{"id":157,"date":"2021-05-25T19:25:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T19:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/?p=157"},"modified":"2023-11-27T21:10:34","modified_gmt":"2023-11-27T21:10:34","slug":"damages-awarded-tenant-when-landlord-threatens-to-engage-in-illegal-self-help-eviction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/2021\/05\/25\/damages-awarded-tenant-when-landlord-threatens-to-engage-in-illegal-self-help-eviction\/","title":{"rendered":"Damages awarded tenant when landlord threatens to engage in illegal self-help eviction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Maryland Supreme Court held that residential tenants can sue for damages if the landlord posts a notice telling them that they are being evicted. This constitutes a form of &#8220;nonjudicial self-help eviction&#8221; prohibited by state law, which requires landlords to use court eviction procedures to recover possession of the premises. State law would have allowed self-help eviction only if the landlord had a reasonable belief based on a reasonable inquiry that the tenants had abandoned the premises, something that did not happen in this case.\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mdcourts.gov\/data\/opinions\/coa\/2021\/27a20.pdf\" class=\"mtli_attachment mtli_pdf\">Wheeling v. Selene Finance LP,<\/a><\/strong>2021 WL 1712318 (Md. 2021). The court found that a threat to use self-help eviction violated the statute and that this allowed a suit for damages under the state statute prohibiting self-help eviction, Md. Real Prop. art. \u00a77-113, and a suit for emotional damages under the Maryland Consumer Protection Act, Md. Commercial Law art. \u00a713-101\u00a0<em>et seq.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"taxonomy-category wp-block-post-terms\"><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/consumer-protection\/\" rel=\"tag\">Consumer Protection<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/leaseholds\/\" rel=\"tag\">Leaseholds<\/a><span class=\"wp-block-post-terms__separator\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/category\/real-estate-transactions\/\" rel=\"tag\">Real Estate Transactions<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Maryland Supreme Court held that residential tenants can sue for damages if the landlord posts a notice telling them that they are being evicted. This constitutes a form of &#8220;nonjudicial self-help eviction&#8221; prohibited by state law, which requires landlords to use court eviction procedures to recover possession of the premises. State law would have allowed self-help eviction only if the landlord had a reasonable belief based on a reasonable inquiry that the tenants had abandoned the premises, something that did not happen in this case.\u00a0Wheeling v. Selene Finance LP,2021 WL 1712318 (Md. 2021). The court found that a threat to use self-help eviction violated the statute and that this allowed a suit for damages under the state statute prohibiting self-help eviction, Md. Real Prop. art. \u00a77-113, and a suit for emotional damages under the Maryland Consumer Protection Act, Md. Commercial Law art. \u00a713-101\u00a0et seq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,33,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consumer-protection","category-leaseholds","category-real-estate-transactions"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"jsinger","author_link":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/author\/jsinger\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.law.harvard.edu\/joseph-singer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}