Foreclosure in Maryland

How a Maryland foreclosure works, step by step

1. Generally, the legal foreclosure process can't start until you're at least 120 days behind.
2. At least 45 days before it files a foreclosure case, the lender must send you a written notice of intent to foreclose, by certified mail and by first-class mail. The notice must state the amount it takes to cure the default and reinstate the loan, including past-due payments, penalties and fees. If you live in the home, it must come with a loss mitigation application.
3. The case can't be filed until the later of 90 days after the default or 45 days after the notice was sent. For loans covered by federal law, which most loans are, the wait is 120 days after the first missed payment.
4. The case, called an order to docket or complaint to foreclose, is filed in the circuit court for your county, and the lender must serve you with the papers. The papers include either a preliminary or a final loss mitigation affidavit.
5. If you own and live in the home, you have 25 days after you get, or are mailed, the final loss mitigation affidavit to ask for foreclosure mediation. The Office of Administrative Hearings must hold the mediation within 60 days after the court sends it the request.
6. With no mediation, the sale can happen as soon as 45 days after you're served the final affidavit, or 30 days after it's mailed to you. If mediation ends without an agreement, the sale can happen as soon as 15 days after the session. Notice of the sale runs in a local newspaper once a week for 3 weeks in a row, and you must get notice of the sale at least 10 days before it.
7. The home is sold at a public auction, which usually takes place outside the courthouse, not at your home. The substitute trustee, usually the law firm representing the lender, handles the sale.
8. You have 30 days from the date of the notice of the report of sale to file exceptions, which are mostly limited to problems with how the home was sold. If none are filed, or they're overruled, the court ratifies the sale. The title can't pass to the buyer until it does.
9. You don't have to move until the court awards possession of the home to the new owner. You can be evicted as soon as 15 days after the sale is ratified.

Foreclosure mediation: one chance to sit down with your lender

Maryland's mediation program gives you a meeting with your lender and an administrative law judge, who helps both sides look for an alternative to foreclosure. It's only for homes the owners live in, and it's the only time you'll be offered the chance to ask for it.

• You file the request with the circuit court and pay a $50 fee, which a judge may waive or reduce if you can't afford it.
• You can bring a housing counselor and have a lawyer. The lender's representative must have authority to settle, or be able to reach someone who does right away.
• If you don't show up, the case goes back to the court and the sale goes ahead. If the lender doesn't show up, the court may dismiss the foreclosure.
• Afterward, you can ask the court to stay the sale and dismiss the case, but you must file within 15 days after the mediation, or after the report saying none was held.

Some lenders offer mediation before the case is even filed. If yours does and you want it, send in the application within 25 days after the notice of intent is mailed. If you take that earlier mediation, you generally lose the right to mediation after the filing, unless your agreement says otherwise.

The state housing department warns that if you miss the 25-day window, you won't get another chance at mediation. A free housing counselor can help you get the request in on time.

Catching up or fighting back before the sale

Maryland law gives you the right to cure the default and reinstate the loan by paying all past-due payments, penalties and fees, up to 1 business day before the sale. If you ask, the lender must tell you within a reasonable time how much it takes and how to pay it.

You can also defend the case if you can prove to the court that you didn't default, or that the lender didn't follow the procedures the law requires.

Federal rules also help: if your servicer gets a complete application for help more than 37 days before a sale, it must act on it within 30 days.

The trustee's sale and the court's approval

A Maryland mortgage or deed of trust can allow the home to be sold if you default. If you don't pay what's due or defend the case, the lender may sell your home at public auction 45 days after you were served. The sale is handled by the substitute trustee, usually the lender's law firm.

The time, place and terms of the sale must be published in a newspaper in your county once a week for 3 weeks in a row. After the sale, the court has to ratify it before the buyer gets the title.

If something went wrong with how your home was sold, talk to a lawyer quickly. The window for exceptions is short.

How long it takes

Foreclosure generally can't legally start until you're at least 120 days behind. Once it starts, how long you have until the sale depends on your state.

For FHA loans, HUD's time frame runs from the first legal action until the lender has clear title to the home and possession of it. In Maryland, that's 18 months for both mortgages and deeds of trust. For a mortgage, the first legal action is a court complaint; for a deed of trust, it's filing an order to docket.

Maryland's own clock starts with the notice of intent: the case can't be filed until at least 45 days after it's sent. Mediation, if you ask for it, must be held within 60 days after the court sends the request. Without mediation, the sale can't come until 45 days after you're served the final loss mitigation affidavit, or 30 days after it's mailed.

These are official markers, not a forecast. Your case can move faster or slower, so don't count on extra time.

If the sale brings in too little or too much

After the sale, the lender or another proper party can ask the court for a deficiency judgment against you, but must do it within three years after the court's final ratification of the auditor's report.

Maryland law treats any surplus left from the sale, as shown in the court auditor's account, as money due to you. If you sign that surplus over to a buyer, you can cancel the deal within 10 days after the auditor states the account. Those contracts must warn you that the deal won't end the foreclosure or get your house back.

Once the court finally ratifies the sale and the buyer pays, the sale passes all of your title in the home to the buyer.

Selling, renting back or getting offers: Maryland's rules

Maryland's main law here is the Protection of Homeowners in Foreclosure Act. Its rules on selling cover a home you live in once the mortgage is at least 60 days in default.

Foreclosure consultants

Under the act, a foreclosure consultant includes anyone who systematically contacts owners in default to offer foreclosure help, who offers to buy your home, or an option on it, within 20 days of an advertised or docketed sale, or who offers to arrange for you to rent and stay in your home after a sale.

• You can cancel a contract with a foreclosure consultant at any time.
• A consultant can't take any payment until every promised service is fully done.
• A consultant can't take an interest in your home if you've signed a contract with them.
• A consultant can't be part of a foreclosure rescue transaction: a deal where you sign the home over but keep an interest, such as a lease-purchase or an option to buy it back, and the deal is meant to prevent or delay foreclosure.

Selling a home that's in default

• You can cancel a contract to sell or transfer the home within 5 days after you sign it, and no deed can be recorded during those 5 days.
• The sale can't be done with a quitclaim deed, unless your main lender is taking a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
• The buyer can't claim to be your advisor or consultant, or say they're helping you "save the house."
• If the deal lets you stay on as a tenant, the buyer must give you a signed "Statement About Tenancy" when you sign, which says you'll have no right to buy the home back.
• You can sue for damages under the act, and the court may triple them if the violation was willful or knowing. Breaking the act is also a crime, with up to 3 years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both.

Wholesalers, installment contracts and scams

• Since October 1, 2025, a buyer who signs a contract on your home planning to assign it to someone else for a fee must tell you in writing before you sign. If they don't, and they assign it, you can cancel without penalty any time before closing.
• Maryland's land installment contract law covers a home the buyer will live in and pay for in five or more payments while the seller keeps title. The seller must record the contract within 15 days after both sides sign.
• The Attorney General warns about mortgage reconveyances, where someone offers to buy your home, rent it back to you, and let you buy it back later. It also says to be wary of anyone who asks you to transfer your deed or title to them.

Most of these touch how I buy. The rules on selling a home in default touch all five of my ways if your loan is behind when you sign. The tenancy and buy-back rules touch a lease option, the consultant rules can touch a novation, where I arrange the sale, and the assignment rule touches any contract passed to another buyer. And don't stop talking to your lender while you weigh any offer, including mine.

Free help in Maryland

• Maryland DHCD: foreclosure prevention. The state points you to HUD-approved housing counselors who give free, objective guidance.
• Maryland Courts: housing cases and foreclosure. The courts' own plain guide to foreclosure and mediation.
• Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings: foreclosure mediation. How the state runs foreclosure mediation.
• Maryland Office of Financial Regulation: the foreclosure process. Your servicer must send this office a copy of your notice of intent to foreclose.
• Maryland Attorney General: foreclosure scams. The Consumer Protection Division takes complaints about mortgage reconveyance scams.
• CFPB: find a housing counselor. Search HUD-approved counseling agencies in Maryland.