BALTIMORE WOMAN INHERITED A HOME AND A $228K WATER BILL

Kristina Moore inherited her late father’s townhome in Northeast Baltimore in February 2026 and found it tied to a Baltimore water bill of about $228,000 covering her entire 37-townhome community. She said the neighborhood runs on one master meter whose account is attached to her address, and a city lien on the home kept her from selling it.

Moore’s home sits in Springwood Estates, a community of townhomes built in the 1970s. Her dispute became public on July 15, 2026, when FOX45 detailed how the balance ended up on her property.

“When my father passed, I thought the house would be the easy part, but it clearly wasn’t,” Moore said.

She said she knew nothing about the debt until April 2026, when she found a city notice taped to the front door. It warned that water service could be shut off within 45 days over the unpaid balance.

One meter, one address

Residents of Springwood Estates do not get individual water bills from the city. They work out their own use from readings in their basements and pay the homeowners association, which is supposed to pay Baltimore.

HOA President Regina Johnson confirmed to FOX45 that the association collects payments from residents and pays the community water bill. She said she could not explain how the balance topped $200,000 and declined further questions.

Moore’s realtor, Lisa Ciofani, said the community’s covenants and restrictions put the HOA on the hook. “And we provided the covenants and restrictions that clearly state that the HOA is in fact responsible for paying it,” Ciofani said.

Moore said she and Ciofani pulled a lien sheet from the Department of Public Works that listed her property as responsible. “They’re telling me my property is responsible for this bill, and I can’t sell it until it’s paid in full,” she said.

Ciofani said the fix was simple: “Our whole thing is just put the address for this meter back with the HOA.” She added, “I don’t understand how they can hold her liable for 37 properties.”

The paper trail from City Hall pointed in two directions. A May 28, 2026 email from a senior adviser in City Council President Zeke Cohen’s office said, “We are moving things along. Ms. Regina has provided the documentation needed to get the lien off of the property.” A July 8, 2026 update said the HOA had been approved for a payment plan, but “the lien will remain in place until the full balance is paid.”

DPW first declined to answer account-specific questions, citing the Maryland Public Information Act and customer-account confidentiality. “This is my childhood home. I graduated from Morgan State. I work in the city, so I feel let down by the city. I think it’s sad,” Moore said.

On July 24, 2026, DPW acknowledged in a statement to FOX45 that the community uses a master-meter system and that the HOA is responsible for managing the community’s water account with the department. The department said it would contact Moore directly to help resolve the matter, but she said she had not yet heard from it.

On July 29, 2026, the mayor’s office said the HOA is legally responsible for the outstanding debt. It also told FOX45 that “The City’s records indicate that the late owner of the property in question, which houses the master meter, was also the individual previously responsible for the HOA.”

The office went on: “Therefore, there is an outstanding question of what the late homeowner did with the funds from the payments made by other residents in the neighborhood if they were not applied to the outstanding water bill.”

Moore told FOX45 her father had served on the HOA at one point but stepped down years earlier, and that the community water account was paid in full at that time.

What state records show

On September 11, 2026, FOX45 reported on state filings. A 2007 filing listed her father’s Springwood Avenue home as the HOA’s principal office. Paperwork filed in June 2026 listed Johnson with the HOA, while Moore’s property was still named as the association’s principal office.

The same report said city records name the HOA as the customer on the master water account. Baltimore City said so in correspondence quoted by the station.

“The account holder/customer in this case is the Springwood Estates Homeowners Association, not Ms. Moore individually,” the city wrote. “Therefore, Ms. Moore is not the customer of this account.”

The debt nevertheless remained attached to Moore’s property, leaving her unable to sell the home.