Maryland Oil Tank Removal Reimbursement

Environment Article 4-705(b)(2) reads: "Until June 30, 2024, the residential owner of a heating oil tank eligible under 4-704(b)(1)(iii) of this subtitle may apply to the Fund for reimbursement not later than 6 months after the completion of rehabilitation for usual, customary, and reasonable costs incurred on or after October 1, 2000, in performing the site rehabilitation."

Two dates in one sentence, and they get confused. 1 October 2000 is the earliest date a cost could have been incurred. 30 June 2024 is the last date an application could be made. The six month rule sits between them: an application had to arrive within six months of the rehabilitation finishing.

The equivalent non-residential window in 4-705(b)(1) had already closed on 30 June 2021.

COMAR 26.10.14, the Residential Heating Oil Tank System Site Rehabilitation Reimbursement Program, is still there. All ten sections of it. Somebody searching the regulations finds a live chapter describing an application process, and reasonably concludes there is one.

The chapter does not carry the deadline itself. COMAR 26.10.14.06 says an application is submitted "until the date established by Environment Article, 4-705(b)", which defers the closing date to the statute rather than printing it. So the regulation stays accurate and the program stays shut, and only somebody who follows the cross-reference finds that out.

This is the single most common error in Maryland tank content, and it is an honest one. The rule and the deadline live in two different books.

Worth knowing, because it tells you how much of a gap the closure leaves. COMAR 26.10.14.08 set a $500 deductible per occurrence.

Before 1 July 2022 reimbursement could not exceed $20,000 per occurrence. After that date the ceiling was tiered by the value of the property: up to $20,000 and 100 percent of eligible costs where the property was at or under $300,000; up to $10,000 and 50 percent above $300,000 and up to $600,000; and up to $5,000 and 25 percent above $600,000. Each of those was then reduced by the deductible.

That tiering is why applications from 1 July 2022 onward had to carry a State Department of Assessments and Taxation property database search or the most recent property tax assessment notice. The property's assessed value decided the ceiling.

The tell is a page that mentions a $20,000 ceiling or a $500 deductible in the present tense. Both figures were correct once. Neither is available now.

The second tell is a page urging you to act before you lose the money. That framing dates a page to the run-up to the deadline, and pages carrying it are now two years stale regardless of what date sits at the top.

A third tell, less obvious, is a page that quotes COMAR 26.10.14 accurately and concludes the program is running. That is the cross-reference problem above, and it catches careful writers as well as careless ones.

Homeowner insurance, and it is worth reading the policy rather than assuming. Heating oil releases are commonly excluded, and some insurers will not bind at all with an underground tank in place, which is its own reason to close one.

A negotiated credit at sale, which in practice is where most Baltimore tank costs actually land. A buyer discovering a tank late is a worse outcome than a seller pricing it in early.

And the obligation itself does not soften because the fund closed. The thirty day closure deadline in COMAR 26.10.01.13 applies whether or not anyone is helping with the cost.

The statute allowed an application within six months of the rehabilitation finishing, so work completed close to the cut-off had a tail. Anyone who filed a complete application by the deadline could still be paid afterward.

If that describes you and you are unsure what happened to a claim, the program's number of record is (410) 537-3676, or (800) 633-6101 extension 3676, at 1800 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore. We are not in a position to check a claim on anyone's behalf and would not pretend otherwise.