Constitutional challenge to Maryland tax law settles with $31 million reduction in property assessment

On January 22, 2026, Justly Prudent announced the settlement of a constitutional challenge to Maryland's Tax Anti-Injunction Statute, securing a $31 million reduction in the disputed property tax assessment that threatened to bankrupt its clients.

The settlement, reached on the eve of a hearing on the State's motion to dismiss, reduces the assessed value of The Oxford—a 187-unit luxury apartment complex in Oxon Hill, Maryland—from $70 million to $39 million. The revised assessment is $10 million lower than even the previous 2022 assessment of $49 million, vindicating the property owners' claims that the State's methodology was not just flawed but egregiously so.

The case began when the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation issued a reassessment that increased the property's value by 43%—more than double the statewide average. The owners of The Oxford faced more than $1 million in additional taxes over three years. Because both owners had personally guaranteed the property's financing, the assessment threatened to force them into personal bankruptcy.

The lawsuit challenged not only the discriminatory assessment but also the Maryland statute that categorically prohibits courts from issuing any injunction or other relief to stop tax collection. The complaint argued that by stripping courts of their authority to remedy ongoing constitutional violations, the statute violated the separation of powers guaranteed by the Maryland Declaration of Rights, as well as the Equal Protection, Due Process, and Takings Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The settlement demonstrates that the original assessment could not withstand scrutiny. SDAT had improperly treated a 2020 financing arrangement as if it were an actual property sale—a methodology the agency itself had rejected when assessing the same property just three years earlier. The complaint also documented that The Oxford was assessed at the highest price per unit among Class A apartment properties in Prince George's County, despite having the ninth-lowest effective rents among comparable properties.

For the property owners, the settlement means financial survival. The $31 million reduction translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax savings and eliminates the threat of bankruptcy that had loomed over both men and their families.

The case is 6009 Oxon Hill Road, LLC, et al. v. State of Maryland, et al. (Case No. C-16-CV-25-004189), filed in the Circuit Court for Prince George's County, Maryland.