The two further mechanics that matter operationally

A 90-day financing window. Once a resident group has signed a purchase-and-sale agreement, it has 90 days to secure financing. That is the practical counterpart to paragraph F: a contingency you may not be rejected for is worth little without a defined period to satisfy it.

No forced non-refundable deposit. An owner may not require a non-refundable deposit as a condition of accepting the residents' offer. For a newly formed resident association, a forfeited deposit is often the whole of its cash.

Assignment of the right. New subsection 6 lets a qualifying resident group, by majority vote, assign its first-option rights to:

• the municipality,
• the Maine State Housing Authority or a municipal housing authority, or
• a nonprofit,

provided the assignee continues operating the property as a mobile home park. This is the provision that converts a theoretical right into a closable transaction, because it lets an entity with balance-sheet capacity step into the residents' shoes rather than having to lend to them.

The tax provision that rides alongside it

Eleven days later, on 1 July 2025, the Governor signed LD 554 as Public Law 2025, chapter 455 — a capital-gains deduction aimed at the seller's side of exactly these deals. It enacts parallel provisions at 36 M.R.S. § 5122(2)(AAA) for individual income tax and § 5200-A(2)(JJ) for corporate income tax:

“For taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2025… an amount equal to any gain recognized on the sale by the taxpayer of an ownership interest greater than 50% in a qualified business if the business provides housing and was transferred to a cooperative affordable housing corporation organized under Title 13, chapter 85, subchapter 1-A or a municipal housing authority… (1) The deduction allowed pursuant to this paragraph may not exceed $750,000.”

A $750,000 cap, on a sale of a greater-than-50 percent interest, to a co-operative affordable housing corporation or a municipal housing authority. The Legislature stated the objective in the act itself, subjecting the deduction to ongoing tax-expenditure review: “to preserve and increase the number of units of affordable housing in manufactured housing parks and apartment buildings.”

Read the two laws together and the design is clear. Chapter 394 makes the residents' offer hard to refuse; chapter 455 makes accepting it cheaper. That is a deliberate pairing, not a coincidence of timing.

What this means for whom

Park owners and their managers need the notice, good-faith and contingency rules built into the sale process before a listing goes out. The 60-day floor runs from mailing to residents and receipt by MaineHousing, so the documentation of both is what proves compliance.

Resident groups gained real leverage from roughly 24 September 2025: a financing window, protection against a contingency-based refusal, no forced non-refundable deposit, and the option to assign to an entity that can actually close.

Resident-owned co-operatives, once formed, occupy an odd place in Maine law. A co-operative organised under Title 13, chapter 85, subchapter 1-A is not a condominium, so the Maine Condominium Act does not reach it, and Maine has no planned-community statute either. Its governance comes from its own organising documents and the co-operative corporation law. Worth knowing before a newly converted park starts drafting rules on the assumption that a condominium framework applies.

One claim we could not verify

Secondary accounts of chapter 394 describe a companion requirement that a park owner give 90 days' notice before changing a park's use and pay to relocate homes within a 25-mile radius. We could not find that language in the enacted text of chapter 394, nor locate its section in Title 10, chapter 953 or at 30-A M.R.S. § 4358. It may be a separate enactment. Treat it as unverified rather than as part of this chapter.

What to watch next

How often the assignment power in subsection 6 is actually used, since it is the provision most likely to produce completed sales; and whether MaineHousing publishes guidance on its own role under the notice requirement. The deduction under chapter 455 is subject to legislative tax-expenditure review by OPEGA, which means there will eventually be a published assessment of whether it changed behaviour.