Heritage Realty, Inc. v. Mayor of Baltimore

A ground rent, while not entirely unknown elsewhere in Maryland 1 and in other states, 2 is almost as peculiar to the City of Baltimore as the espantoon. 3 The legal characteristics— which are both atypical and indigenous — of Baltimore ground rents have been the subject of extensive consideration by Judge Frank A. Kaufman, The Maryland Ground Rent -Mysterious But Beneficial, 5 Md. L. Rev. 1 (1940) and by Mayer, Ground Rents in Maryland (1883).

Starting in about 1750, owners of fee simple property commenced to lease building sites to persons who would undertake the construction of improvements…