Unless your builder pays each subcontractor, materialman, or supplier, the subcontractor, materialman, or supplier may become entitled to place a lien against your property in order to ensure payment to the subcontractor, materialman, or supplier for services rendered or goods delivered on or to your home. This could mean that your home could be sold to satisfy the lien. Your builder is required by law to give you periodic reports that list the subcontractors, suppliers, and materialmen who have provided more than $500 of goods or services to your custom home, and indicate whether they have been paid. If at any time you have any questions or concerns about whether a subcontractor has been properly paid you should discuss them with your builder, your subcontractor, and your financing institution.”

I (name of builder) hereby certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the information provided below includes all instances in which I or any business entity in which I had an ownership interest in excess of 51 percent have:

Unless your contract is financed by a mortgage issued by a federally chartered financial institution or a financial institution supervised under the Financial Institutions Article of the Annotated Code of Maryland, or unless all deposits, escrow money, binder money, or any other money paid in advance, or is paid to the licensed real estate broker, to be held in the escrow account of the broker, Maryland law requires that all consideration exceeding 5 percent of the total contract price which is paid by a buyer to a custom home builder in advance of the completion of the custom home shall be deposited in an escrow account and paid out of that account only for certain purposes specified by law. To ensure this, the law requires that your builder may only accept such payment in the name of the escrow account. Thus, you should make out your check to “(name of builder), escrow account”. Records of payments out of this account must be carefully maintained by your builder, and the builder must permit you reasonable access to escrow account records. Your builder, however, may choose to establish a separate escrow account for your project which will require your signature for any withdrawals.”