Maine HOA ADUs & Modifications

Section 1: Overview — ADUs and modifications in Maine

Start with what Maine takes out of an association's hands. State law voids any homeowners association or condominium ban on solar energy devices (33 M.R.S. § 1421 et seq.),¹ and, beginning January 1, 2026, it makes void and unenforceable any declaration or bylaw provision that prohibits or unreasonably restricts an electric vehicle charging station in a unit or a limited-common-element parking space (33 M.R.S. § 576-A).² Nearly everything else a member might want to build or change, the recorded declaration governs — subject to a handful of federal overlays. Even the 2022 statewide accessory dwelling unit law runs through municipal zoning and expressly preserves private covenants, so inside an association the declaration controls ADUs.

Which statute applies turns on what a community is and when it formed. A condominium created on or after January 1, 1983 answers to the Maine Condominium Act (33 M.R.S. §§ 1601-101 to 1604-118), which Maine built on the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act.³ A condominium created before that date stays under the older Unit Ownership Act (33 M.R.S. §§ 560 to 587).⁴ A planned community has no comprehensive statute at all; it runs contract-first, on its recorded covenants, on the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 13-B) where the association incorporated, and on common law.⁵

A few throughlines organize the rest. On solar, an association instrument may not stop a member from installing a solar energy device on residential property the member owns, though a narrow reasonable-restriction allowance survives. On ADUs, the question comes in two layers: first the municipal zoning code, then, inside an association, the declaration. And four federal overlays bind every Maine association no matter what the state says — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, the OTARD antenna rule, the Fair Housing Act's reasonable-modification requirement, and ADA Title III for qualifying common areas. The sections that follow lay out the framework, the compliance duties it creates, and the recent activity in the Legislature and the courts.

Section 2: The legal framework

2A. The condominium act and planned-community framework

The Maine Condominium Act took effect January 1, 1983, and it borrows the Uniform Condominium Act's section numbering and structure, sorting the law into four articles: general provisions (Article 1); creation, alteration, and termination (Article 2); management (Article 3); and protection of purchasers (Article 4).³ It governs every condominium created in Maine on or after that date,⁶ and it works mostly as a set of default rules — it fills the gaps where the declaration and bylaws stay silent. A condominium created before January 1, 1983 remains under the Unit Ownership Act unless its owners amended their instruments to opt into the newer act.⁷ And note the limit: Maine adopted the condominium act alone, not the broader Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so do not import UCIOA features that Maine never enacted.

Maine has no comprehensive planned-community statute for non-condominium HOAs. Such a community answers first to its recorded declaration and bylaws; then, because most Maine associations incorporate as nonprofits, to the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 13-B); and finally to common law.⁵ No state agency regulates these associations, and Maine licenses no community-association managers. Enforcement runs through the members and the courts.

In a planned community, the declaration sets architectural-review authority. In a condominium, the Act and the declaration set it together: the Condominium Act lets a unit owner make alterations subject to the declaration (§ 1602-111),⁸ and the declaration may impose its own restrictions on use and alteration (§ 1602-105).⁹ Maine courts read covenants as contracts and presume them enforceable, applying a reasonableness standard that upholds a use restriction so long as some rational justification supports it.¹⁰

2B. Solar and other categories

Solar is the anchor protection. Chapter 28-A of Title 33 (§§ 1421 to 1424) sets a state policy to promote solar energy and to clear away needless obstacles to solar energy devices (§ 1422).¹¹ The operative provision is § 1423. It reaches a legal instrument — and § 1421 defines that term to include the rules, bylaws, or regulations of a homeowners, unit-owners, or condominium-owners association, along with deed restrictions, covenants, and declarations¹ — and it provides that any such instrument adopted after September 30, 2009 may not stop a person from installing or using a solar energy device on residential property the person owns, or a solar clothes-drying device on residential property the person leases or rents.¹² Two limits apply. First, an instrument may still bar solar devices on property held in common with third parties or on a condominium's common elements (§ 1423(3)). Second, an instrument may impose reasonable restrictions, and § 1423(4) spells out what "reasonable" means: a restriction necessary to protect "A. Public health and safety, including... safe access to and rapid evacuation of buildings; B. Buildings from damage; C. Historic or aesthetic values, when an alternative of reasonably comparable cost and convenience is available; or D. Shorelands under shoreland zoning."¹² This HOA-reaching rule stands apart from the solar-easement law at Title 33, Chapter 28 (§§ 1401 to 1402), which governs voluntary easements for sunlight access.¹³

Two other categories carry their own statutes. Low-impact landscaping (Chapter 28-B, § 1451, enacted 2023) provides that a restriction may not place an unreasonable limitation on low-impact landscaping in the parts of a condominium or commonly owned real estate that an owner uses exclusively; § 1451 calls a limitation unreasonable when it significantly raises the cost or cuts the efficiency of low-impact landscaping, or when it requires cultivated vegetation to consist in whole or in part of turf grass — though it still lets an association apply reasonable design and aesthetic guidelines.¹⁴ Electric-vehicle charging comes under § 576-A, effective January 1, 2026: § 576-A(2) makes void and unenforceable any declaration or bylaw provision that prohibits or unreasonably restricts installing or using a charging station in a unit or a limited-common-element parking space.² Maine has no HOA-specific flag statute, so the declaration and the federal flag act govern flag display. Outside these categories, the declaration controls a modification, subject to the federal overlays.

2C. ADUs and federal overlays

Maine's ADU mandate began as LD 2003 (PL 2021, c. 672, effective August 8, 2022) and now sits at 30-A M.R.S. § 4364-B, amended in 2023 (PL 2023, c. 192, LD 1706) and again in 2025 (PL 2025, c. 385, LD 1829).¹⁵ Two-to-four-unit housing lives in § 4364-A; ADUs are § 4364-B.¹⁶ Section 4364-B(3)(A) is the command: "At least one accessory dwelling unit must be allowed on any lot where a single-family dwelling unit is the principal structure," in any area that permits residential use.¹⁵ That is a municipal-zoning mandate, and it binds local government.

The statute answers the covenant-reach question itself. Section 4364-B(11) provides that the section may not be read to interfere with, abrogate, or annul any valid easement, covenant, deed restriction, or private agreement that imposes greater restrictions than the section — so long as that private agreement does not abrogate rights under the United States or Maine Constitution.¹⁷ So the ADU mandate does not override a recorded declaration. Inside an association the declaration controls, and the analysis stays two-layer: municipal zoning, then the declaration. That puts Maine on the opposite side from states that legislate straight into private covenants for ADUs, such as California (Civ. Code § 4751) and Colorado (HB 24-1152).

Four federal overlays bind every Maine association. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 (Pub. L. 109-243) bars a common-interest community from preventing display of the U.S. flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules.¹⁸ The OTARD rule (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000) blocks restrictions that impair installing, maintaining, or using antennas and satellite dishes one meter or less.¹⁹ The Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)) requires an association to permit reasonable modifications for disability, generally at the resident's expense.²⁰ And ADA Title III reaches common-area facilities that qualify as public accommodations.

Section 3: Compliance obligations created by the framework

A. Architectural review process obligations

In a planned community, review authority comes from the declaration. In a condominium, it comes from the Maine Condominium Act working with the declaration: § 1602-111 allows owner alterations subject to the declaration, and § 1602-105 permits use-and-alteration restrictions.⁸ Where the declaration lays out an application-and-decision procedure, the association must follow it, and issuing written decisions strengthens enforceability. For condominiums, § 1603-118 requires the association to make records available on ten days' written notice that reasonably identifies them, and § 1603-118(a)(10) specifically requires it to keep records of executive-board or committee actions that approve or deny a unit owner's design or architectural request.²¹

B. Modifications the association must permit

Six things a Maine association generally must permit:

• Solar. An association instrument may not prohibit a solar energy device on owner-occupied residential property, or a solar clothes-drying device on leased property. That void of prohibitions is separate from the reasonable-restriction allowance, which permits only health-and-safety, building-protection, comparable-alternative historic-or-aesthetic, and shoreland limits (§§ 1421 to 1423) — subject, for a condominium, to the common-element exception in § 1423(3).¹²
• EV charging. Effective January 1, 2026, § 576-A(2) voids any declaration or bylaw provision that prohibits or unreasonably restricts a charging station in a unit or a limited-common-element parking space.²
• Low-impact landscaping. Section 1451 bars an unreasonable limitation on low-impact landscaping in areas of exclusive owner use, while still allowing reasonable design guidelines.¹⁴
• U.S. flag. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 bars any prohibition on displaying the U.S. flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules.¹⁸
• Antennas. OTARD (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000) bars restrictions that impair covered antennas and small dishes.¹⁹
• Disability modifications. The Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)) requires the association to permit reasonable modifications, generally at the resident's expense, and ADA Title III reaches qualifying common-area public accommodations.²⁰

C. ADU obligations and limits on HOA authority

The municipal-zoning mandate (30-A M.R.S. § 4364-B) binds the municipality, which must allow at least one ADU on a qualifying lot; it does not bind the association.¹⁵ Section 4364-B(11) preserves private covenants that impose greater restrictions, so the association's declaration governs ADUs inside the community — the covenant-reach question resolves in the declaration's favor.¹⁷

D. Enforcement, dispute resolution, and appeal obligations

On notice and the chance to be heard, the Act or the declaration sets whatever notice and hearing enforcement requires, and the association must follow the procedure its documents lay down. On assessment liens, § 1603-116 gives a condominium association a lien for unpaid assessments, enforceable by foreclosure.²² On the appellate path, trial-level disputes move through the Maine Superior Court (and District Court), and appeals go straight to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sitting as the Law Court — Maine keeps no intermediate appellate court.²³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Two enacted bills define the recent legislative picture in Maine. One reworks the state's accessory dwelling unit rules; the other, for the first time, hands owners a qualified right to charge an electric vehicle. Neither one gives a board new power to say no.

For context, the original 2022 ADU mandate — LD 2003 (PL 2021, c. 672) — is what § 4364-B now codifies.²⁵

B. Recent appellate rulings

Two Law Court decisions this year turned on procedure and on an owner's right to be heard, not on any new modification right. Both grew out of assessment foreclosures, and both show how disability-accommodation claims collide with an association's collection powers.

For covenant-enforcement standards outside the condominium context, State v. Moosehead Mountain Resort, Inc., 2024 ME 50, confirms that Maine construes restrictive covenants as enforceable where some rational justification supports the restriction.¹⁰

C. Active legislative debates

Housing-density expansion is still live in Augusta. The LD 1829 amendments phase in through 2027, and lawmakers keep circling ADU financing and unit counts. But as of the last verification date, no pending proposal reaches into association covenants for solar, EV, or ADU review.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Maine sits toward the protective end on solar. It voids association prohibitions on solar energy devices (33 M.R.S. § 1421 et seq.), and it has lately added an EV-charging protection (§ 576-A) — while it leaves most other modifications, and ADUs inside associations, to the recorded declaration, on a Uniform Condominium Act framework with no planned-community statute. On ADUs, Maine is the mirror image of the HOA-preemption states: § 4364-B(11) preserves private covenants, where California (Civ. Code § 4751) and Colorado (HB 24-1152) reach into them. On solar, Maine's void-of-prohibitions rule lines it up with strong-protection states such as California and Hawaii. For a multi-state operator, the practical read is straightforward: in Maine an association cannot prohibit solar; condominiums split at the 1983 cutoff between the Condominium Act and the Unit Ownership Act; planned communities are contract-first; and appeals go directly to the Law Court.

This coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the Law Court act. And remember the constant underneath all of it: the federal frameworks — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, OTARD, the Fair Housing Act, and the ADA — apply to Maine associations no matter what the state framework says.

1. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1421 (Solar Rights definitions, including associations) ↩
2. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 576-A (electric vehicle charging stations; PL 2025, c. 280) ↩
3. Maine Condominium Act, Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1601-101 (short title; PL 1981, c. 699) ↩
4. Unit Ownership Act, Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 560 et seq. ↩
5. Maine Revised Statutes (Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act, tit. 13-B; no CAM-licensing chapter) ↩
6. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1601-116 (effective January 1, 1983) ↩
7. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1601-102 (applicability to pre-1983 condominiums) ↩
8. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1602-111 (alterations of units) ↩
9. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1602-105 (contents of declaration; use and alteration restrictions) ↩
10. State v. Moosehead Mountain Resort, Inc., 2024 ME 50 ↩
11. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1422 (Solar Rights policy) ↩
12. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1423 (use and installation; prohibitions barred; reasonable restrictions in § 1423(4)) ↩
13. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, ch. 28 (Solar Easements, §§ 1401-1402, distinct from ch. 28-A) ↩
14. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1451 (Protection of low-impact landscaping; PL 2023, c. 376) ↩
15. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 30-A, § 4364-B (accessory dwelling units) ↩
16. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 30-A, § 4364-A (residential areas; up to 4 dwelling units) ↩
17. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 30-A, § 4364-B(11) (restrictive covenants preserved) ↩
18. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 ↩
19. Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 (FCC) ↩
20. HUD/DOJ Joint Statement on Reasonable Modifications, Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3) ↩
21. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-118 (association records; § 1603-118(a)(10) design/architectural-approval records) ↩
22. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-116 (lien for assessments) ↩
23. Maine Judicial Branch, Court Structure (Superior/District trial courts; Supreme Judicial Court sitting as the Law Court) ↩
24. L.D. 1829, 132d Leg. (Me. 2025); PL 2025, c. 385 (bill status) ↩
25. Me. Dep't of Econ. & Cmty. Dev., LD 2003 Guidance (Feb. 2023) ↩
26. Tidewater Loft Condo. Ass'n v. Moskal-Kanz, 2026 ME 46 ↩
27. Oak Hill Condos. v. Marchetti, 2026 ME 31 ↩