Maine related & miscellaneous statutes

This is the most commonly believed wrong thing about Maine property law right now. Maine's housing reforms require municipalities to allow additional dwelling units in areas where residential use is permitted (§ 4364-A) and to allow accessory dwelling units (§ 4364-B). The four-unit figure everyone quotes is conditional, and § 4364-A(1) is currently printed by the Revisor in two conflicting versions: under the 2025, c. 385 text a municipality must allow at a minimum three units per lot, and four only where the lot is in a designated growth area or served by a central water system and a comparable sewer system; under the 2025, c. 388 text the floor is two units on a lot with no existing dwelling, and four only on the same growth-area or water-and-sewer condition. A great many owners have concluded that the State has therefore overridden their subdivision's covenants.

It has done the opposite, in terms, in both statutes. Each carries a subsection headed Restrictive covenants, and they read alike: the section “may not be construed to interfere with, abrogate or annul the validity or enforceability of any valid and enforceable easement, covenant, deed restriction or other agreement or instrument between private parties that imposes greater restrictions than those provided in this section, as long as the agreement does not abrogate rights under the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Maine” (§ 4364-A(8); § 4364-B(11) is materially identical).

So the two operate on different targets. These laws bind municipalities — they stop a town's zoning ordinance forbidding what the State wants allowed. They do not touch a private declaration. If your covenants forbid an accessory dwelling unit, the ADU statute is not the answer, and the statute says so itself.

The one limit on that. The saving clause protects a private agreement only so far as it does not “abrogate rights under the United States Constitution or the Constitution of Maine.” That is a narrow carve-out, not a general reasonableness test.

Contrast the statutes that do tell your documents what they may not say. Housing density is not among them. There are four, plus the Maine Human Rights Act, and every one carries a condition:

• Solar energy and solar clothes-drying devices — 33 M.R.S. § 1423, reaching only an instrument adopted or created after 30 September 2009, and letting an instrument ban solar devices on condominium common elements. Of the four this is the only one that plainly reaches an ordinary subdivision association: § 1421(1)(B) names “[r]ules, bylaws or regulations of an association of property owners, including but not limited to a homeowners association”.
• Low-impact landscaping — § 1451, reaching only a condominium or “real estate subject to common ownership”, which requires the common portion to be held as undivided interests by the owners of the separate portions. A subdivision whose common land sits in the association's own name does not match that on its face.
• Political signs in an election window — § 576(10) and § 1603-106(c). Both are condominium provisions: one binds “[a]n association of unit owners”, the other “[a]n association” under the Condominium Act. Neither reaches a subdivision HOA.
• Electric vehicle charging — § 576-A, in force since 1 January 2026 and the bluntest of the four: a conflicting declaration or bylaw provision is “void and unenforceable” and the prevailing party in an enforcement action must be awarded fees. It sits in the Unit Ownership Act, so on the statutes as they stand it reaches a pre-1983 condominium that never opted in, and nothing else.

And the Maine Human Rights Act belongs on the list too, even though it is not usually described this way: 5 M.R.S. § 4582-A(2) requires reasonable accommodations “in rules, policies, practices or services”, and § 4582-A(1) and (3) do the same for physical modifications and assistance animals. Those override an association's rules by force of statute.

Maine covenants are durable. That is worth saying plainly, because in some states an old restriction simply expires. Here it does not.

Twenty years to sue on a breach of covenant. § 817(1): “An action on a breach of covenants in any deed or other instrument for the conveyance of real property in this State or any interest therein must be commenced within 20 years after the cause of action accrues.” That applies to deeds and instruments executed on or after 7 October 1967.

There is an escape hatch for older unsealed instruments, and it has closed for most people. § 817(2) let a party to an instrument not executed under seal, whose six-year period had already expired, preserve the shorter period by recording a prescribed notice — but only within 12 months of the effective date of the section, with a further one-year window for the other side to file a sworn claim and 180 days to bring a declaratory judgment action. The full text and the statutory form of notice are in the statute; the deadlines are long past for anyone who did not act.

The general periods sit behind it. Civil actions generally: six years after the cause of action accrues, “except as otherwise specially provided” (§ 752) — and § 817 is exactly such a special provision. Real or mixed actions to recover land, or entry on it: twenty years (§ 801).

What Maine does not have. Title 33 contains no marketable title act — no chapter that sweeps ordinary restrictive covenants off the title after a period of years — and no statute frees property of a restriction because a violation went unchallenged. (One narrow statutory cut-off does exist and is worth knowing if your deed uses the old defeasible-fee form: under § 116(1), a fee simple determinable, or a fee simple subject to a right of entry for condition broken, becomes a fee simple absolute if the specified contingency does not occur within 30 years of the estate becoming possessory — with public, charitable and religious purposes and grants to the State excepted by § 116(3). That reaches a reverter or right of entry, not a covenant or equitable servitude.) The phrase surfaces once in the twelve held Titles, and only as a shield pointing outward: 38 M.R.S. § 3009(4), in the Uniform Environmental Covenants Act, says an environmental covenant “may not be extinguished, limited or impaired by application of laws governing marketable title and dormant mineral interests.” That is boilerplate the uniform act carries into every state that adopts it; it does not create a marketable title act in Maine, and it says nothing about ordinary private covenants. Compare Louisiana, whose Civil Code frees the property of a building restriction two years after a noticeable violation goes unchallenged — a rule with no Maine counterpart. In Maine the covenant survives; what runs out is the time to sue on a particular breach.

A private transfer fee is a charge payable every time the property changes hands, fixed or as a percentage, “payable upon the transfer of an interest in real property, or payable for the right to make or accept such a transfer” (§ 163(1)(A)).

Maine voids them going forward. An obligation recorded or entered into on or after the section's effective date “does not run with the title to real property and is not binding on or enforceable at law or in equity against any subsequent owner, purchaser, mortgagee or holder of any interest in real property as an equitable servitude or otherwise”, and is “void and unenforceable” (§ 163(2)).

Note the careful sentence at the end of that subsection. It “may not be construed to mean that a private transfer fee obligation recorded or entered into in connection with real property located in this State before the effective date of this section is presumed valid and enforceable” The Legislature declined to bless older ones by implication; it left them where they were.

Now the carve-out that matters to every association, and it is explicit. “Private transfer fee” does not include “[a]ny fee, charge, assessment, fine or other amount payable to a homeowners association, condominium owners association, cooperative, mobile home owners association or property owners association pursuant to a declaration or covenant or law applicable to such an association for the maintenance, improvements, services or expenses related to real property that is owned, used or enjoyed in common by the members” (§ 163(1)(A)(7)). Ordinary assessments, fines and dues are outside the ban.

Nine other things are outside it too, including the seller's own consideration where it is one-off and does not bind successors, a licensed broker's commission, lender charges under a mortgage, lease and option charges, governmental charges, club membership amounts, obligations under affordable housing covenants (ch. 6) or working waterfront covenants (ch. 6-A), and a fee to a Maine nonprofit whose sole purpose is supporting cultural, educational, charitable, recreational, conservation or preservation activities benefiting the property, used exclusively for that.

The remedies attached to it. § 163(3) makes a person who records a post-effective-date transfer fee obligation liable for all damages and attorney's fees, and § 163(5) requires a sale contract to disclose any private transfer fee obligation, makes a non-conforming contract unenforceable by the seller, gives the buyer damages plus fees, and voids any waiver.

One incidental point of interest. § 163(1)(A)(7) is the only place in the twelve Titles held for this project where the phrase “property owners association” appears — and it appears in order to exclude such associations from a ban aimed at something else. The Legislature knows the term; it has simply never legislated for them.

An association may require a buyer to fund an escrow. Under § 1603-115-A(a) a Condominium Act association may require a person who purchases a unit after 1 October 2009 to make payments into an escrow account it establishes, until the balance for that unit equals six months of assessments as set under § 1603-115.

Where the money has to sit, and what you may ask. Payments received after that date must be held at a bank or other financial institution “under terms that place these assessment payments beyond the claim of creditors of the association” — and on request by a unit owner the association must disclose the name of the institution and the account number (§ 1603-115-A(b)). A single account may hold all owners' payments.

It earns interest, at a rate borrowed from banking law. The association “shall pay interest on the assessment payments under this section in an amount equivalent to the rate required under Title 9-B, section 429” (subsection (c)). Section 429 is Maine's residential mortgage escrow account provision, which requires a mortgagee to pay at least quarterly at a rate not less than 50% of the one-year Treasury Bill secondary market rate, computed on daily balances and not reducible by any service or maintenance charge. The Condominium Act borrows that rate; it does not import the rest of the section.

It is a Condominium Act power, so check which Act you are under. § 1603-115-A is not among the eleven sections § 1601-102(a) reaches back to pre-1983 condominiums. A condominium created before 1 January 1983 that never amended its way into the modern Act has no statutory escrow power — unlike the resale certificate at § 1604-108, which does reach back.

You get it back when you sell. The association must return the payments with the interest earned when the owner sells and has fully paid all assessments — and may use the balance to offset anything left unpaid (subsection (d)). Meanwhile it may use the fund to cover up to six months of the costs attributable to a unit whose payments have not been made (subsection (e)).

The ceiling is changing. Section 7482 is printed by the Revisor with two versions. Until 1 January 2026 a small claim is one where “the debt or damage does not exceed $6,000 exclusive of interest and costs”; from that date the figure is $10,000. The later version also directs the Legislature's judiciary committee to review the limit every four years.

Trap one: title to real estate is excluded. Both versions end the same way — a small claim “does not include an action involving the title to real estate.” A money claim for unpaid assessments is one thing; enforcing a lien against the unit is another.

Trap two: shaving your claim to fit costs you the rest. § 7485: any fact found or issue adjudicated in a small claims proceeding “may not be deemed found or adjudicated for the purpose of any other cause of action”, and the judgment is res judicata as to the amount in controversy — but “[i]f a plaintiff has reduced the amount of a claim or contract to meet the jurisdictional limits of this chapter, the judgment obtained is res judicata as to the full amount of the debt or contract in controversy.” Reduce a $9,000 claim to fit a $6,000 ceiling and you have adjudicated the whole $9,000. “The only recourse from an adverse decision is by appeal.”

Venue is the District Court division where the transaction occurred, where the defendant resides or has a place of business, or — for a corporation or partnership — where its registered agent resides (§ 7483).

And a debt collector cannot use small claims at all. 32 M.R.S. § 11021: “A debt collector may not commence a collection action against a consumer to collect a debt in small claims court pursuant to Title 14, chapter 738.” Where the Maine Fair Debt Collection Practices Act reaches whoever is collecting — a collection agency, an association writing under a name that is not its own, or a lawyer whose principal activities include collecting debts, whom § 11002 brings in and makes subject to the subchapter containing § 11021 — this route is closed to them. It is not closed to an association collecting in its own name.

Maine's consumer statute is short and its remedy is unusually strong. § 207: “Unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are declared unlawful” to be construed in line with Federal Trade Commission and federal court interpretations of section 45(a)(1) of the FTC Act.

Who may sue. § 213(1) gives a private action to a person who “purchases or leases goods, services or property, real or personal, primarily for personal, family or household purposes” and suffers a loss of money or property as a result. Relief runs to actual damages, restitution and equitable relief including an injunction, with a right to jury trial in Superior Court.

The step people miss. § 213(1-A): at least 30 days before filing an action for damages, a written demand for relief identifying the claimant and reasonably describing the practice complained of and the injuries suffered must be mailed or delivered to the prospective respondent at their last known address. Skip it and the action is exposed. The requirement does not apply where the claim is a counterclaim or cross claim.

And the settlement-offer squeeze. If the judgment you obtain is not more favourable than a tender of settlement or offer of judgment you rejected, you cannot recover attorney's fees or costs incurred after it.

Fees are mandatory on a finding of violation. § 213(2): if the court finds a violation of § 207, the petitioner “shall, in addition to other relief provided for by this section and irrespective of the amount in controversy, be awarded reasonable attorney's fees and costs” That is a shall, and it is not capped by the size of the claim.

The threshold question is whether the conduct is “trade or commerce” and whether what you acquired was acquired primarily for personal, family or household purposes. Nothing in the held source applies those words to an association's dealings with its own members, so whether they fit is a question for a Maine lawyer, not one this page answers.

Maine's residential property disclosure duty is itemised, and it is mostly about the building. Section 173 requires a seller of residential real property, unless exempt under § 172, to give the purchaser a property disclosure statement. The live list is: the water supply system; the heating system or source with its age, servicer, last service call and annual fuel consumption; the waste disposal system; hazardous materials; any known defects; access; flood hazard, added in 2023 and covering the flood zone, past flood events, flood damage, insurance claims and disaster aid; and, from 2025, shoreland zoning violations, pending enforcement, litigation and judgments. Subsection 2, insulation, was repealed in 2005 and only its catchline survives in the printed section.

The association question is about the road, and only the road. Where access to the property is by “[a]ny means other than a public way”, the seller must disclose information about who is responsible for maintenance of the means of access, “including any responsible road association, if known by the seller” (§ 173(6)(B); § 193(3)(B) carries the same requirement for nonresidential property, which is what subchapter 1-B is about). If you are buying on a private way, that is the disclosure that tells you a road association exists — and what it can charge you is governed by 23 M.R.S. §§ 3101 to 3121.

What Maine's disclosure statute does not require, and this is the finding. A reading of the disclosure sections finds no requirement that a seller disclose membership of a homeowners or condominium association at all — no obligation to say that the buyer will be a member, that the property is subject to a declaration or covenants, or what the assessments are. The road association is the only association a seller must name.

One recorded covenant obligation does have to be disclosed, and it is not in ch. 7. § 163(5)(A): a contract for the sale of property subject to a private transfer fee obligation — which § 163(1)(B) defines as one arising under a recorded declaration or covenant — must disclose that obligation and describe it. A contract that does not “is not enforceable by the seller”, the buyer owes no damages and gets any deposit back, § 163(5)(B) adds damages and fees for non-disclosure, and § 163(5)(C) voids any waiver. Ordinary assessments are carved out of the definition by § 163(1)(A)(7), so this does not reach your dues — but it is a real disclosure duty attached to a recorded covenant.

For condominiums the gap is filled elsewhere. The Condominium Act requires a seller to furnish the declaration, bylaws and rules plus a resale certificate covering the monthly assessment, anything unpaid, other fees, anticipated capital expenditures and reserves (§ 1604-108) — and that section reaches every Maine condominium, including pre-1983 ones, under § 1601-102(a). For a house in a covenanted subdivision there is no equivalent. Ask for the declaration, the bylaws, the rules, the budget and a statement of any unpaid amounts before you sign; no statute obliges anyone to hand them to you.