Maryland Tenants' Bill of Rights (2025): The Landlord Compliance Checklist

Maryland became the twelfth state — and the first in the mid-Atlantic — to enact a statewide Tenants' Bill of Rights when the General Assembly passed House Bill 693 in 2024. The new law took effect October 1, 2025, and landlords across the state are now operating under requirements most of them haven't fully internalized.

The Tenants' Bill of Rights is the single biggest shift in Maryland landlord-tenant law since the 14-to-10-day notice amendment. Compliance isn't optional — it's a pre-filing defense tenants can raise.

This is the operational checklist. What's in the law, what you have to do differently, the dollar amounts that changed, and the new pre-filing compliance steps that are already getting cases dismissed in Baltimore and Montgomery county dockets.

What Is the Tenants' Bill of Rights?

The formal title is the Maryland Tenants' Bill of Rights, authorized by House Bill 693 (2024) — Renters' Rights and Stabilization Act and codified as amendments to Title 8 of the Real Property Article of the Maryland Code. It is administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

The law has two halves:

1. A standardized disclosure document — a 2-page DHCD-published statement of tenant rights that must be attached to every new or renewing lease.
2. New substantive protections — statutory requirements that override lease terms to the contrary. These are the ones that change what landlords can charge and how they can manage their properties.

The Five Substantive Changes That Matter Most

1. 5% Late Fee Cap

Maryland caps late fees at 5% of the overdue monthly rent.

• Monthly rent $1,200 → max late fee $60
• Monthly rent $1,500 → max late fee $75
• Monthly rent $2,000 → max late fee $100

Leases that specify higher late fees — "$50 flat plus $10/day" or "$100 after the 5th" — are unenforceable to the extent they exceed 5%. The court will void the excess portion but keep the 5% portion.

2. 90-Day Rent Increase Notice

Before a TBOR, rent increase notice requirements varied by locality — 60 days in Montgomery County, 60 days in Baltimore City for most cases, often shorter elsewhere. The Bill of Rights standardizes at 90 days written notice statewide for:

• Rent increases at lease renewal
• Rent increases on month-to-month leases
• Any material change to lease terms that affects rent

The notice must be in writing, delivered via the same methods accepted for statutory notices (personal, posting, or certified mail).

3. 24-Hour Entry Notice

Landlords must provide at least 24 hours' written notice before entering a rental unit, except for emergencies. The notice must include:

• The date of entry
• The approximate time (a reasonable window, not "sometime Tuesday")
• The purpose (inspection, repair, showing, etc.)

Emergencies are exempt — fire, flood, burst pipe, gas leak, criminal activity in progress. Everything else is subject to the notice rule, including:

• Routine quarterly inspections
• Scheduled maintenance or repairs
• Prospective tenant showings during lease termination
• Appraiser visits for refinance or sale
• HVAC service, pest control, or landscaping if it requires unit entry

4. Mandatory Written Lease for 5+ Unit Landlords

If you own five or more dwelling units statewide, you must use a written lease for every tenancy. Oral or month-to-month-handshake arrangements are no longer permitted at that scale.

Landlords with 1-4 units are exempt from the written-lease requirement — but strongly encouraged to use one anyway, because most other TBOR protections are easier to establish and enforce when they're documented in writing.

5. Standard Disclosure Attached to Every Lease

Every new or renewing lease must include, as an attachment or appendix, the DHCD-published standard Tenants' Bill of Rights statement. The tenant must sign an acknowledgment of receipt.

What This Means for Eviction Cases

The TBOR creates new pre-filing defenses that tenants can raise at a Failure to Pay Rent hearing. If any of these are missing or defective, the judge may dismiss:

• No TBOR attached to lease: Defense that the tenancy itself is not in compliance. Some judges have dismissed on this ground alone.
• Late fee above 5% claimed: The judgment will be reduced to the rent + 5% late fee cap. If the reduction takes the amount below what the tenant paid, the case is dismissed.
• Rent increase without 90-day notice: If the arrears include an increase served on less than 90 days, that portion is stripped. If the stripped arrears drop below the amount the tenant paid, case dismissed.
• Entry-notice violation in last 90 days: Can support tenant counterclaim or offset against rent owed.

The Pre-Filing Compliance Checklist

Run this before every new FTPR filing on a lease signed or renewed after October 1, 2025:

• Tenants' Bill of Rights attached to the lease at signing
• Tenant signed acknowledgment of receipt
• Late fee in lease is ≤ 5% of monthly rent
• Late fee on the 10-day notice is ≤ 5% of monthly rent
• If rent was increased during the tenancy, 90-day written notice was served for each increase
• Any lease modification that affected rent was served with adequate notice
• No entry-notice violations in the past 90 days
• All 10-day notice elements present (per state statute)
• Baltimore City: rental registration current at filing
• Baltimore City: lead paint certificate current at filing
• Complaint amount matches notice amount (net of any partial payments)

Early Enforcement Patterns in Baltimore and Montgomery

Six months in, the enforcement patterns are starting to show:

Baltimore City District Court

Judges have been most aggressive on the late-fee cap — any claim that includes a late fee over 5% gets reduced from the bench, with a bias toward dismissal rather than reduction if the over-claimed amount is material to the overall arrears calculation.

Missing TBOR attachments are increasingly being raised by the tenant bar (including Access to Counsel program attorneys), with dismissal outcomes on roughly half of cases where it's raised.

Montgomery County District Court

Montgomery judges have focused more on the 90-day rent increase notice requirement. A meaningful share of dismissals trace back to landlords who served 60-day rent-increase notices under the old pre-TBOR standard and then tried to collect the increased rent.

Rest of Maryland

Smaller jurisdictions are applying the rules but with less consistency. Landlords in Anne Arundel, Howard, and Prince George's counties have reported mixed outcomes — judges are still calibrating.

What to Update in Your Lease Package

If you haven't refreshed your lease template since mid-2025, take an hour and do these updates:

1. Add the TBOR disclosure as an exhibit. Download the current version from the DHCD Tenants' Bill of Rights page.
2. Change any late-fee clause to "5% of monthly rent." Remove flat dollar amounts or daily-accruing structures.
3. Add the 24-hour entry language. A 2-sentence clause suffices — many landlord associations publish model language.
4. Update renewal procedures to use 90-day notice. Calendar tool, reminder, or property management software — whatever works.
5. Add a written-lease requirement if you're at or above 5 units.
6. Add signature blocks for the TBOR acknowledgment.

What the Tenants' Bill of Rights Does NOT Change

Worth noting what did not change:

• 10-day notice for FTPR remains 10 days (not re-lengthened)
• DC-CV-082 and DC-CV-081 process unchanged
• Right of Redemption / No Right of Redemption rules unchanged
• Baltimore City rental registration requirement unchanged (it's a local law, separate from TBOR)
• Lead paint certificate requirement unchanged (state law, separate)
• Security deposit cap still 2 months' rent
• FTPR hearing procedure unchanged — same docket, same judge rules

The core eviction process still looks like it did before October 2025. The changes are on the pre-filing side: lease structure, compliance steps, and disclosure.

Federal and State Law Interaction

Maryland tenants also retain rights under federal law — Fair Housing Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Violence Against Women Act certifications, and so on. TBOR is additive, not replacing. A tenant can raise a federal defense and a TBOR defense in the same hearing.

Landlords navigating both should consider legal counsel or a structured platform service rather than going it alone, especially for Section 8 tenancies or cases involving protected-class allegations.

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Related reading:

• How to Evict a Tenant in Maryland — The Complete 2026 Guide
• Maryland's 10-Day Notice Requirement: What Landlords Need to Know in 2026
• What Does a Baltimore Eviction Actually Cost in 2026?

Ready to refresh your compliance stack? Start with a Notice of Intent generator that already bakes in the 5% late-fee cap and every other post-TBOR requirement: