The vocabulary, because the words are not interchangeable

Maine ends bills in several distinct ways, and they carry different meanings for whether anything might still happen:

• Ought Not to Pass (ONTP) — a committee recommendation. Under Joint Rules 309 and 310, a unanimous ONTP report kills a bill outright. Where nobody moves to take it up on the floor, the report is accepted administratively, with no recorded chamber vote. LD 1272, the four-units-per-lot ADU bill, died this way on 27 May 2025; LD 824 on pet fees in rental housing on 30 April 2025.
• A failed majority report — where a committee divides and the majority's motion loses on the floor, the chamber falls back to the minority report. LD 1181, the short-term-rental classification bill, died this way when the majority motion failed on a 16–16 Senate tie on 5 June 2025. A tie is a failed motion; there is no tie-breaker on a bill.
• Died Between Houses — the chambers could not agree on the same version.
• Died on Adjournment — the clock ran out with the bill still in the process.
• Placed on the Special Appropriations Table — a bill with a fiscal note parked pending money, which then dies by adjournment if the money never comes. Different from a vote against it.
• Leave to Withdraw — the sponsor pulls it.
• Carried Over — alive, but only into the next session of the same Legislature. LD 760 was carried over this way, which is why a February 2025 filing was signed in April 2026.

Filing for 2027, and the after-deadline route

Bills for the First Regular Session are requested before a cloture date. After that, per the Legislature's own glossary:

“An after-deadline bill is a request for introduction of a bill, resolve or constitutional resolution filed after the applicable cloture date… [and] must be approved by a majority of the Legislative Council before they may be introduced.”

No published list of after-deadline bill-title requests for the 133rd Legislature exists yet. That process runs on the Legislative Council's autumn and winter calendar, which is consistent with a session that does not convene until December.

What is actually on the 2027 runway for associations

Two dated deliverables, and they are the only ones we can point to:

1 December 2026 — the community-association commission's report. Created by Resolve 2025, chapter 167 (LD 760, signed 16 April 2026), the 12-member commission studying whether Maine should codify or recodify its community-association law by adopting the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act must report by that date, with findings and recommendations “including suggested legislation.” The Housing and Economic Development Committee then “may submit legislation related to the report to the 133rd Legislature in 2027.” Its first meeting is 30 September 2026.

15 December 2026 — the Real Estate Property Tax Relief Task Force's final report. Created by Resolve 2025, chapter 108 (LD 1770), with 13 voting and 2 non-voting members. Its scope is general property-tax policy; we found no reference to homeowners associations, condominiums or common-interest communities in its own materials. It reaches unit owners' tax bills rather than association operations.

Note the sequencing: both reports land after the 132nd adjourned and essentially as the 133rd convenes. Neither could have produced a 2026 bill, by design.

And what is not coming

No question touching housing, property tax or land use is certified for Maine's 3 November 2026 statewide ballot. The one certified-track initiative — unrelated to housing — was removed from the ballot on 26 May 2026 for insufficient valid signatures.

We also found no 133rd-Legislature preview from the Maine firms that normally publish them — Bernstein Shur, Pierce Atwood, Drummond Woodsum, Eaton Peabody, Verrill, Preti Flaherty, Rudman Winchell — addressing condominium or HOA law. Their 2026 pieces cover the session that already adjourned. That absence is consistent with how early it is in the interim rather than evidence that nothing is being prepared.

How the calendar helps a board

1. Stop tracking dead bills. If it did not pass by 29 April 2026, it is gone. Re-verify anything a vendor, newsletter or consultant describes as “pending in Maine”.
2. Decide on current law. Even the fastest plausible path for a new community-association code — report in December, bill in 2027, enactment in 2027 — runs into the 90-day rule and lands in 2028.
3. Put three dates in the diary: 30 September 2026, 1 December 2026, 2 December 2026.
4. Remember which deadlines are not legislative. Fannie Mae's reserve threshold rises to 15 percent on 4 January 2027, and the NFIP's authorisation expires 30 September 2026. Neither waits for Augusta.

What to watch next

The Legislative Council's after-deadline bill-request list when it publishes, and whether the Housing and Economic Development Committee takes up the commission's suggested legislation. This column does not predict either.