Maine Right to Dry: Clotheslines Protected for Owners and Renters

Maine's right to dry lives in the Solar Rights Act at 33 M.R.S. chapter 28-A, enacted as PL 2009, c. 273. The chapter defines a solar energy device in section 1421(5) as either a solar collector or a solar clothes-drying device, and section 1421(3) spells the second one out: a clothes line, drying rack or other equipment used for solar drying of clothing. That definition is the reason Maine belongs on the right-to-dry list. It is explicit codified text, not an inference from a definition about collecting and transferring solar energy, which is how the claim fails in several states that are commonly listed alongside Maine.

Section 1423(2) is the operative prohibition. A legal instrument subject to the section may not prohibit a person from installing or using a solar energy device on residential property owned by that person, at paragraph A, or a solar clothes-drying device on residential property leased or rented by that person, at paragraph B. The second paragraph is the unusual one. Most state right-to-dry statutes speak only to owners in a common interest community. Maine extends the clothesline protection, and only the clothesline protection, to tenants, because a lease is a contract and section 1421(1)(C) puts deed restrictions, restrictive covenants, declarations, contracts or similar binding agreements inside the definition of a legal instrument. A no-clothesline clause in a Maine residential lease signed after the cutoff date is therefore subject to the same analysis as an HOA rule.

What counts as a legal instrument is set out in section 1421(1) and is broader than an association's rulebook. It includes municipal ordinances, bylaws or regulations that directly regulate the installation or use of solar energy devices on residential property; the rules, bylaws or regulations of an association of property owners, including a homeowners association, unit owners association or condominium owners association; and private deed restrictions, covenants, declarations and contracts. A Maine town ordinance that bans outdoor drying lines is measured by the same rule as a subdivision covenant.

Two limits matter in practice. First, section 1423(1) applies the section only to a legal instrument adopted or created after September 30, 2009, so a covenant recorded before that date can still ban a clothesline. A tenant is usually in a stronger position here than a homeowner, because leases are re-signed and so are almost always created after the cutoff, while a subdivision declaration may date from the 1980s. Second, section 1423(3) allows an instrument to prohibit solar energy devices on residential property in common ownership with 3rd parties and on the common elements of a condominium, so a shared lawn or a common courtyard is not protected ground for a drying rack.

Section 1423(4) still permits reasonable restrictions, defined as those necessary to protect public health and safety including safe access to and rapid evacuation of buildings, to protect buildings from damage, to protect historic or aesthetic values when an alternative of reasonably comparable cost and convenience is available, and to protect shorelands under the shoreland zoning provisions in Title 38, chapter 3, subchapter 1, article 2-B. An association may push a line to a side or rear yard on aesthetic grounds only if that alternative is comparable in cost and convenience, which for a clothesline generally means comparable sun and comparable walking distance from the door.

Maine's protection stops at solar. Chapter 28-A covers a solar collector and a solar clothes-drying device and nothing else, and section 1424 confirms that it does not disturb any authority over any matter other than the installation and use of solar energy devices on residential property. There is no Maine statute voiding covenants against air source heat pumps, rain barrels, composting bins or small wind turbines. The one adjacent protection is 33 M.R.S. § 1451, enacted in 2023, which bars unreasonable limitations on low-impact landscaping in condominiums and other real estate subject to common ownership.

The Solar Rights Act carries no fine, no civil penalty and no enforcement agency, so a Maine owner or tenant enforces it by resisting the association or landlord rather than by complaining to the State. If an association assesses fines or sues to force removal of a line, the owner defends on the ground that the rule is one section 1423(2) says may not prohibit the device, and asks the court to hold it unenforceable. A tenant facing a lease clause that bans a drying rack raises section 1423(2)(B) the same way, and because the statute makes the prohibition itself ineffective, an eviction or a fee premised solely on that clause rests on nothing.

Restrictions that survive section 1423(4) are still enforceable in the ordinary way, through whatever fine and lien powers the declaration and bylaws give the association. A line strung across a required exit path or anchored into a shared structural wall is a safety or building-damage problem the statute expressly leaves the association free to address. Location on a common element is not protected at all under section 1423(3), so a drying rack set up on a condominium's common lawn can be ordered removed without reference to the chapter. Where the restriction comes from a municipality, the same test applies, but a shoreland zoning requirement under Title 38, chapter 3, subchapter 1, article 2-B is preserved by section 1423(4)(D) and a code enforcement officer may act on it.