unit Owners of the Millrace Condominium, Inc. v. Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, P.A., 493 Md. 169 (2026) — but it turns on malicious use of process and anti-SLAPP special-injury pleading. The court held only that "the HOAs did not sufficiently plead a special injury to maintain a malicious use of process suit," and the opinion says nothing about fines, liens, or due process — don't cite it for those topics.20 The controlling authority on the Contract Lien Act mechanism itself remains an earlier case, included below for background even though it falls outside the 36-month window.

Status Final
⌾ Last verified July 14, 2026
Case

Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. v. Saddlebrook West Utility Co.

Court of Appeals of Maryland (renamed the Supreme Court of Maryland in 2022)
Decided
2017
Court
Md. Ct. App.
Synopsis

The court held that a recorded declaration authorizing an assessment doesn't itself create a lien. A lien arises only after the Contract Lien Act's notice, dispute-window, and recorded-statement-of-lien procedures run their course, and priority runs from the recording of that statement of lien.[15] That holding remains the primary-source basis for treating Maryland association liens as non-self-executing — and it governs fine-only liens the same way it governs assessment liens.

Operational impact
What this means, by role
Property managers With no new appellate rule on point, follow the statutes and Saddlebrook: no valid lien exists until the statement of lien is properly recorded.
HOA board members Don't treat a recorded declaration as a lien — the board must complete the Contract Lien Act steps before claiming one.
Community association attorneys Saddlebrook and the plain text of §§ 14-201 through 14-204 govern in the absence of a new opinion — monitor for future decisions.
Homeowners You can contest a lien within the 30-day statutory window, and a fine-only lien can't support foreclosure.

C. Active legislative debates

The 2026 session brought recurring proposals for a statewide common-ownership ombudsman and a residential owners' bill of rights — proposals that would layer state-level oversight onto a system that currently has none, since Maryland has no statewide HOA regulator. Lawmakers also passed a condominium unit-owner insurance and loss-assessment measure, with a delayed effective date.21 None of it touched the fining or lien provisions, but it signals that the legislature keeps paying attention to association governance and owner protections.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Step back, and Maryland sits among the minority of states that regulate community associations through separate statutes for condominiums and planned communities, rather than a single unified code. Its Condominium Act and Homeowners Association Act operate independently, and its assessment liens run through a standalone mechanism — the Maryland Contract Lien Act — distinct from the lien machinery built into full UCIOA states like Alaska, Connecticut, and Colorado, and from comprehensive single-statute regimes like California's.4 The defining feature of Maryland fine enforcement: the association lien isn't self-executing. It demands statutory notice, a 30-day owner dispute window in circuit court, and a recorded statement of lien before the lien exists at all. On the treatment of fines specifically, Maryland leans owner-protective. By excluding fines from both the foreclosable lien and the super-priority lien, Maryland stops an association from taking a home over unpaid fines — a sharper limit than the foreclosure exposure owners face in several UCIOA jurisdictions — while still letting the association pursue a money judgment.

HOA Weekly updates this Maryland Fining Authority coverage quarterly as the General Assembly and the Maryland appellate courts act. Federal frameworks apply here too, regardless of what Maryland's own statutes say — notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which can reach third-party collection of fines, along with the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule; a forthcoming federal-law analysis will cover each of them in depth.

  1. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11-101 et seq. (Maryland Condominium Act) ↩
  2. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-101 et seq. (Maryland Homeowners Association Act) ↩
  3. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11-109(b)(16) (council of unit owners' power to levy reasonable fines after notice and an opportunity to be heard) ↩
  4. Community Associations Institute, Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) (listing UCIOA states: Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Nevada, West Virginia, Connecticut, Delaware, Vermont, Washington; Maryland not listed) ↩
  5. Justia, Md. Code, Real Property § 14-203 (creation of lien as result of breach of contract; notice, 30-day complaint window, burden of proof, statement of lien), 2025 Maryland Statutes (cross-verified against the official General Assembly text) ↩
  6. Justia, Md. Code, Real Property § 14-204(d) (governing body may foreclose only on liens for delinquent assessments and limited costs, not fines; § 14-204(a) foreclosure manner; § 14-204(d)(3) other enforcement means preserved), 2025 Maryland Statutes ↩
  7. Justia, Md. Code, Real Property § 11-113 (Dispute Settlement Mechanism; cease-and-desist demand with not less than 15 days to abate, not less than 10 days to request hearing, evidentiary hearing, minutes, appeal to Maryland courts; applies to demands arising on/after Oct. 1, 2022) ↩
  8. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-111.10 (HOA dispute settlement mechanism; no prior fine, voting suspension, or infringement until procedure followed; parallel 15-day and 10-day periods; appeal to Maryland courts) ↩
  9. Justia, Md. Code, Real Property § 11-110(e)(2) (late charge of $15 or one-tenth of the delinquent assessment, once per delinquency, after 15 calendar days); parallel HOA limit at § 11B-113 ↩
  10. Selzer Gurvitch, "Recent Maryland Legislation Impacting Community Associations" (noting § 11B-111.10 creates the same dispute-settlement procedures for HOAs as § 11-113 for condominiums) ↩
  11. Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs, "The Commission on Common Ownership Communities" (county dispute-resolution and adjudication forum for registered common ownership communities under Chapter 10B) ↩
  12. Montgomery County CCOC, Monthly Meeting Minutes (Aug. 5, 2014), discussing Kim v. Montrose Woods Condominium, #28-13 (panel invalidated fines it found unreasonable) ↩
  13. Montgomery County CCOC, "COC/HOA Complaint Form & Instructions" (Commission cannot accept complaints for communities outside participating Montgomery County jurisdictions) ↩
  14. Justia, Md. Code, Real Property § 14-201 (definitions; "contract" includes declaration or bylaws under the Maryland Condominium Act; "damages" includes fines levied under the Maryland Condominium Act) and § 14-202 (what a lien may secure) ↩
  15. Maryland Judiciary, Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. v. Saddlebrook West Utility Co. (Md. Ct. App. 2017) (recorded declaration does not itself create a lien; Contract Lien Act procedures must be followed; priority runs from recording of statement of lien) ↩
  16. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-117(b) (HOA may enforce payment of assessments and charges by imposition of a lien in accordance with the Maryland Contract Lien Act) ↩
  17. Maryland General Assembly, Md. Code, Real Property § 11B-117(c)(3) (super-priority portion limited to four months of unpaid regular assessments, excluding interest, costs, late charges, fines, attorney's fees, and special assessments; maximum $1,200; priority over first mortgages recorded on/after Oct. 1, 2011); parallel condominium provision at § 11-110(f) ↩
  18. Maryland General Assembly, SB 758 (2025 Regular Session), Real Property - Condominiums and Homeowners Associations - Elections and Related Provisions (Chapter 512; effective October 1, 2025) ↩
  19. Lerch Early Brewer, "2025 Community Associations Maryland Legislative Update" (independent-party election requirement; management not an independent party; no fee to examine financial statements in person or receive them electronically; effective Oct. 1, 2025) ↩
  20. Maryland Judiciary, Council of Unit Owners of the Millrace Condominium, Inc. v. Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, P.A., 493 Md. 169 (2026) (malicious use of process; special-injury pleading; not a fines, lien, or due-process holding) ↩
  21. Montgomery Village Foundation, "2026 Maryland General Assembly Session update" (tracking HB 402 ombudsman/local-commissions bill, HB 537 residential owners' bill of rights, and SB 747/HB 469 condominium insurance measure) ↩
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