On July 21, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, the state’s highest court, held in responding to a question certified by the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland that alleged violations of Maryland’s Finder’s Fee Act are subject to a three-year statute of limitations. NVR Mortg. Fin. v. Carlsen, Misc. No. 11, 2014 WL 3565472 (Md. Jul. 21, 2014). In this case, a borrower sued a mortgage broker on behalf of a putative class alleging the broker violated the state’s Finder’s Fee Act by failing to make certain disclosures before collecting finder’s fees for brokering mortgages. The borrower filed suit more than three years after the alleged failure to disclose, but asserted that an alleged violation of the Finder’s Fee Act is an “other specialty” under Maryland state law and as such is subject to a 12-year state of limitations. Under state law an alleged violation of a statute is an “other specialty” only if, in relevant part, the duty, obligation, prohibition, or right sought to be enforced is created or imposed solely by the statute, or a related statute, and does not otherwise exist as a matter of common law. The court rejected the borrower’s claim that the Finder’s Fee Act created a statutory duty for mortgage brokers, and held instead that a mortgage broker owes to a borrower a common law duty to disclose all facts or information which may be relevant or material in influencing the judgment or action of the borrower in the matter. The court held, therefore, that in an action for an alleged violation the Finder’s Fee Act the duty sought to be enforced exists as a matter of common law, rather than having been created solely by the statute, and is subject to a three-year, not 12-year, statute of limitations.