The Maryland Office of the Attorney General has charged a Florida-based real estate firm with deceptive trade practices and other consumer protection-related counts, accusing MV Realty of misleading Maryland homeowners into predatory loan agreements with intentionally obscure terms.

The charges center on MV Realty’s “Homeowner Benefit Agreements,” in which the company advanced up to $5,000 in exchange for exclusive real estate listing rights to customers’ homes for 40 years. Those in violation of the terms — on purpose or by accident, owners or heirs — are required to pay at least 3% of the home value upon sale or transfer.

Attorney General Anthony Brown is pursuing a cease and desist order, termination of the past agreements and liens, as well as restitution for consumers, according to a Friday news release. Attorneys general in New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, Florida and Pennsylvania have also taken action against the company in recent years.

In the complaint, attorneys in Brown’s office said “tens of thousands” of questionable MV Realty agreements were originated in as many as 33 states.

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The Maryland case names MV Realty CEO Antony Mitchell, COO David L. Manchester and company cofounder and real estate broker Amanda J. Zachman. The latter got her start as a contestant on the CBS reality show “Big Brother.” (Her season aired in 2013, and she placed seventh.)

MV Realty did not respond to a request for comment.

The Banner wrote in 2022 about local homeowners ensnared by the company’s agreements, identifying 400 agreements across Maryland, including in Baltimore’s predominantly Black East and West sides.

In an interview at the time, MV Realty spokeswoman Diana London defended the company’s practices, saying that the terms are “written in plain English and always signed in the presence of a notary.”

In the May complaint, the attorney general’s office identified at least 1,047 Maryland consumers from 2021 to 2022 who entered into these agreements with the company and received a median of $1,000.

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MV Realty was formed in 2014, according to the complaint, and had a Maryland outpost in Havre de Grace starting in November 2021. It took advantage of consumers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, attorneys alleged, by advertising “loan alternatives” to those seeking personal or payday loans or assistance for routine bills.

The attorney general’s office alleged that the cash advances were advertised incorrectly to consumers as “promotion fees” when in reality they were “lien-secured loans.”

The Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation forfeited MV Realty’s business registrations in 2025, but the complaint alleges that the company continues to enforce existing agreements. Other states have already reached settlements with MV Realty.

An administrative hearing is scheduled for Sept. 8.