Why the grandfather argument is weaker in Maryland than owners assume

The intuition that a rule adopted after you started cannot reach you is strong, and it is not how covenant amendment generally works.

A Maryland declaration is a contract running with the land, and an owner takes title subject to it — including subject to the amendment mechanism it contains. Where that mechanism is validly exercised, the amended covenant binds every lot, because the whole structure depends on covenants applying uniformly rather than lot by lot. That is the thrust of Walton v. Jaskiewicz, and it is the reason a use-by-use exemption is difficult to sustain.

§ 11B-116's “notwithstanding the provisions of a governing document” language cuts in the same direction: the legislature contemplated amendment power operating over what the documents say, not subordinate to it.

An owner is not without arguments. A defect in the amendment process, a failure to meet the required supermajority, selective or non-uniform enforcement, or a vested property right of a kind Maryland recognises could each matter on different facts. What the decision indicates is that “I was already doing it” is not, by itself, one of them.

This publication does not predict outcomes in individual disputes, and an unreported decision cannot settle the question. But there is no reported Maryland authority pointing the other way.

Short-term rentals: what Maryland law actually says

Two layers, and 2026 left both where they were.

The association layer. Governing documents control, and they may be amended. Notably, Maryland's 2025 accessory-dwelling-unit act — which bars associations from unreasonably limiting ADUs and requires every county and municipality to permit them on single-family lots by 1 October 2026 — expressly does not limit short-term-rental restrictions. So an owner may gain a protected right to build an ADU and still be barred by the declaration from letting it nightly.

The local layer. Counties and municipalities regulate short-term rentals directly, and the 2026 session's attempt to constrain them failed. HB 993 would have prohibited a county or municipality from barring a short-term rental solely because the operator is a lessee or sublessee, while allowing a local cap of one such rental per operator. It passed the House 102–31, was reported favourably by Senate Judicial Proceedings on 13 April 2026 — sine die day — passed second reading the same day, and never reached third reading. Its cross-file, SB 666, was reported favourably and never reached second reading.²

One scope point worth stating plainly, because it is widely misread: HB 993 regulated local governments, not governing documents. Had it passed, it would not have overridden a single condominium or HOA rental restriction.

Where the pressure is

Queen Anne's County is Eastern Shore, and that is not incidental. Maryland's short-term-rental disputes concentrate where the housing stock is seasonal, and that is the same stretch of the state where the condominium market is under other pressures at once.

In July 2026 Worcester County homes took a median 51 days to sell against 39 a year earlier, with 4.7 months of inventory — against statewide figures of 14 days and 3.0 months. Neighbouring Somerset ran 87 days against 43, and Dorchester 64 against 33.³ Those are all-property-type figures, not condominium-only, but the direction is unambiguous: the Shore is where Maryland's market is loosening.

A rental ban adopted in a community where owners have been counting on rental income is therefore being adopted into a softening market, which is precisely the condition that turns a governance vote into litigation.

What to watch next

Whether a reported decision arrives. The amendment-power question has now been answered once, in an opinion that cannot be cited as precedent. The next Maryland association to litigate it starts almost from scratch, and a reported ruling would be worth more to boards and owners than anything the 2027 session is likely to pass.

Whether HB 993 returns. It got closer than any Maryland short-term-rental bill has, on its second filing — the 2025 version, HB 705, died after a committee hearing. Pre-file drafting requests are due 20 November 2026 for a session convening 13 January 2027.