The property-law move that makes it work

The harder part of the opinion is what unit owners own while development rights are still live. The court characterised the owners' interest in land subject to a reserved withdrawal right as “defeasible until the development rights have been exercised or the period for doing so has expired” — reasoning by analogy to a defeasible fee with a right of re-entry, and drawing on the Massachusetts decision Queler v. Skowron, alongside the Uniform Condominium Act commentary and Rhode Island authority.

That framing is what lets the added-then-withdrawn sequence survive. If an owner's share of added common element vested on addition, withdrawal three years later would be taking something from them. If it was defeasible all along, nothing was taken.

The ruling reads the Act's creation article and its management article as operating on different actors: § 1601-103(11) defines development rights, §§ 1602-107 and 1602-110 govern their exercise, and § 1603-112(a) constrains the association. The Law Court had not previously read them together.

The fiduciary-duty claim, and why it failed

The facts look like self-dealing: the person managing the declarant-controlled association conveyed association land to his own company and leased it back at a charge on every unit. The claim failed anyway, because the court treated the validity of the underlying withdrawal as dispositive — a properly reserved and timely exercised development right is not converted into a breach by the identity of the transferee.

The association's attorney-fee claim failed separately, on the terms of the parties' own settlement release. The court noted that 33 M.R.S. § 1603-111, Maine's indemnification provision for wrongs during the period of declarant control, did not apply on these facts.

What it changes operationally

For boards taking over from a declarant: the turnover audit has to include the reserved development rights and their expiry date, not just the finances. A 20-year reservation from 2009 runs to 2029. Land inside that window is not secured by the association's vote, however long it has sat on the plan as common element.

For managers and resale disclosure: 33 M.R.S. § 1604-108 resale certificates and public offering statements describe the condominium as it stands. Where withdrawal rights remain live over identifiable land — particularly shorefront, which is where Maine's value sits — a purchaser relying on a site plan is relying on something defeasible.

For owners: an 80 percent vote is real protection against the association selling common element. It is not protection against the declarant, and this decision says so in terms.

What to watch next

The open questions are about limits. This declaration reserved rights for 20 years and the exercise fell inside that period; the opinion does not address an exercise after expiry, a reservation drafted less clearly, or a withdrawal of land that owners had paid to improve. The 2026 decision in Beane v. Village on Great Brook, LLC, 2026 ME 71, pushes in the other direction on a different question, holding that a developer could not escape obligations to an association on a missed deadline at the pleadings stage. Declarant-rights litigation in Maine is active; the statutory text has now been construed once.