Homeowners

Baltimore's clerk of the Circuit Court announced plans Monday for a class action lawsuit to force the city to collect delinquent water bills from businesses and other large customers. Circuit Court Clerk Frank M. Conaway cited a Baltimore Sun report that counted more than $10 million owed by corporations, nonprofits and government offices. The figure included RG Steel in Sparrows Point, which owed nearly $7 million, according to city records; W.R. Grace & Co., which owed almost $500,000; and the Maryland Zoo, which owed more than $135,000.

Inside a small cubicle in Timonium, Jessica Gatton Facini is saving homes. The 26-year-old sorts through foreclosure and lien documents from Baltimore homeowners, identifies a problem and then navigates the bureaucracy of big banks and government agencies in search of a solution. It's a challenging task - some homeowners would say impossible - but Facini wields a weapon most Marylanders do not. When she contacts a bank, her caller I.D. says "U.S. Congress. " As part of a little-known effort, congressional staffers across the country have been calling banks relentlessly to bargain for help for homeowners.

We frequently complain about big government but sometimes they can be very helpful. The following represents a case where the Maryland state government was very helpful to me. During the month of March 2012, I had a nationally known company perform repair work on my home. Unfortunately the work was performed in an unsatisfactory way and after months of dealing with the company we could not reach a resolution. I felt the company was not negotiating in good faith, so I contacted the Maryland Home Improvement Commission for assistance.

Barry Blyveis said it more eloquently than I could ("CA should not be exempt from Homeowners Association Act," letter, Aug. 9), but I would just like to add: What safeguards are going to be in place to protect the CA lien holders once CA makes these changes they say they need? Now at least there is legislation to protect those of us that own property that is controlled by CA. What guarantee do we have that similar legislation will be in place to give us the information we request about the use of our dollars?

Overlook Clipper Mill is a community where groups of duplexes — oddly reminiscent of the 50-year-old TV cartoon show "The Jetsons" — rise up in harmony with the grade of the land on which they have been built. With its primary focus on green and sustainable living, this development in Baltimore's Woodberry neighborhood juxtaposes leading-edge design with Clipper Mill's heritage as a place where the Jones Falls provided waterpower for the operation of grist mills, foundries and textile mills.

In 1985, attorney David Snyder purchased one side of a duplex in Baltimore between the upscale neighborhoods of Roland Park and Guilford. The 1929 brick Georgian-style home had a stately exterior but would need an interior makeover. Nevertheless, Snyder said, the house was "very livable for a bachelor like me. " Unfortunately, it was a bachelor pad in the not-so-flattering sense of the term: He initially didn't improve the interior, which consists of two stories and an attic. The house, by Snyder's admission, fell into a state of disrepair, and he worked halfheartedly at fixing it up. But after the double snowstorms of February 2010 brought down his gutters and battered his slate roof, causing numerous leaks, Snyder seriously considered renovation.

The Stadlers' story is a tale of two houses on the same riverfront street in Sparrows Point and a dream that began when Tim Stadler was just a young boy. "My parents had friends that we would visit about once a week that lived on River Drive Road," he recalled. "There was a house on the street that had a small airplane in the front yard. As a kid, I always had my parents drive me past the 'airplane house' on our way home. " Then, in 2001, when he was 21 and looking for a waterfront house, Tim Stadler came across one in a home magazine.

One in four Maryland borrowers owed more on his or her home than it was worth at the start of this year, according to CoreLogic's newest estimates -- a lot of people, but not quite as many as the company thinks were underwater last year. The real estate data firm put the tally at just over 335,000, down from 365,000 in the final three months of last year and the lowest figure since the summer of 2010. Maryland ranked 9th among states with the highest levels of negative equity.

It looked so odd: Two sets of homeowners in Howard County seemed to be getting property-tax credits that added to their bill, rather than subtracting. When I stumbled upon them in a database of Howard property taxes that we'll (fingers crossed) have online for you all to search later this month, I stared blankly at the pair. It had to be a mistake, right? Right. Howard County officials, investigating after I inquired, said the stealth tax labeled as a homestead credit was a miscalculation by the state Department of Assessment and Taxation that got by the county's finance department.

Homeowners hoping to see benefits from a national mortgage settlement — and others struggling with their payments — can attend a workshop in Baltimore Tuesday for information and assistance. The Maryland attorney general's office said the event will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church, 4414 Frankford Ave. Nonprofit housing counselors and others who work with distressed borrowers will be on hand. The settlement, with the country's five largest mortgage servicers, was over allegations of widespread foreclosure and mortgage-servicing abuses.