2026-09-12 · Maine · Legislation

What happened. LD 1145, An Act to Protect Residents Living in Mobile Home Parks, was signed by Governor Mills on 20 June 2025 as Public Law 2025, chapter 394. It rewrote Maine's resident purchase-opportunity statute at 10 M.R.S. § 9094-A and took effect on or about 24 September 2025.¹

Maine has had a first-option-to-purchase right for years. What the 2025 law did was make it usable, by removing the three ways an owner could honour it on paper and defeat it in practice.

The notice obligation

“1. Notice required. The owner of a mobile home park shall give written notice of the intent to sell the mobile home park to each owner of a mobile home in the mobile home park and to the Maine State Housing Authority. The owner of the mobile home park may not make a final unconditional acceptance of an offer for the sale of the mobile home park earlier than the 60th day after the date the notice containing the information required by this subsection is mailed… and received by the Maine State Housing Authority.”

Notice to every home owner in the park and to MaineHousing, and a 60-day floor before the owner may finally and unconditionally accept any offer.

The three changes that give the right teeth

Good faith is now a duty, not an expectation:

“B. An owner of a mobile home park shall negotiate in good faith with a group of mobile home owners or a mobile home owners' association concerning a purchase offer made under this subsection.”

A financing contingency is no longer a reason to refuse:

“F. Notwithstanding the requirement that the offer… be on substantially equivalent terms and conditions, a mobile home park owner may not reject a proposed purchase and sale agreement solely on the basis of the inclusion of a financing contingency.”

That was the decisive loophole. A resident co-operative assembling financing cannot realistically make a cash, unconditional offer; a park owner could therefore always say the residents' terms were not “substantially equivalent” and move on. Paragraph F closes it.

And the matching right is stated plainly:

“D. If the proposed purchase and sale agreement from a group of mobile home owners or a mobile home owners' association matches the price and otherwise has substantially equivalent terms and conditions of the offer the mobile home park owner has conditionally accepted or plans to accept, the group of mobile home owners or the mobile home owners' association must have the first option to purchase the mobile home park…”

1. LD 1145, P.L. 2025, c. 394, An Act to Protect Residents Living in Mobile Home Parks — enacted text amending 10 M.R.S. § 9094-A (approved 20 June 2025) ↩
2. LD 554, P.L. 2025, c. 455, An Act to Encourage Resident-owned Communities and Preserve Affordable Housing Through Tax Deductions — enacted text (approved 1 July 2025) ↩
3. LD 1145 bill status page, 132nd Maine Legislature ↩