OFF THE RECORD
Legislative Update - October 2021
2021 Legislative Update
Business Regulation
Many business owners will appreciate that only one major business-related bill passed during the Legislative Session. Beginning July 1st of next year, the Department of Commerce and the Governor’s Office of Small, Minority, and Women Business Affairs are required to develop and maintain a State equity report to assess diversity data for each entity related to underrepresented communities and adopt regulations to carry out the requirements of the bill, including directives for State agencies and entities to comply with those requirements.
Employment Law
Employment law has seen many updates over the past 18 months during the pandemic. A handful of bills were passed during the 2021 session with most of them taking effect October 1st. However, the Maryland Essential Workers Protection Act is an emergency bill that went into effect earlier this year. This bill establishes various safety protections and benefits for “essential workers” and various requirements for “essential employers” when the Governor proclaims a catastrophic health emergency due to a communicable disease.
Community Associations
Several bills were passed impacting Maryland cooperatives, condominiums and homeowner associations, many having to do with meeting requirements, both virtual and in-person, for homeowners associations, condominiums and cooperative housing corporations.
Real Estate
Many of the real estate-related bills passed by the legislature in 2021 focused on providing additional protections for tenants in response to the pandemic, including one bill that provides a personal liability clause in a commercial lease making it unenforceable under certain conditions.
Health Care
During the 2021 Legislative Session, eight new bills were passed into law and seventeen others were considered, but not enacted. Click the link below to read the full summary of the new laws. 
For Individuals & Families
Family Law
In the realm of family law there were adjustments to prior bills regarding child support guidelines as well as a bill requiring the Department of Human Services to post a free online course about identifying, preventing and reporting child abuse.
Estate Planning
One of the most important bills to pass the General Assembly this past year was the Maryland Statute Against Financial Exploitation (SAFE) Act (Senate Bill 327). The goal of the Maryland SAFE Act is to allow victims the ability to recoup any property taken from them by wrongful acts of perpetrators. This bill passed both houses in the General Assembly in its first year of introduction and was signed into law by Governor Larry Hogan. This provisions of the Maryland SAFE Act apply to actions of a perpetrator on or after October 1st of this year.