Maryland Debt Collection Laws: Wage Garnishment, Statute of Limitations, and Repossession

If a debt collector is pursuing you in Maryland, the sequence matters more than the fear. A private creditor has to sue you, win a judgment, and get a court order before a dollar can legally be taken from your paycheck or bank account. The two most common misconceptions, that garnishment can start the day after you fall behind, and that ignoring a lawsuit makes the problem go away, are both wrong. Most Maryland garnishments start because the person being sued never answered the complaint, so responding to a summons is the single most valuable step available to you.

Maryland is also the origin of one of the country's clearer consumer-debt reforms: since 2016, a payment on an already time-barred debt does not give a collector a second chance to sue you. That rule, and Maryland's wage and bank protections, are worth understanding in detail.

Wage Garnishment in Maryland

Maryland's wage-exemption formula, at Com. Law Section 15-601.1, protects the greater of two figures: 75 percent of disposable wages due, or 30 times the Maryland state minimum hourly wage in effect when the wages were earned, multiplied by the number of weeks covered. Maryland's own minimum wage has been $15.00 an hour since January 1, 2024, with no built-in inflation adjustment in the statute's text, so the current floor works out to $450 a week. Because Maryland uses the greater of the two protections rather than the lesser, a judgment creditor can never take more than 25 percent of disposable wages, and often less once the $450 floor is applied. The exemption is calculated per pay period, and a medical insurance payment deducted from wages by the employer is separately exempt.

No separate head-of-household or family-size wage exemption was located in Com. Law Section 15-601.1; Maryland's Family Law article and the rest of the Commercial Law article were not exhaustively searched for a distinct provision, so this is an open question rather than a confirmed absence. Do not assume dependents have no effect on the exemption without checking further.

Maryland's job protection is narrower than some states but still stronger than the federal floor in one respect: Com. Law Section 15-606 makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine or a year in jail, for an employer to discharge an employee because wages were attached for any one indebtedness within a calendar year. That calendar-year framing is different from the federal rule, which never resets, but Maryland's protection still covers only one debt at a time.

Maryland's tax collector uses the same formula as ordinary judgment creditors rather than a separate flat percentage. Under Tax-General Section 13-811(e), when the Comptroller issues a wage lien for unpaid state taxes, the employer must turn over all compensation due except the amount exempt under the same Com. Law Section 15-601.1 formula described above.

Bank Account Protections

Maryland's core bank and property exemption is set out in Cts. and Jud. Proc. Section 11-504(b). A debtor who elects to exempt cash or selected items of property, within 30 days of an attachment or a sheriff's levy, can protect a cumulative value of $6,000. A separate provision in the same subsection exempts $500 specifically held in a deposit account, but the two do not stack past the $6,000 combined ceiling.

Federal law adds an automatic layer for federal benefits. Under 31 CFR Part 212, a bank that receives a garnishment order must review the account and protect an amount equal to the last two months of directly deposited Social Security, VA, and certain other federal benefit payments, without the account holder needing to claim an exemption first. That protection covers direct deposit only, not benefits later deposited by paper check.

Statute of Limitations on Debt in Maryland

Maryland's general civil statute of limitations, at Cts. and Jud. Proc. Section 5-101, gives ordinary written and oral contract claims 3 years to be filed, running from when the cause of action accrues. Contracts under seal, and other specialty obligations, get a longer 12-year period under Section 5-102. A signed cardmember agreement is not executed under seal, so credit card debt should fall under the general 3-year period, though no source directly addresses credit cards by name.

Promissory notes split depending on how they were executed. An ordinary negotiable note payable at a definite time gets 6 years from the due date, or from an accelerated due date, under Com. Law Section 3-118, Maryland's enactment of UCC Article 3. A demand note gets 6 years from demand, or is barred after 10 years of no payment with no demand made. A promissory note executed under seal instead falls under the 12-year specialty period of Section 5-102.

Maryland's biggest consumer-protective feature is its 2016 anti-revival law. Under Cts. and Jud. Proc. Section 5-1202(a), once the statute of limitations on a consumer debt collection action has expired, a payment toward the debt, a written or oral affirmation of it, or any other activity on it does not revive or extend the deadline. The related definitions section, Section 5-1201, defines a consumer debt collection action broadly enough to cover any judicial or arbitration claim to collect a consumer debt, so this rule applies to every creditor and collector, not just third-party debt buyers. There is one narrow exception: a new written payment plan entered into before the original deadline expires can create a separate claim with its own limitations period.

Two points hold true regardless of the revival rule. Time-barred debt is not erased debt: a collector can still ask you to pay, and it can remain on your credit report for up to 7 years under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, a separate clock entirely. And suing or threatening to sue on debt after the statute of limitations has run is a flat violation of federal Regulation F (12 CFR 1006.26), regardless of what the collector believed about the deadline.

Maryland also gives hospital patients a specific limitations carve-out: Cts. and Jud. Proc. Section 5-102 expressly excludes consumer debt contracts related to hospital services from the general 12-year specialty period.

What Debt Collectors Can and Cannot Do

Third-party collectors working Maryland accounts answer to the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Regulation F. They cannot call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. your local time, harass you, misrepresent the amount or legal status of a debt, or threaten to sue on a debt that is already time-barred. Within five days of first contacting you, a collector must send validation information, and once you dispute a debt in writing, the collector must stop reporting it as valid until it verifies the debt. You can also demand in writing that a collector stop contacting you.

Maryland does not leave this to federal law alone. The Maryland Consumer Debt Collection Act, at Com. Law Section 14-202, sets out its own list of prohibited collection conduct: using or threatening force or violence; threatening criminal prosecution where the transaction did not involve a violation of a criminal statute; disclosing or threatening to disclose information that affects the debtor's reputation for creditworthiness while knowing the information is false; contacting the debtor's employer about a delinquent debt before obtaining a final judgment, subject to the statute's exceptions; disclosing credit information to someone other than the debtor or the debtor's spouse without a legitimate business need; communicating with the debtor or the debtor's relatives with a frequency or at unusual hours that amounts to harassment; using obscene or grossly abusive language; claiming, attempting, or threatening to enforce a right while knowing that the right does not exist; and using a communication that simulates legal or judicial process.

Two features push the Maryland statute past the federal one. First, Com. Law Section 14-201(b) defines a collector as a person collecting or attempting to collect an alleged debt arising out of a consumer transaction, which is written more broadly than the FDCPA's category of third-party debt collectors. Second, Com. Law Section 14-203 gives the debtor a private claim: a collector who violates the subtitle is liable for any damages proximately caused by the violation, including damages for emotional distress or mental anguish suffered with or without accompanying physical injury.

Maryland adds one specific hospital-billing protection: under Health-General Section 19-214.2(f)(4), a hospital may not request a garnishment of wages, or file an action seeking wage attachment, to collect a bill from a patient who is eligible for free or reduced-cost care under the state's hospital financial-assistance law. That protection is limited to patients who qualify for the assistance program; it does not bar garnishment against patients who do not qualify.

Car Repossession in Maryland

Maryland enacted the standard UCC self-help repossession rule at Com. Law Section 9-609: a secured party may take possession through judicial process, or without judicial process if it can do so without a breach of the peace. Maryland's statute does not define breach of the peace, and no Maryland case law content was confirmed for this page, so its exact boundaries are a fact-specific question.

Maryland's real protection sits in a separate consumer-credit overlay, the Credit Grantor Closed End Credit law (CLEC) at Com. Law Section 12-1021. Read that section carefully, because the notice before a repossession and the notice after one are not the same kind of obligation. Under Section 12-1021(c)(1), a credit grantor may serve a written notice of its intention at least 10 days before repossessing tangible personal property. That notice is optional, and the statute says so about itself: subsection (h)(3) refers to it as the discretionary notice provided for in subsection (c). A Maryland borrower whose car is taken with no advance warning has therefore not necessarily been wronged. The one pre-repossession notice that is mandatory covers mobile homes, where Section 12-1021(c)(2)(i) switches to shall and requires 30 days, with exceptions for vacant, abandoned, or voluntarily surrendered units.

The notice the lender must send comes after the repossession. Section 12-1021(e) requires the credit grantor to deliver a written notice within 5 days of taking the property, covering the right to redeem, the redemption amount, resale and deficiency rights, and where the property is stored. Subsections (f) and (g) then require the lender to retain the property for 15 days after that notice, during which the borrower may redeem it or reinstate the agreement. The lender's reasonable expenses are added to what the borrower has to tender only where the discretionary 10-day notice under subsection (c) was actually given, under subsection (h)(3).

Deficiency forfeiture is real, but narrower than it is usually described. Section 12-1021(k)(4) denies the credit grantor any deficiency judgment where the required procedures are not followed, but subsection (k)(1) limits all of subsection (k) to a public sale of property that secured a loan of more than $2,000 at the time the loan was made. Separately, if the borrower has paid 60 percent or more of the cash price on consumer goods, the lender must take reasonable action to dispose of the repossessed property within 90 days.

Where a deficiency is allowed, Com. Law Section 9-615 sets the baseline: the surplus or deficiency is calculated from the actual sale proceeds, unless the buyer is the secured party itself, or a related party, and the price is significantly below what an arm's-length sale would have brought, in which case the deficiency is computed against a hypothetical fair-market price instead.

Servicemembers get one further protection: for a vehicle financed before military service, the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (50 U.S.C. 3952) requires a court order before repossession.

If You Are Being Garnished or Sued in Maryland

Move in this order. First, if you are served with a lawsuit, file an answer before the deadline, even a bare general denial, because a default judgment forfeits every defense you had, including the statute of limitations. Second, if a garnishment is already running, check the math against the 75 percent and $450-a-week formula, and check whether the funds involved come from an exempt source like Social Security. Third, if the debt is old, raise the statute of limitations yourself; remember that under Maryland's 2016 reform, a prior payment on already-expired debt does not reopen your exposure. Fourth, if the plaintiff is a debt buyer rather than the company you originally owed, make it prove that it owns your account. Finally, if a secured loan is behind, use the CLEC post-repossession notice-and-redemption process, and if the whole debt picture is unmanageable, bankruptcy's automatic stay stops most garnishments and lawsuits while the case is pending.

That fourth step is a Maryland rule with real teeth. Cts. and Jud. Proc. Section 5-1203 bars a debt buyer, or a collector acting for one, from initiating a consumer debt collection action unless it already possesses a specified set of documents, and it bars the court from entering a judgment unless those documents are introduced into evidence. The set includes a certified or authenticated record proving the debt exists and that you owe it, the applicable terms and conditions document, a chronological listing of every prior owner of the debt with an authenticated bill of sale for each transfer, identifying details of the account such as the original creditor and the last four digits of the account number, the charge-off date and balance with an itemization of interest and fees and any post-charge-off payments, and a list of the collector's Maryland collection agency licenses. Raise it in your answer. A debt buyer that cannot document the chain of ownership back to the original creditor cannot get a judgment on the strength of a spreadsheet.

Information last verified on 2026-08-12. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Related Resources

• Debt Collection Laws by State
• Statute of Limitations on Debt
• How to Stop Wage Garnishment
• Car Repossession Laws
• Can Social Security Be Garnished?
• Maryland Bankruptcy

---

Last updated: 2026-08-12.

More Maryland Laws

• Maryland Final Paycheck Laws
• Maryland Statute of Limitations
• Maryland Unclaimed Property