Maryland High Court: Centuries-Old 'Self-Help' Remedy OK When Booting Holdover Homeowners Post-Foreclosure Sale, But Handle Occupants' Personal Property With Care

An opinion summary from a recent Maryland Court of Appeals decision reported at Justia US Law:

• At issue in this case was whether Respondents, a property management company, law firm, and mortgage servicer, committed an impermissible forcible entry when they enforced, through lock-out, the foreclosure purchaser's lawful possessory interest in a dwelling by the means of the common law remedy of self-help,(1) as opposed to receiving first the issuance of a statutory writ of possession from the circuit court.
  
  The circuit court granted Respondents' motions to dismiss, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed.
  
  The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the common law right of peaceable self-help permits a foreclosure purchaser to surreptitiously enter a residential property and change the locks while the resident is out; and (2) the court of special appeals erred in dismissing Plaintiff's conversion claim and in holding that Plaintiff had abandoned all personal property in the residence, as there was no adequate basis from which to conclude that Plaintiff abandoned his personalty or that Respondents acted reasonably in disposing of his belongings.

Source: Opinion Summary: Nickens v. Mt. Vernon Realty.

For the ruling, see Nickens v. Mt. Vernon Realty Group, LLC, No. 7, Sept. Term (October 19, 2012).

Thanks to Deontos for the heads-up on the ruling.

(1) Buried in footnote 2 of the ruling, the Maryland high court comments on the common law remedy of self-help when carrying out a post-foreclosure boot which, apparently (at least in Maryland), is still a viable method to obtain actual possession from any occupants in foreclosed-upon property (provided, of course, those occupants do not otherwise have a legal right to reside there):

• Originating in fourteenth-century England, peaceable self-help is a common law remedy that provides title owners with the right to repossess their real property from a possessor who has no legal right to reside on that property. See, e.g., Laney v. State, 379 Md. 522, 543, 842 A.2d 773, 785 (2004) ("The right of peaceable self-help, therefore, is a viable mechanism for a title owner of property to obtain actual possession of real property from a holdover mortgagor."); see also 1 Julian J. Alexander, British Statutes in Force in Maryland 247 (Ward Baldwin Coe ed., 2d ed. 1912) (explaining the common law background of the causes of action that gave rise to the self-help remedy).