Motels of Maryland, Inc. v. Baltimore County

Motels of Maryland, Inc. sued Baltimore County to recover $6,142.50 it had paid the County as a transfer tax when it recorded what it calls a “short form” of a written “leasing agreement.” Motels’ theory was that it had paid the money under a mistake of fact in that it had thought the initial writing trans ferred a leasehold interest in land and thus was subject to the County ordinance imposing a tax on recorded transfers of estates in land at the rate of three-quarters of one per cent of the value of the property transferred, when the fact was that the writing was no more than a present…