Maine HOA Assessment Limits

Overview

Maine draws a clear line for community associations: the state sets no statutory percentage ceiling on assessment increases. For condominiums, the financial control is procedural, not numeric. The executive board adopts the budget, and that budget takes effect — unless a majority of all unit owners reject it at a ratification meeting. That ratification-by-rejection design anchors the Maine Condominium Act, 33 M.R.S. Chapter 31, enacted in 1981 (PL 1981, c. 699) and modeled on the Uniform Condominium Act.¹ The ratification provision sits in 33 M.R.S. § 1603-103(c).² Regular increases reach owners through that same channel: the board sets the dollar amount in the proposed budget, and owners can block it only by mustering a majority of the entire ownership to vote no.² Special assessments follow the same ratification path, with a narrow emergency exception that lets the board act immediately when the assessment does not exceed two months' common charges.³ On the national spectrum, Maine is a ratification-mechanism state for condominiums — distinct from statutory-cap states like California and from purely declaration-driven states. Its non-condominium associations fall into the declaration-driven group. What follows sets out the statutory framework, the procedures in practice, and the recent legislative and judicial record.

The assessment framework

Authority to levy and allocate assessments

For condominiums, the unit owners' association holds the assessment power. Section 1603-102(a)(2) authorizes the association to adopt and amend budgets for revenues, expenditures, and reserves, and to collect assessments for common expenses from unit owners.⁴ Section 1603-115 directs how those assessments are spread: except for limited categories, common expenses are assessed against all units in accordance with the allocations set in the declaration under section 1602-107.⁵ The statute also handles targeted charges. A common expense for the maintenance, repair, or replacement of a limited common element is assessed against the units it serves; a common expense benefiting fewer than all units is assessed only against those units; and a common expense caused by one owner's misconduct may be assessed exclusively against that owner's unit.⁵ Each association must organize as a nonprofit corporation under Title 13-B, so the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies the corporate governance backdrop.⁶

Non-condominium homeowners associations stand on different ground. Maine has no comprehensive statute for planned-community HOAs. Their assessment authority comes from the recorded declaration and covenants, supplemented by the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act when the association is incorporated — which is the usual case.⁷ No statutory ratification mechanism and no statutory cap exist for these communities; the governing documents control what the board may levy and what owner approval, if any, an increase requires.

Limits on regular assessment increases

Maine imposes no numeric limit on regular assessment increases for condominiums. The constraint is the ratification procedure. Within 30 days after the executive board adopts a proposed budget, the board must provide a summary to all unit owners and set a meeting to consider ratification — no less than 10 nor more than 30 days after mailing the summary.² Unless a majority of all unit owners — or any larger vote specified in the declaration — reject the budget at that meeting, the budget is ratified, whether or not a quorum is present.² If owners reject it, the last ratified budget continues until the board proposes a budget that survives a ratification meeting.²

Two features of this design carry real operational weight. First, the default favors the board: silence, low turnout, or a split vote all result in ratification, because owners must assemble an outright majority of the entire ownership to reject. Second, the percentage of the increase is irrelevant to whether ratification is required. A 3 percent increase and a 30 percent increase travel the same route, and neither runs into any statutory ceiling. That is the sharpest contrast with statutory-cap states. Under California's Davis-Stirling Act, "the board may not impose a regular assessment that is more than 20 percent greater than the regular assessment for the association's preceding fiscal year or impose special assessments which in the aggregate exceed 5 percent of the budgeted gross expenses of the association for that fiscal year without the approval of a majority of a quorum of members."⁸ Maine has no analogous figure. Past-due common expense assessments do carry a statutory interest ceiling: by the text of section 1603-115, a "past due common expense assessment or installment thereof shall bear interest at the rate established by the association not exceeding 18% per year."⁵

For non-condominium HOAs, any limit on regular increases is whatever the declaration provides. Some declarations cap annual increases or require a member vote above a threshold; others leave the board broad discretion. Because no statute supplies a default, the recorded documents are the controlling — and often the only — source of any ceiling.

Special assessments, emergency assessments, and the lien

Section 1603-103(g) governs condominium special assessments. A special assessment is subject to ratification under subsection (c) — the same budget-ratification process described above.³ Two qualifications apply. If any portion of the proposed special assessment is due after the end of the association's current budget year, ratification requires the affirmative approval of a majority in interest of all unit owners — a higher bar than ratification-by-non-rejection.³ And under section 1603-103(g)(2), "if the amount of the special assessment does not exceed 2 months' common charges and the board determines that the assessment is necessary to meet an emergency, the board may make the special assessment immediately in accordance with the terms of the board's vote, without ratification by unit owners."³

The association's collection tool is the assessment lien in section 1603-116. The association holds a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against it or fine imposed on the owner from the time the assessment or fine becomes due, and the lien may be foreclosed like a mortgage.⁹ Recording the declaration perfects the lien; no further recording is required.⁹ The lien holds priority over most other encumbrances, but the statute expressly subordinates it to liens recorded before the declaration, to a first mortgage recorded before or after the assessment becomes delinquent, and to real estate tax and governmental liens.⁹ Maine does not give the association a six-month super-priority over a first mortgage; the association lien is junior to a recorded first mortgage. Under section 1603-116(e), "a lien for unpaid assessments is extinguished unless proceedings to enforce the lien are instituted within 6 years after the full amount of the assessments becomes due."⁹ For non-condominium HOAs, any lien right derives from the declaration and general law, not from section 1603-116.

Assessment limits and procedures in practice

Regular assessment increase procedure

For condominiums, the board adopts a proposed budget, mails a summary to all unit owners within 30 days, and schedules a ratification meeting 10 to 30 days after mailing; the budget, including any increase, is ratified unless a majority of all owners reject it (33 M.R.S. § 1603-103(c)).² For non-condominium HOAs, the increase procedure is whatever the declaration and bylaws specify; no statute imposes a meeting, summary, or ratification step.⁷

Special assessment procedure

For condominiums, a special assessment runs through the same ratification process, except that an assessment with any portion due after the current budget year requires affirmative approval of a majority in interest of all unit owners, and an emergency assessment not exceeding two months' common charges may be levied immediately (33 M.R.S. § 1603-103(g)).³ For non-condominium HOAs, special assessment authority and any owner-approval threshold are declaration-defined.⁷

Caps, ceilings, and override mechanisms

Maine supplies no statutory percentage cap on either regular or special assessments for condominiums; the only statutory ceiling in this area is the 18 percent annual cap on interest charged on past-due assessments (33 M.R.S. § 1603-115).⁵ The owner override is the rejection vote at the ratification meeting (condominiums); there is no statutory override for non-condominium HOAs because there is no statutory cap to override.²

Notice, documentation, and disclosure tied to assessments

For condominiums, the board must mail a budget summary to all unit owners within 30 days of adoption and give 10 to 30 days' notice of the ratification meeting (33 M.R.S. § 1603-103(c)).² On request, the association must furnish a recordable statement of unpaid assessments against a unit within 10 business days, and that statement binds the association (33 M.R.S. § 1603-116(h)).⁹ For non-condominium HOAs, notice and disclosure obligations tied to assessments are set by the declaration and by the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act's general records provisions — not by the Condominium Act.⁷

Recent legislative and judicial activity

Recent bills

No bill enacted in the 131st Legislature (2023–2024) or the 132nd Legislature (2025–2026) amended the assessment, budget-ratification, special-assessment, or assessment-lien provisions of the Maine Condominium Act (33 M.R.S. §§ 1603-103, 1603-115, 1603-116). The codified section histories confirm that the most recent change to the budget-ratification and special-assessment provisions came from Public Law 2015, chapter 122, and the most recent change to the lien provision came from Public Law 2019, chapter 3.¹⁰

One adjacent 2025 enactment has an assessment dimension worth noting, though it does not amend Chapter 31. LD 1133 added a new section 576-A to Title 33, Chapter 10 — the Unit Ownership Act — not the Maine Condominium Act.

Recent appellate rulings

The 2025 decision below concerns the judgment-lien enforcement mechanism in section 1603-117, not the assessment-increase or budget-ratification provisions. It is relevant to associations primarily because the underlying judgment prohibited the defendants from imposing special assessments to satisfy it, and because it clarifies the correct forum for enforcing liens against units. The Law Court did not address any statutory limit on assessment increases.

Active legislative debates

No pending, well-defined proposal exists in Maine to impose a percentage cap on condominium assessment increases or to overhaul the budget-ratification model. No active proposal targets a comprehensive statute for non-condominium HOAs. The Uniform Law Commission has circulated the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act in Maine materials, but Maine has not adopted it.

National positioning and related coverage

Maine occupies the middle band of a three-part national spectrum. Statutory-cap states put hard numbers on board discretion: California limits regular increases to 20 percent and aggregate special assessments to 5 percent of budgeted gross expenses without a member vote.⁸ Ratification-mechanism states — including Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington, which adopted versions of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act — rely on a budget-ratification process rather than a numeric ceiling; Maine belongs to this group for condominiums through 33 M.R.S. § 1603-103(c).² Declaration-driven states, such as Alabama, Arkansas, and Georgia for many of their planned communities, leave assessment limits almost entirely to recorded covenants — which is also where Maine's non-condominium HOAs fall.⁷ In practice, a Maine condominium board has wide latitude on the size of an increase but must respect the ratification timeline, while a non-condominium board is bound only by its own documents.

This page is reviewed quarterly and updated when the Maine Legislature or the Law Court changes the assessment, budget, or lien rules. Associations should also account for the federal framework operating alongside state law, including the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the Bankruptcy Code.

1. Maine Legislature, 33 M.R.S. Chapter 31, Maine Condominium Act (table of sections; PL 1981, c. 699) ↩
2. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-103(c) (budget ratification) ↩
3. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-103(g) (special assessments; emergency exception) ↩
4. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-102 (powers of unit owners' association) ↩
5. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-115 (assessments for common expenses; 18% interest cap) ↩
6. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-101 (organization as nonprofit corporation under Title 13-B) ↩
7. Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act, Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 13-B (governing incorporated non-condominium associations) ↩
8. Cal. Civ. Code § 5605(b) (20% regular / 5% special assessment limits) ↩
9. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 33, § 1603-116 (lien for assessments; first-mortgage priority; 6-year limitation) ↩
10. Me. Pub. L. 2015, ch. 122 (last substantive amendment to § 1603-103 ratification and special-assessment provisions) ↩
11. Maine Legislature, LD 1133 (S.P. 457), 132nd Legis., An Act to Allow Electric Vehicle Charging Stations by Condominium and Residential Associations (enacted as Me. Pub. L. 2025, ch. 280; eff. Jan. 1, 2026) ↩
12. Maples v. Compass Harbor Village Condominium Ass'n, 2025 ME 19 (Me. S.J.C. 2025) ↩