Maine HOA laws & resources.

Laws & regulations impacting Maine associations.

Maine has no homeowners association act. No planned community act, no common interest ownership act. That is not an oversight in this page — it was checked three ways: Title 33’s complete chapter list, Title 30-A’s complete chapter list, and a phrase search across twelve whole Titles. So the first question is not what does the statute say but whether you have one at all, and that turns on whether you own a condominium unit. If you do, the Condominium Act or the older Unit Ownership Act governs, and 1 January 1983 decides which. If you own a house in a covenanted subdivision, neither applies: what you have is your declaration, the Nonprofit Corporation Act if your association is incorporated, the private road statutes if you share a private way, and the override statutes — of which, realistically, only the Solar Rights chapter reaches a subdivision association, the other three being written for condominiums or for land held in undivided common interests. Together with the federal laws that apply nationwide, that is the whole of it. HOPB hosts the full text of every one.

Maine HOA law guideEvery Maine statute that governs community associations, indexed by the decision you are making — beginning with whether a statute exists for you at all.

Eight things are worth knowing about how Maine HOA law works:

• Condominium or not — and if a condominium, which side of 1 January 1983. The Maine Condominium Act, 33 M.R.S. ch. 31, governs condominiums created after its effective date, and pre-1983 ones that amended their instruments to opt in. The Unit Ownership Act, ch. 10, governs the rest. Do not look for the date in the older Act: § 562, its own application provision, says only that the chapter applies to property whose owners “submit the same to the provisions of this chapter by duly executing and recording a declaration” — no date appears in it. The cut-off is drawn by § 1601-102(a) and (b) of the other Act — and even they give no date. That comes from a third section, § 1601-116: “This Act shall be effective on January 1, 1983.”
• Eleven sections of the modern Act reach back to every old condominium. Section 1601-102(a) applies §§ 1601-105, 1601-106, 1601-107, 1602-103, 1602-104, parts of 1603-102(a), 1603-111, 1603-116 (the lien), 1603-118 (records), 1604-108 (resale certificate) and 1604-116, plus the § 1601-103 definitions needed to construe them, to all Maine condominiums however old — but only as to “events and circumstances occurring after” 1 January 1983, and without invalidating documents that already existed. Meanwhile nothing repeals the old Act’s own § 577 and § 581 for those properties, so both texts are on the books and which one governs a given dispute is a question for a Maine lawyer.
• The Condominium Act is mandatory unless it says otherwise. Section 1601-104: “[e]xcept as expressly provided in this Act, provisions of this Act may not be varied by agreement, and rights conferred by this Act may not be waived.” That is the reverse of the usual arrangement, and it matters: when you are told your declaration overrides something in the Act, the thing to look for is the clause in that section permitting it. What the Act gives a unit owner includes an annual meeting on 10 to 60 days’ notice with the agenda stated, a right to attend board meetings with executive session confined to five listed purposes and no final vote in session (§ 1603-108), a 20% quorum the bylaws may raise or lower but never below 10% (§ 1603-109), fines only after notice and an opportunity to be heard and only if reasonable (§ 1603-102(a)(11)), and interest on past-due assessments capped at 18% a year (§ 1603-115(b)).
• The records right, and the direction the ten days runs. Section 1603-118 requires an association to retain eleven categories of record — accounting records, minutes, the current owner list, three years of financial statements and tax returns, current contracts, design-approval decisions, and ballots and proxies for a year after the vote. They must be available for examination and copying by an owner or the owner’s authorized agent during reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time, and “[u]pon 10 days’ notice in writing reasonably identifying the specific records of the association requested” The ten days is the notice you give the association — not a deadline by which it must produce. Eight grounds allow withholding, a reasonable fee may be charged, and three subsections are easy to miss: copies may be electronic if available on request, the association is not obliged to compile or synthesize information, and what you obtain may not be used for commercial purposes. Older condominiums also have § 577, and any incorporated association has 13-B § 715.
• Maine is not a super-lien state. The association’s lien under § 1603-116 covers assessments and fines from the moment they fall due and is foreclosable like a mortgage, and recording the declaration is itself notice and perfection — so nothing appears in the registry to warn you. But a first mortgage outranks it whether recorded before or after the assessment became delinquent, as do liens recorded before the declaration and liens for real estate taxes. Six years to enforce; costs and reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party, whichever side that is; and a payoff statement that binds the association must be furnished within 10 business days of a written request. Under the older Act, § 581 works differently again: the lien is claimed 60 days after the due date and perfected by filing in the registry of deeds and serving the owner.
• If your association is incorporated, Title 13-B may be the whole rulebook. Section 1603-101 requires a condominium association to be organized as a nonprofit corporation under Title 13-B — but only for a condominium the Condominium Act governs; § 1603-101 is not among the eleven sections § 1601-102(a) reaches back. The Unit Ownership Act imposes no such requirement, and neither does anything else — so for a subdivision association the first question is whether it is a corporation at all. Where it is, the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies meetings, notice, voting, quorum, directors and the books-and-records right at § 715, which contains no clause letting the articles or bylaws vary it (§ 601 permits only bylaws “not inconsistent with law or the articles of incorporation”) — though read the section: the right runs to voting members, and the only proper purpose a voting member may have is enabling the member to fulfil duties the articles, bylaws or law confer. On refusal the Superior Court may order inspection at the corporation’s expense and shall award your costs and fees unless the corporation proves it refused in good faith because it had a reasonable basis for doubt about the right to inspect. One default catches people out: § 601 vests the power to amend the bylaws in the board unless the articles or bylaws say otherwise.
• Fair housing reaches further in Maine than under federal law. The Maine Human Rights Act, 5 M.R.S. ch. 337, protects race or color, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, familial status, and having sought and received an order of protection (§ 4581, § 4581-A(1)–(3)). Receipt of public assistance is protected by a separate and narrower provision: § 4581-A(4) reaches a person furnishing rental premises or public accommodations who refuses to rent or imposes different terms “primarily because of” that status. Familial status covers more than children — § 4553(5-A) also reaches dependent adults, and extends to anyone pregnant or securing custody. Disability duties are separated at § 4582-A: modifications at your expense, reasonable accommodations in rules and policies, and assistance animals, whose use “may not be conditioned on the payment of a fee or security deposit” Complaints go to the Maine Human Rights Commission↗, whose powers are at § 4566; the federal Fair Housing Act applies independently through HUD↗.
• Four statutes override your documents — and Maine’s housing laws are not among them. Solar rights: a legal instrument may not prohibit a solar energy device on residential property you own, or a solar clothes-drying device on residential property you lease or rent (§ 1423(2)), but only where the instrument was adopted or created after 30 September 2009 (§ 1423(1)); it may prohibit devices on common elements of a condominium (§ 1423(3)); and the familiar phrase “when an alternative of reasonably comparable cost and convenience is available” qualifies only the historic-or-aesthetic ground, not health and safety, building damage or shoreland zoning (§ 1423(4)). Separately, a solar easement under ch. 28 is a different thing altogether — a written, recorded agreement between neighbours guaranteeing access to sunlight, appurtenant and running with the land (§ 1401); Maine gives no automatic right to light across someone else’s property. Low-impact landscaping: § 1451 bars an unreasonable limitation, expressly including any requirement that planting be turf grass “in whole or in part” — with no cut-off date, though its coverage definitions require the common portion to be held as undivided interests by the owners, it protects only a portion that is both not subject to common ownership and one the owner has the exclusive right to use, it applies only while the owner tends the planting, and § 1451(3) leaves reasonable design and aesthetic guidelines standing and excludes National-Register historic property altogether. Political signs: neither condominium statute lets an association prohibit a sign supporting or opposing a candidate or referendum question from six weeks before an election to one week after — on the unit owner’s own private property under § 576(10), on the unit itself under § 1603-106(c). Neither reaches the common elements, and neither reaches a subdivision association. And electric vehicle charging has been an override since 1 January 2026 — § 576-A voids a conflicting declaration or bylaw provision and awards fees to the prevailing party. It sits in the range § 1601-102(b) switches off for the modern Act, so on its placement it appears to reach only a pre-1983 condominium that never opted in. What is not an override: Maine’s housing laws requiring towns to allow additional dwelling units and accessory dwelling units each expressly preserve private covenants imposing greater restrictions (30-A M.R.S. § 4364-A(8), § 4364-B(11)). They bind your municipality, not your declaration. More on the related-laws page.

Find HOA contact information & documents.

• HOA Directory↗ — the Secretary of State’s corporate name search. Enter the name of the community or subdivision to find the association’s registered agent and address, its officers and directors, and its filings. A condominium under the modern Act must be there — § 1603-101 requires it to be organized as a nonprofit corporation under Title 13-B. A pre-1983 condominium that never opted in is under no such duty. A subdivision association need not be incorporated at all, and if it is not, none of Title 13-B applies to it — including the § 715 records right. This search is how you find out which you are dealing with. Every domestic corporation not excused under § 1301(5) must file an annual report naming its president, treasurer, registered agent, clerk or secretary and directors (13-B § 1301); if your board will not tell you who is on it, that filing is a public record.
• Maine Secretary of State↗ — corporations, elections, licensing and archives.
• HOA documents are county records, kept by the Registry of Deeds. Maine has counties, and each has a registry of deeds — not a “county recorder”. The declaration, its amendments, plats and plans and the community’s restrictive covenants are recorded there. Maine Recorded Document Search↗ links the county registries. Under the Unit Ownership Act a lien for common charges is perfected by filing it in the registry of deeds of the county in which the unit lies and serving a copy on the owner (§ 581); under the Condominium Act, by contrast, recording the declaration is itself notice and perfection and no separate claim is recorded (§ 1603-116(d)). A road association’s notice of claim is also recorded at the registry (23 M.R.S. § 3104).
• Ask the association directly, and know which right you are using. A condominium unit owner uses § 1603-118 — eleven categories, on ten days’ written notice identifying the specific records, with eight grounds for withholding. An owner in an older condominium also has § 577, which is narrower: receipts, expenditures and the payment vouchers, available “at convenient hours of weekdays”. A voting member of an incorporated association uses 13-B § 715 — books, records of account, minutes and the voting-member list, on five business days’ written notice. Maine does not use an open-ended “proper purpose” test: the statute says the only proper purpose for a voting member is enabling the member to fulfil duties the articles, bylaws or law confer. The court can order production at the corporation’s expense. A buyer gets more than an owner: § 1604-108 requires the seller — except on a sale needing a public offering statement, or one of the § 1604-101(b) exempt transactions such as a foreclosure or a gift — to hand over the declaration, bylaws, rules and a resale certificate covering the monthly assessment, anything unpaid, other fees, anticipated capital expenditures and reserves — and § 1601-102(a) extends that section to every Maine condominium however old.
• On a private road, a different set of documents matters. Where four or more parcels share a private road, way or bridge, 23 M.R.S. §§ 3101 to 3106 governs how a meeting is called (by warrant through a notary public, on 30 days’ notice with the agenda and every item to be voted on), how the cost is apportioned (a fair and equitable formula in the association’s bylaws or adopted at a meeting), and how it is collected. Two numbers decide most arguments: § 3102 caps the apportioned cost of repairs at 1% of an individual owner’s municipal property valuation in a calendar year, and since 30 June 2018 money owed does not run with the land on a transfer unless a notice of claim was recorded first (§ 3104). Where there is no association and no agreement, § 3121 makes each residential property owner share equally, but only where the private road is the primary means of access.