Maine HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview — Fining authority in Maine

Maine splits fining authority down the middle. Condominiums answer to a state statute. Planned communities answer to a private contract. Here's why that distinction matters: the Maine Condominium Act draws on the Uniform Condominium Act and reaches condominiums by its own terms, while planned communities have no comprehensive statute of their own, so their fining power comes straight from the CC&Rs. And when a fine dispute gets appealed, it skips a step most other states take for granted — Maine has no intermediate appellate court, so the case goes directly to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court.

Look at the statute itself. The Maine Condominium Act, 33 M.R.S. § 1601-101 et seq. (Title 33, Chapter 31), reaches condominiums only. Planned communities and other non-condominium associations govern themselves through recorded declarations and bylaws instead; the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 13-B) supplies corporate formalities — board meetings, recordkeeping — but grants no fining power of its own.

For condominiums, the statute sets one real limit: any fine has to be "reasonable," and it has to follow notice and an opportunity to be heard. Maine sets no statutory dollar cap. That leads to the question every board eventually asks: can an unpaid fine become a lien and support foreclosure? Under Maine's condominium statute, it can — the table below and Section 3C spell out how. This page covers fining mechanics for both tracks; the table that follows summarizes them at a glance.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

The table below lays out Maine's fining mechanics at a glance. The Condominiums column reflects the Maine Condominium Act, 33 M.R.S. § 1601-101 et seq.; the Planned Communities column reflects the CC&R-derived framework that applies because Maine has never enacted a comprehensive planned-community statute. Section 3 sources every value in the detailed discussion that follows.

Condominiums column reflects the Maine Condominium Act (33 M.R.S. § 1601-101 et seq.); Planned Communities are CC&R-derived. Appeals go to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court sitting as the Law Court (no intermediate appellate court). Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

For condominiums, the statute itself grants the fining authority. Under 33 M.R.S. § 1603-102(a)(11), a unit owners' association may "[i]mpose 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."¹ The statute grants that power "[s]ubject to the provisions of the declaration," so a condominium's recorded declaration can narrow it or add conditions. The Maine Condominium Act, which lawmakers enacted as PL 1981, c. 699, counts among the state enactments that build on the Uniform Condominium Act — the model condominium statute the Uniform Law Commission wrote and that 14 states have adopted. Section 1603-102(a)(11) serves as Maine's version of the UCA fining provision, and the Act directs, at 33 M.R.S. § 1601-110, that it "shall be applied and construed so as to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this Act among states enacting it."² Maine never adopted the broader Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, so the statutory fining framework reaches condominiums only.

The Act took effect on January 1, 1983.³ Its applicability provision, 33 M.R.S. § 1601-102, reaches condominiums created after that date automatically, and condominiums created earlier only if they amend their instruments to opt in. But an enumerated set of sections carves out an exception — § 1603-102(a) paragraphs (1) through (6) and (11) through (16), plus the lien provision at § 1603-116 — and applies those to pre-1983 condominiums for events occurring after the effective date.⁴ In practice, that means the statutory fining power and the assessment lien reach both post-1983 condominiums and, for later conduct, pre-1983 condominiums too. Condominiums created before 1983 that never opted in otherwise remain under the older Maine Unit Ownership Act, 33 M.R.S. § 560 et seq. (Title 33, Chapter 10).⁵

For planned communities and other non-condominium associations, no statutory fining authority exists at all. Maine has enacted no comprehensive planned-community or common-interest-ownership statute, so a planned community's power to fine exists only if, and only to the extent, its recorded declaration and bylaws create it. Where such an association incorporates, the Maine Nonprofit Corporation Act (Title 13-B) supplies corporate formalities — governance, record-keeping — but grants no fining authority of its own.⁶ As for the amount of a condominium fine, the statute imposes a reasonableness standard and no dollar cap. The word "reasonable" in § 1603-102(a)(11) is the operative ceiling, full stop — no statutory per-violation limit, no statutory aggregate limit.¹

3B. The required fining procedure

For condominiums, the statutory predicate reads precise but minimal: § 1603-102(a)(11) permits a fine only "after notice and an opportunity to be heard."¹ The Act sets no minimum notice period, no cure period, no deadline for requesting or holding a hearing, and no requirement that the board deliver its decision in writing. Where those procedural specifics exist at all, they come from the individual condominium's declaration, bylaws, and duly adopted rules. The Act stays just as quiet on per-day or continuing fines — whether an association can impose escalating or recurring fines for an ongoing violation depends entirely on its governing documents, always bounded by the statutory reasonableness standard. And the Act requires no condominium to adopt or publish a fine schedule.

For planned communities, the procedure runs entirely on contract. No statute governs, so the declaration and bylaws supply any required notice and hearing, backed by the common-law expectation that an association enforcing its covenants act reasonably and give an owner real notice and a chance to respond. No statutory notice period or hearing deadline applies to a planned community — unless the declaration sets one.

Here's the practical bottom line: an enforceable Maine condominium fine depends on following the Act's notice-and-hearing predicate, and an enforceable planned-community fine depends on what the declaration says. Either way, a challenge lands first in the trial courts — the Superior Court, a court of general jurisdiction, or the District Court — with any appeal going straight to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court; Maine has no intermediate appellate court in between.⁷ The Law Court's 2026 decision in Tidewater Loft Condominium Association v. Moskal-Kanz drives the point home: the notice-and-hearing and broader procedural-due-process requirements get enforced on review. The court vacated a condominium foreclosure judgment because the trial court never let the owner be heard on her counterclaim.⁸

3C. Enforcement of unpaid fines: assessments, liens, and foreclosure

This is the highest-value, highest-risk parameter on the page, and the Maine Condominium Act doesn't hedge. Under 33 M.R.S. § 1603-116(a), "[t]he association has a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against that unit or fines imposed against its unit owner from the time the assessment or fine becomes due," and "[u]nless the declaration otherwise provides, fees, charges, late charges, fines and interest charged pursuant to section 1603-102, subsection (a), paragraphs (10), (11) and (12) are enforceable as assessments under this section."⁴ Fines therefore sit squarely inside the condominium assessment lien — the association can collect them as assessments, and it can foreclose to get them. The same subsection adds that "[t]he association's lien may be foreclosed in like manner as a mortgage on real estate," so a fine-only balance can, in principle, go through Maine's judicial mortgage-foreclosure procedure.

Priority is exactly where Maine departs from many UCA and UCIOA states. Under § 1603-116(b), the association's lien outranks most other encumbrances, but it expressly yields to "[a] first mortgage recorded before or after the date on which the assessment sought to be enforced becomes delinquent," along with prior recorded encumbrances and real-estate-tax liens.⁴ Maine has never enacted a six-month "super-lien" that would give the association limited priority over a first mortgage. Lawmakers tried: LD 994 (HP 689) in the 127th Legislature, "An Act To Create a Priority Lien Securing 6 Months of Assessments under the Maine Condominium Act," would have added 33 M.R.S. § 1603-116, sub-§(k), providing that "a lien under this section securing priority amounts is prior to a first mortgage." An earlier version, LD 1332 (HP 978), appeared in the 125th Legislature. Neither super-lien measure passed, so the statute as written still hands the first mortgage priority.⁹ And a lien for unpaid assessments — fines enforceable as assessments included — expires unless the association begins enforcement proceedings "within 6 years after the full amount of the assessments becomes due," under § 1603-116(e).⁴

Planned communities get no statutory assessment lien at all. Lien and foreclosure rights exist only if the recorded declaration creates them. Without a declaration that does, a planned-community association has no lien on a lot for unpaid fines and no statutory foreclosure remedy — it has to pursue an ordinary contract or money action instead.

On suspension of rights, the Maine Condominium Act hands associations one limited tool. Under § 1603-102(a)(18), an association may "[s]uspend any right or privilege of a unit owner that fails to pay an assessment," though it may not deny the owner or occupant access to the unit or withhold services that would endanger health, safety, or property.¹ That suspension power keys off nonpayment of an assessment specifically, not rule violations generally, and like the rest of § 1603-102, an association exercises it subject to the declaration. For planned communities, any suspension of voting or amenity rights comes entirely from the declaration.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill enacted in the past 24 months amended the Maine Condominium Act's fining provision at § 1603-102(a)(11), its notice-and-hearing requirement, or its lien provision at § 1603-116. One resolve came close enough to the topic that it's worth flagging below.

B. Recent rulings

C. Active legislative debates

The central open question is whether Maine moves beyond a condominium-only statute. Resolve 2025, chapter 167 directs a commission to study adopting the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act — a step that, if lawmakers take it, could extend statutory notice-and-hearing, lien, and priority rules to planned communities for the first time. The commission's report is due by December 1, 2026, and any resulting legislation would go to the 133rd Legislature in 2027.¹⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Maine sits squarely in the middle of the national spectrum on fining authority. The Community Associations Institute counts 14 states that adopted the Uniform Condominium Act, against just 9 that enacted the fuller Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act. Maine falls into the first group — a UCA state that never adopted UCIOA — so it carries a modern statutory fining framework for condominiums and no comprehensive statute for planned communities at all.² That sets Maine apart from full UCIOA states such as Alaska, Colorado, and Minnesota (1982-version adopters) and Connecticut (a 2008-version state), whose statutes reach planned communities directly, and apart from comprehensive two-statute states such as Florida and Arizona that regulate both condominiums and planned communities in detail. Because Maine's planned-community track runs entirely on contract, whether a fine holds up there depends on the language of the individual recorded declaration — and that language demands a close read every time. Maine's court structure stands out too: with no intermediate appellate court, an appealed fine dispute goes straight to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, which shapes how quickly, and by which body, these disputes get resolved for good.

HOA Weekly updates its Maine Fining Authority coverage every quarter as the Legislature and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court act. Federal frameworks reach Maine associations too, regardless of what the state framework says — the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act can govern third-party collection of fines, and the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule all apply as well; a forthcoming federal-law analysis will cover each of them in depth.

1. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1603-102, Powers of unit owners' association ↩
2. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1601-110, Uniformity of application and construction; Community Associations Institute, Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (14 UCA states, 9 UCIOA states; Maine listed as a UCA state) ↩
3. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1601-116, Effective date ↩
4. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1603-116, Lien for assessments; Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1601-102, Applicability ↩
5. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 560 et seq., Maine Unit Ownership Act (Chapter 10) ↩
6. Maine Legislature, Maine Revised Statutes tit. 33, § 1603-101, Organization of unit owners' association ↩
7. Maine Judicial Branch, Appeals ↩
8. Tidewater Loft Condominium Association v. Moskal-Kanz, 2026 ME 46 (Me. May 21, 2026) ↩
9. Maine Legislature, LD 994 (HP 689), 127th Legislature, An Act To Create a Priority Lien Securing 6 Months of Assessments under the Maine Condominium Act (not enacted) ↩
10. Maine Legislature, LD 760 (SP 301), 132nd Legislature, Text and Status; Resolve 2025, chapter 167 (signed Apr. 16, 2026) ↩
11. Oak Hill Condominiums v. Marchetti, 2026 ME 31 (Me. Apr. 2, 2026) ↩