County report card · Maryland
St. Mary's County, Maryland
Property assessment is handled by the Maryland State Department of Assessments & Taxation (SDAT); County portal uses Cloudflare bot detection which deters automated access but may be bypassed by determined actors
- Population
- 116,469
- Portal
- Assessor & Recorder
- Portal vendor
- Not identified
In Maryland, property assessment is centralized at the Maryland State Department of Assessments & Taxation (SDAT) — the same protection applies statewide. Assessor: 410-767-1184.
What the audit checked
Four low-cost protections every online records portal can have. How we rate counties.
- robots.txtNot checked
- Terms of useSilent on automation
- Bot challengeCloudflare bot detection
- Owner notificationUnknown
Portal audited: sdat.dat.maryland.gov/RealProperty/Pages/default.aspx, www.mdlandrec.net/main/, www.stmaryscountymd.gov/treasurer/taxes/lookup.asp
Doing well
- Technical barriers (cloudflare) that deter casual bulk access
Room to grow
- Updating the Terms of Use to prohibit automated access
What to ask for
Because property assessment for Maryland is centralized at the Maryland State Department of Assessments & Taxation (SDAT), the strongest protections are set at the state level. You might encourage the agency and our state representatives to maintain robots.txt rules that disallow automated scrapers, a Terms of Use that prohibits automated access, and a property-owner notification system that alerts residents when their records are accessed.
The full playbook is What Counties Can Do.