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but cast is now starting all attendees are in listen-only mode I want to thank everyone for joining us my name is amy hanen I'm managing attorney for housing and consumer law here at the Maryland volunteer lawyer service we have got a fun and exciting panel today talking about changes in Maryland law and just recently gone into effect if you first know some minor housekeeping don't already follow us please go ahead and do so any mo just if you wouldn't mind meeting yourself until we get to your point I think there's a little background noise the next thing I'd like to mention is that if you are not already a volunteer with M BLS it's really easy to sign up to do it website you're gonna go to the drop down menu from common experi and you're going to click on apply to be a lawyer if you want to access this presentation later you can go to attorney resources up there and probably a few days maybe a week and then finally if you are interested in case from us it's really easy as well we have our pro bono portal you will go to that same drop down volunteer menu you'll click on the pro bono portal and it'll take you to something that looks like this where it has all of the cases that we have currently available and broken up by both subject matter up at the top here you can also select by county and it's fun and easy ah the one other thing here is that we have some I think fun trainings coming up we have a couple of really wonderful trainings that are being put on by Diane Giacalone November 1st and November 29th and we also have a good eye our s webinar on November 8th and so the the way that things are going to happen today is that we're going to have a sort of each section and family law attorney mo disobey is talk about some important updates in the Family Law arena my motus is a salt practitioner and he said a family law firm in Prince George's County and he is a fabulous human and so and the way through I'm sorry the way we're going to do this is that it will be questions at the end of each topic if there are any questions that come up we're going to try to do this pretty quick there's a lot to cover there's a lot that just went into effect and so with that mo just I'll let you take it away okay hello everybody can can everybody hear me hear you okay okay um general practitioner focusing the family law based and do we know so I'm helping out today with the family law legislative update I'm going to cover changes to the family law or the goalie that took effect October 1st 2018 I'm going to also cover some changes to the protective order statute that took effect and as well as extreme risk protective orders which are in the public safety article I changed the standby guardian law which is in the state's interests article in a couple of rules changes so to start off with Maryland code family law article 7 103 8 divorce on grounds of a mutual consent and parties with minor children there's a Senate bill 120 and what it means you can now get a mutual consent divorce even if there are minor children involved as long as you have a an agreement providing for the care custody access and support of the children and if there is a an agreement regarding child support you have to complete and attach a child support guidelines worksheet to the settlement agreement so that's number one next we go to another change 103 8 that is that 7 103 8 you no longer need both studies to appear as naturally divorce hearing for a divorce on the grounds of mutual consent so only one of the parties needs to appear now it doesn't say which party needs to appear but I believe that the party that needs to appear is the one that is proceeding on the pleading number 2 next we have grounds for divorce 12-month separation oil amendment 2 application for divorce this is again a little article 7 103 this is really in our a provision that I believe helps pro se let against mostly what it means what it allows is for somebody who has filed for divorce but did not include the 12-month separation grounds to orally amend that at the hearing on the merits in open court as long as the other party consents ok yes we have the rape survivor family Protection Act family articles 5-1 401 through 5 - 1 4 or 5 this has gotten quite a bit of press and it basically authorizes a court under certain circumstances to terminate the parental rights of an individual who committed an act of non-consensual non-consensual sexual conduct against the other parent that resulted in the conception of the child so there's there are all kinds of conditions and exceptions to that which you can which you can read in 5-1 402 so I'll leave it at that but essentially what it is doing is it is trying to address the problem of basically a rapist parent having visit or trying to enforce visitation rights against a code the custodial parent who was the victim of that rape that's really the what it's trying to address that situation next we have a protective order changes to the perfect protective order statute sam'l article 4 506 House bill 1 303 Senate bill 4 9 1 expanded the circumstances under which the court can issue a actually is required to issue a permanent protective order to include a situation when the respondent to commits an act of abuse against the person eligible for early release during the term of the interim temporary or final correct order and that act is so bad that the individual is convicted and sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of at least five years for that act and has served at least 12 months of the sentence and the victim has to actually request the issuance of the permanent protective order so under those limited circumstances we have another that's another way that a person can get a permanent protective order furthermore another change to the protective order statute samuel article 4 501 Senate bill 121 it adds to the definition of abuse revenge porn as defined in criminal law article 3 809 so based on involvement in the family law legislative committee I my understanding is that the peace order statue had the revenge porn as one of the acts of abuse but the protective order statute did not so this bill adds revenge porn to the list of acts of abuse in the protective order statute next we go to the public safety article five six oh one extreme risk protective orders this is a pretty detailed statute which I went to a presentation on recently and I have materials from that presentation and so if you want more details I can give you provide those materials to you but what this is about is allowing people so the petitioner could be a spouse of the respondent cohabitant of the responded respondent the person related by blood marriage adoption an individual who has a child in common dating or intimate partner currently former legal guardian and it could also be a position psychologist clinical social worker there's a list of other professionals there and basically what it is what it is allowing people to do is to petition the court the district court specifically that that person's firearms and ammunition be removed from them the petition has to allege facts that the respondent poses an immediate and present danger of causing personal injury to the respondent the petitioner or another person by possessing a firearm it has to describe the behavior and statements of the respondent and provide any other information that led the petitioner to believe and respond immediate present dangerous cause and personal injury to the respondent or others so what what but it's a clear and convincing standard it's similar in some ways to the existing protective order statutes there's an interim temporary and final stage at the final stage there needs to be a the standard is clear and convincing evidence and assuming the burden is met the the firearms and ammunition of the respondent will be taken away for a period not to exceed one year and there can be an extension of that upon motion for six more months but after after that period is over whatever the period ends up being the respondent gets back the firearms so I will leave it at that on the extremely that is why next we have the new standby guardianship law I meant I should say it changed for the existing standby guardianship law states and Trust article 13 - 901 13 - 904 and 13 - 907 and what this change does it was Senate bill 12:39 it was passed as an emergency bill and became effective as soon as the governor signed it I think that was May 15th 2018 and you know it was basically in response to some of the changes in the federal the way the federal government enforces immigration laws and what it does is it expands the span by guardianship law to allow parents who are at risk to lose their ability to parent their children due to an adverse immigration action to establish a private designation of someone they trust to take care of their children as a standby guardian so the prior laws if you guys were familiar with it did not have that did not have the did not allow someone at risk of an adverse immigration action or subject to an adverse integration action to do that so that's the new addition and it allows parents without any court filing to designate someone they trust care for their children and in that that picks effect immediately and it would be given the same legal status as other guardianship by schools healthcare providers child welfare agencies social services agencies it will goes into a sex with period 180 days and then the standby guardian can petition in court to extend that further now there's an article I'm the editor of the Maryland family law advocate there's actually an article really good article about this in the recent the Fall issue by kam Crockett and Susan Silber so I'm happy to share that want more more details about that now a couple of rules very quickly Maryland rule one three two one these rules are all effective July 1st 2018 by the way so Maryland rule one three two one is about this is a to me of a welcome rule because courts were inconsistent in how they dealt with this issue it says if you're filing a motion to modify more than 30 days after the entry the judgment order then you must follow the rules for service of an original pleading so summons and personal service that's a welcome clarification for all all civil actions next Maryland rule nine to one one restoration of former name after judgment vessel divorce it basically has a up to 18 months after a divorce is entered the party can ask for restoration of premarital name by filing a motion in the affidavit for those clients of ours who aren't really sure about the name change they've got a little bit of lead time there and finally Maryland rules to 801 through to 805 are about remote electronic participation in judicial proceedings they provide it provides that non and non evidentiary hearings for example status conferences schedule encounters can be conducted electronically basically that means telephone videophone or any other means of the court deems appropriate that they can be conducted that way and in some circumstances you know evidentiary hearings can also be conducted electron there there's a lot of conditions on that you know it basically has to be that the other person will be prejudiced if they weren't allowed to to do it electronically so you can you can read those rules but that provides a little bit more clarification and guidance on on how courts will will deal with those requests for electronic participation so I made it de novo might be in here how is that Maxine actually we're doing pretty good on times okay so thank you for that does anyone have any questions at all about anything that was just brought up otherwise when we perhaps mogees perhaps you could share your email how people might be able to contact you if they want to be able to get the materials that you mentioned yeah sure um so my email is on em a de de so that's my the first letter of my first name M and then my last name at navigate law firm gone so M a de de at navigate long comm um or you can call me at two four zero two zero three eight zero two three great thank you so much for that we did get a question about asking if there was a PowerPoint presentation there is a PowerPoint to presentation but the many of the many of the items that that mo is just discussed are not included in it however the the full webinar will be available from our website you can read listen to it at the future will look it and we'll get that uploaded probably within about a week and then so with that focus I'm going to ask you to mute your phone so that okay you don't have any batteries but thank you so much for all of that that was really wonderful and now I'm gonna turn things over to Chris Sweeney who is our who's a staff attorney here at Maryland Bollinger lawyer service and he is going to talk about a bunch of fun changes in the expungement law that just went into effect hi everybody hope you're doing well like Amy said I'm just gonna go over really just two updates to the expungement statute that just went into effect at the beginning of this month there's one pretty substantive change to the types of cases that can be expunged and then there's one minor clarification that went into the old expungement statute so Senate bill 101 was an amendment to the changes that went into effect last year which deal with expunging convictions so that bill affected Criminal Procedure article 10 - 110 and the new changes are found in 10 - 110 a - and they have added certain felony convictions to the cases that are potentially eligible for expungement those would be felony theft which is defined as being of a certain amount I believe $1,000 and CDs possession with intent to distribute which I'll note if you look at this law that criminalizes that Act there's also the criminalization of the manufacturing and distribution itself so you have to be careful if you're looking at a case to make sure that if you're looking to expunge a case you want to make sure that the charge itself is possession of drugs with intent with the intended you and not the actual act of distributing them and then first second and third degree burglary convictions also become potentially eligible for expungement a caveat I'll include with that one is that fourth degree burglary is currently not eligible for expungement if it's a conviction that appears to be an oversight in making these amendments and I'm hearing from some people involved with expungement that is going to go in next year but as it stands first second and third are the convictions that are eligible now and then if someone's convicted of an attempt conspiracy or solicitation of any of those items then that would also fall under this eligibility and I continue to say potentially eligible for expungement because these cases also have applied to them the 15-year waiting period and that waiting period begins running when your sentence or probation ends so if you it's not a date of the conviction itself it would be the date that the sentence and the person got out of jail or the probation or supervision ended and then that person in order to expunge that type of case you also still cannot have any subsequent convictions within the waiting period itself and now that waiting period would be from the date of the conviction the subsequent conviction means in this context it really means a conviction that itself would not be eligible for expungement so if there is a subsequent conviction and it's another second-degree burglary or something then that wouldn't necessarily block the earlier one but you would have to wait until the waiting period is up for the most recent conviction and then there's a minor change to Criminal Procedure 10 - 105 which was put in by House bill 382 all that does really is make a clarification to the language of what types of civil offenses are potentially expungeable there is no change to the criteria for what is and is not expungeable but the law previously stated that a civil offense that was charged as a substitute for criminal offense is one of the types of cases that's potentially expungeable it now just says civil offense so theoretically any civil offense that happens to fall into the criteria in 10 - 105 which is the same remains the same as it has been for he last several years more or less is expungeable and that I think practically has more to do with the way that marijuana possession is being charged since it's been decriminalized and that's just really putting some clarity around that so those are the changes to expungement law that just went into effect and I'm happy to take any questions to clarify anything and I just went over if you have any questions you can type them in the chat box we're happy to answer anything all right well certainly something comes up you can let us know I think with that we're going to switch over to Ellen wheedle who is a staff attorney also here at MPLS she does help me in consumer law and she is going to talk about estates and tech sale and the fun things that are happening in that arena thanks Amy hey everyone I'm Ellen I and they me said I'm a staff attorney here and some of this legislation it's only a few things but this this bill that's up on the screen right now HB five five six and the cross file is SP four six picks this is a bill that really was targeted to assist homeowners low-income homeowners who are facing tax sale so what the bill what the bill does is it makes changes to estates and trusts to - 206 a and just clarify it that says that the Register of Wills may waive the estate is born a state if and these conditions are met met so okay it's a wall on one paragraph there as well I'll kind of break it down so they can they may waive the fees if the real property is being transferred to an heir that is actually a blood relative so it would have to be you know a sonya daughter parent someone like that so it has to be an heir who is who's a relative basically in the actual language in the statute clarifies that or the property is going into tax sale so if there is a property and this is this is something that our our organization and our tax sale volunteers run into a lot where a property is has a deceased owner on the record on record on the deed and the family has been living in the property perhaps for years or decades without ever changing ownership of the property and when something happens to the family the breadwinner dies someone gets hurt and laid off and they are having trouble paying the property taxes and the property ends up going to the county's tax sale and that creates a lot of problems for the family and the family are still living there because the the things that will most likely help them get out of tax sale they can't access because they're not on the title to the property so the idea behind this these things that kind of requirements was so that we can target helping those folks kind of get out of that issue before it becomes a big enough problem that they lose the home so if the real properties transfer being transferred to a family member air or the property is intact sale and the estate is unable to pay the fee by reason of poverty so this was something that went back and forth a lot between advocates and the Register of Wills and some of the delegates and Senators figuring out how to create that fresh hold of poverty so what was settled on was that that poverty is defined in the statute as being the family household income is less than 50% of the Maryland median income for that size and then the way that you're measuring that is the household income on the decedent's date of death though the decedent's household income I have a date on the date of death was less than 50% of Maryland median income or the person is represented by an organization funded by of Maryland Legal Services Corporation so that's going to include so that's going to include someone represented by an MPLS volunteer someone represented by legal aid and there are also a number of other mlst organizations that represent low income homeowners and families throughout the state so it can be either or either 50% of the median income or the person is represented by an MLS the organization when and and in fact that's actually the same what generally one in the same of those are the mlst guidelines in or or our programs and the other thing I want to mention before I move on from this is that MDL s is going to be doing some new estate administration clinics in Baltimore City in 2019 so if that's something that you're interested in definitely keep I will keep you posted but you can also look at our website and we'll have those posted once they are once their fine lines but this the estate administration clinics are really also going to be targeted towards helping people in these types of situations to resolve those issues and resolve other hurdles that kind of keep them from being able to get the things they need to get to keep her home okay moving on next one is specifically about tax sale the estate bill was actually came out of a tag sale task force that was implemented last year to study tax sales and the choice course came up with a lot of different suggestions and many of those bills were introduced not all of them passed the estate bill was one that passed this one was another one that passed so this one just basically allows collectors so the original amount that set the statute had listed where that was the basically the initial threshold amount put a property into tax sale was originally $250 so that has now changed for residential properties so it's specifically for residential properties and at OU that in the threshold is now seven hundred fifty eight dollars and I said it is permissive it says collectors may withhold so the Baltimore and the part about Baltimore City owner-occupied properties if you look in the in the text property article in this section and it's section 14 and if this goes this goes through 8:14 8:11 14a twelve and fourteen eight seventeen point one but if you look in those statutes the Baltimore City already and this is a shell so this is required by Baltimore City and they withhold from the tax sale any owner occupied property that was less than seven hundred fifty dollars in property taxes so this bill basically took that idea and and made that seven hundred fifty dollars the threshold for res all residential properties okay and then the other one that I want to point out that's actually not that I didn't put on here and I'm not sure I just was just close to my mind but it's SB 1098 and that is the water bill moratorium for Baltimore City so that bill passed and basically what it means is that the city cannot put water fill only problem properties that only owe water bill into tax sale so if the property if it's an owner-occupied property in Baltimore City they have their property taxes paid there's no rotations or assessments that are due and all that's owed on the property is a water bill and that property is not going to go to tech sale this coming year the catch on that maybe if the person owes any property taxes even if it's under $750 then they may still go to tax sale because it's not only a water bill that they go so that's come that's going to be going on in 2019 it is only one year so it may be revisited this coming year we're kind of watching and waiting to see on that okay uh moving on then to foreclosure Oh No so there's a couple of foreclosure ones just really briefly HB 78 it allows or it directs dollar their Department of Labor Licensing and Regulation to create regulations requiring foreclosure purchasers to submit information to the foreclosed property registry after after a foreclosure sale and I think within 21 business days of the sale that's not necessarily going to concern our our cases as far as you know what what options the client has but it is just another requirement that that they put into place to track what what's happening to foreclosed properties in Maryland so that's that's what I've got on them estates foreclosure and tax sale so I will turn it back over to Amy I'm also if anyone has any questions I can hopefully answer those question and I'll be I'll be around for the rest of the time too so if you have extra questions everything is something after after I'm done you can always ask it later does anyone have any questions for Ellen about any of the tax sale estate or foreclosure bills that she just mentioned please type them in in the questions box if not Ellen is Ellen's contact information is certainly on our website in addition element each one dimension - for my own that's what you want to reach you so my email is Erie DeLaet m vos core so it's e RI e dl m VL s la w org my you can you know my phone number if you have questions emails really the best way to reach me but if you if you want to call to discuss something or you have a just a quick question that you want to call and ask me you can reach me at four four three four five one four zero seven nine all right well with that we're gonna jump over to landlord tenant yes it's okay there are a handful of changes and my lieutenant law and recently the that are sort of worth noting SB 468 this has to do with the blue ocean case from fall 2016 of the Court of Appeals case that came out that said that landlords cannot charge cannot include water as apartment and then this is this is related to how this is related to codifying that and the HB a 1553 this has to do this is a part of this is for Baltimore City only and as you can see it inserts intentionally into that into the public local laws and I to do with the removing of services changing the locks and removing the tenants definite premise the other the other thing that is not on these lights but I do want to mention because it is a rather significant change in Baltimore City is the landlord tenant inspection requirements so previously if you had three or more properties you had to get your properties both registered and inspected but if you had one or two rental properties you only had to get he only had to have the registered and so the change that actually went into effect August 1st is now that every single non-owner occupied rental property has to be both registered and inspected this is ideally to improve the living conditions of many Baltimore City residents and so the there is an online portal and you can access it through Baltimore housing org to register the property and because the increase in the number of properties that are going to now have to be inspected there is a list of state licensed and registered and Baltimore City registered home inspectors that the landlord can get to go out to the various properties to inspect them in general you only have to have them inspected once every three years unless there's a potential intention unless there's a potential issue in which case they would have to be inspected probably every year and the other men that list of the Baltimore of the housing inspectors that are registered with Baltimore City is also available on Baltimore health.org so the the other sort of kind of funny thing is that it it's a little bit different because it goes by address whether or not the the inspection has to be by address and so if there are less than ten units at a particular address then every single unit would have to be inspected if it's more than ten units then a certain percentage of them would have to laughs inspection in order for the that particular address to be considered rentable basically so the so the law went into effect August 1 but the actual requirements the the there's this grace period that's occurring right now until January 1 and so the courts about the rent court is in Baltimore City is not room necessarily requiring the the number associated with the inspection proving that there's been a recent inspection they will start requiring that as of January 1 and landlords will not in fact be able to get there will not be able to get their attendance that they want to evict out of a property unless they have that information on the on the actual complaint complaint for eviction so that is a an interesting one that has just come about I'm gonna touch of a couple of other consumer protection issues that have that are are brand-new so the first one that's on the screen HB 1634 and s piece 1068 this is a consumer protection act that added abusive practices to the practices that are prohibited under the Act and it gave of the Attorney General's on the attorney general's office and the commissioner financial regulation some additional funds to do with forcement there's a few other things in there including the creation of a student loan department and and so students will have the students who are having issues with their student loan will have the ability to hopefully in are faced with some with the Ombudsman in order to help hopefully get a resolution with if they're having that issue House bill 710 Senate bill 2 of 2 so this was a security a security freeze of the law that would have gone into effect October 1 however there in fact was a federal law that preempted this and went into effect September 21st and so if you want to get a if if you want to get a security freeze or do a thaw or anything like that you can go straight to the the three credit reporting bureaus and and put them that in place and so I've been recommending to everybody to go ahead and do that the House bill seventeen Senate bill 69 so not 2018 but 2017 a very similar law went into effect with regard to public schools having to work having to provide students at the start of the year an annual letter letting them know what their student loan liability was going to look like and so that would say if you're going to take out seventeen thousand dollars now your payment is going to look like a couple hundred dollars when you're of n chily out of school I'm sorry that says went into effect October 1st 2019 it's actually should be will go into effect October 1st 2018 the and then Senate bill 42 we'll be interested to see what happens with this one debt collectors are going to be able to potentially extend the statute of limitations with a written agreement previous a previous bill that went that passed and went into law indicated that the that once the statute of limitations had expired it could not be renewed but this is potentially supposed to allow that if during the pending statue limitations period during that three-year period theoretically that by agreement by written agreement the collector and the consumer could agree to extend it and so that just went into effect and so we're gonna see what happens with that and I think with that I think we have reached the end of the important update that we wanted to bring out that have to do with a lot of the clients and issues that we see here at the Maryland volunteer lawyers service so we have a question here about with the bill that has you of the water with the water bills if the landlord but fails to provide the tenant with the water bill is there any penalty I I don't recall there being a penalty written into the language with the bill it was just putting the requirement in there so I I unless there is a provision in there for you know generally for a landlord you know failing to do what they're out to do what they're obligated to do under the law there's no specific penalty for failing to provide a water bill and then there is a question about of providing the link to the list of home inspectors let me see if I can pull that up quickly and so the other thing I wanted to while she was doing that if you have a few minutes to go and actually pull up HB 1634 this is the Maryland Consumer Protection Act the additions to that that Eenie already talked about if you have a few minutes to pull that up and read in in the final the final bill all of the whereas section where they really it lists out exactly why they're putting all of these things into place to student loan on busman it's really it's really great to read because what they're really what they really point to is that you know all of these protections were put into place after the financial crisis and with dodd-frank and now a lot of those protections are either not being enforced or are being rolled back and so the purpose of that bill was to put protections to kind of put those protections in place on the state level to protect Maryland consumers because it may not be they may not be there as much as they used to be on the federal so it is really interesting if you can if you pull th t up and then read that it's it's a great read so I can't find the I can't find the the link to the hot list of home inspectors immediately I do I do have it and so I I can include that with the information that we're going to send out after the presentation about with with the link to the list of home inspectors are there any other questions that anybody has at all okay well then I think that we will go ahead and call it call it a day here as as I mentioned before if you are not already if you're not already a volunteer with M BLS it's really easy to sign up and you go to our drop down menu and click apply to be a lawyer and then we'll get this presentation out and we'll send the slides we'll post the slides with it and we can actually send an email to all the participants and let them know that it's available and provide some of the information that we indicated we will provide if you need to reach me at all my my email address is a heaven that's a H E and n en at MPLS l aw org and I'm happy to answer any questions about anything that you heard today during the presentation I want to thank movies so much for his part of the presentation I also want to thank Chris and Ellen for their parts and I want to thank you all for attending thanks so much have a great day