Maine HOA fine rules

What this means for homeowners

• Maine has no homeowners association act. For a subdivision of separately owned lots governed by recorded covenants rather than by a condominium declaration, no Maine statute requires the association to give notice before levying a fine, sets a cure period, guarantees a hearing, or caps the amount of a fine. Whether such an association may fine at all, how much, and what steps it must take first are set by the recorded declaration, covenants, bylaws and rules, together with whatever corporate statute the association is organized under, which supplies organizational mechanics rather than fine procedure.
• Maine's only common-interest-community statute is the Maine Condominium Act, 33 M.R.S. ch. 31, and it does not reach a non-condominium development. Under that Act the association may "Impose charges for late payment of assessments and, after notice and an opportunity to be heard, levy reasonable fines for violations of the declaration, bylaws and rules and regulations of the association" (33 M.R.S. § 1603-102(a)(11)). The Act stops there: it sets no cure period before a fine, no number of days within which an owner must ask to be heard, no deadline for holding the hearing, no procedure or presiding officer for it, no required contents or delivery method for the notice, and no dollar cap beyond the word "reasonable." The Act separately limits collection by suspension — the association may "Suspend any right or privilege of a unit owner that fails to pay an assessment, but may not: (A) Deny a unit owner or other occupant access to the unit owner's unit; or (B) Withhold services provided to a unit or a unit owner by the association if the effect of withholding the service would be to endanger the health, safety or property of any person" (§ 1603-102(a)(18)) — and provides that "Except 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" (§ 1601-104).
• The condominium fine power reaches back to older condominiums as well as new ones. Section 1601-102(a) applies the Act to condominiums created after its effective date, and then lists sections — including "1603‑102, subsection (a) paragraphs (1) through (6) and (11) through (16) Powers of unit owners' association," "1603‑116 Lien for assessments" and "1603‑118 Association records" — that "apply to all condominiums created in this State before the effective date of this Act; but those sections apply only with respect to events and circumstances occurring after the effective date of this Act and do not invalidate provisions of declarations, bylaws, floor plans, surveys or duly adopted administrative rules and regulations existing on the effective date of this Act." Maine's earlier unit ownership statute, 33 M.R.S. ch. 10, subchapter 1 (§§ 560 to 588, § 588 repealed), governs condominiums created before the Condominium Act and contains no fine, notice, cure-period or hearing provision among its sections; its enforcement section is § 566 (compliance with bylaws and rules and regulations), its records section is § 577, and a 2025 act added § 576-A (electric vehicle charging stations allowed).
• Two Maine statutes limit what any common-ownership governing instrument may restrict, and one of them is drawn more broadly than the condominium acts. On landscaping, "A restriction may not put an unreasonable limitation on low-impact landscaping on any portion of a condominium or real estate subject to common ownership that is not subject to common ownership and that the owner has the right to exclusive use of as long as the owner maintains and regularly tends to the low-impact landscaping" (33 M.R.S. § 1451(2)); "restriction" there "includes any covenant, restriction or condition contained in a deed, declaration, contract, bylaw, rule or other instrument governing activities on real estate within a condominium or real estate subject to common ownership" (§ 1451(1)(D)), and an "unreasonable limitation" "includes a limitation that significantly increases the cost of low-impact landscaping, significantly decreases the efficiency of low-impact landscaping or requires cultivated vegetation to consist in whole or in part of turf grass" (§ 1451(1)(E)); the section "may not be construed to prohibit a restriction relating to reasonable design and aesthetic guidelines regarding the type, number and location of low-impact landscaping features" and "does not apply to a restriction on historic property that is listed in or determined by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission to be eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places" (§ 1451(3)). The reach of that phrase has a limit that determines whether it reaches a particular development: "Real estate subject to common ownership" is defined to mean "residential real estate, portions of which are designated for separate ownership and the remainder of which is designated for common ownership solely by the owners of those portions and that common ownership is in the form of undivided interests in that common portion" (§ 1451(1)(C)), so the section reaches a non-condominium development only where the common land is actually held by the lot owners in undivided interests, and not a subdivision whose lots are owned outright and tied together only by covenants with no commonly owned portion. On solar, a legal instrument "adopted or created after September 30, 2009 that defines or limits the rights or privileges of owners or renters with respect to the use of residential property" (§ 1423(1)) "may not prohibit a person from installing or using: A. A solar energy device on residential property owned by that person; or B. A solar clothes-drying device on residential property leased or rented by that person" (§ 1423(2)), subject to a common-property exception (§ 1423(3)) and to "reasonable restrictions" for health and safety, protection of buildings from damage, historic or aesthetic values where a comparable alternative exists, and shoreland zoning (§ 1423(4)). Neither section concerns fines. On records, the condominium side gives owners a detailed right: all retained records "must be available for examination and copying by a unit owner or the unit owner's authorized agent" "During reasonable business hours or at a mutually convenient time and location" and "Upon 10 days' notice in writing reasonably identifying the specific records of the association requested" (§ 1603-118(b)), subject to eight withholding categories in § 1603-118(c) including "Individual unit files other than those of the requesting unit owner."