Paul W. Nochumowitz describes himself as a bail bondsman who takes home $14,000 a year and is bankrupt.
Still, he and his wife, Amie Sue, own a $1 million high-rise condominium on Florida's Biscayne Bay as well as a home in Baltimore County. This year, Miami Beach was the setting for Amie Sue's 50th birthday party, complete with family, friends, her New York hairdresser, a triple-decker cake with sparkler candles and a troupe of ballroom dancers.
The party and other, large expenses show that the couple maintain a "lavish lifestyle" even as Paul Nochumowitz says he cannot pay his debts, contends the trustee overseeing the personal bankruptcy case that Paul Nochumowitz filed last year.
That lifestyle, the trustee's lawyer maintains in court papers, is financed in part by businesses related to ground rent -- Baltimore's arcane system of leasing the land under thousands of houses.
The Nochumowitz family is one of a few groups of investors who have bought large numbers of ground rents and frequently exercised their power under state law to sue delinquent bill payers, seeking either their houses or fees that dwarf the amount of rent.
Entities associated with four groups of individuals and families, including the Nochumowitzes, have filed more than half of the nearly 4,000 ground rent lawsuits brought since 2000, court records show. They also account for a majority of the more than 500 cases in which ground rent owners won legal right to the houses, though an unknown number of those homeowners reached settlements to regain their properties.
These family groups stand out from among the hundreds of charities, foundations, retirees and other small investors who through the years have rarely tried to seize houses.
R. Marc Goldberg, a Baltimore attorney and ground rent owner who is a member of one group that often files lawsuits, says rent owners are acting within their rights to sue homeowners who fail to pay them.
"Being in a business where somebody else has to lose in order for you to gain is a tough business to be in," said Goldberg.
Jay A. Dackman, a lawyer who is among the most frequent filers of ground rent lawsuits, suggests that rent owners are entitled to their gains because of the risks and "unknown issues" they face in taking control of aging and deteriorated Baltimore property. For those same reasons, he says, the ground rent business is not likely to appeal to someone looking for a conventional job description.
