Maine Condo Liens Have No Super-Priority: The First Mortgage Wins, Even If Recorded Later

The lien attaches by operation of law and needs no paperwork. Section 1603-116(a) says the association has a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against that unit or any fine imposed against its unit owner from the time the assessment or fine becomes due, and subsection (d) closes the loop: recording of the declaration constitutes record notice and perfection of the lien, and no further recordation of any claim of lien is required. A Maine condominium owner will therefore never see a lien filed at the registry of deeds, because the declaration recorded years ago already did that work. Subsection (a) also accelerates: if an assessment is payable in installments, the full amount is a lien from the time the first installment becomes due, so missing the January payment on an annual assessment exposes the whole year. Fees, charges, late charges, fines and interest levied under § 1603-102(a)(10), (11) and (12) are enforceable as assessments under the same section unless the declaration says otherwise.

Priority is where Maine diverges from the states people usually compare it to. Subsection (b) ranks the lien ahead of everything except three categories: liens and encumbrances recorded before the declaration was recorded, a first mortgage recorded before or after the date on which the assessment sought to be enforced becomes delinquent, and liens for real estate taxes and other governmental assessments or charges. The words before or after are the whole answer. Maine enacted the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act text and never adopted the later six-month priority slice, so a Maine association has no claim ahead of the bank for any period at all, and a lender that records a mortgage years after the owner stopped paying still outranks the association. The subsection also preserves the priority of mechanics' and materialmen's liens, gives equal priority under subsection (c) to competing association liens on the same real estate, and states that the lien is not subject to Title 14, section 4651 or Title 18-C, Article 2.

Maine's substitute for a super-lien is a voluntary escrow rather than a statutory priority. Section 1603-115-A lets an association require a person who purchases a unit after October 1, 2009 to pay into an association escrow account until the balance for that unit equals 6 months of assessments. The money must be held beyond the claim of the association's creditors, the association must disclose the institution and account number on request, it must pay interest at the rate required by 9-B M.R.S. § 429, and it must return the balance with interest when the owner sells and has paid everything owed. Subsection (e) of that section says the escrow may be used to cover up to 6 months of the costs attributable to a unit for which assessments have not been paid, which is the same six months the super-lien states get by statute, funded up front instead.

The deadlines and cost rules are the practical limits on an association. Under § 1603-116(e) a lien for unpaid assessments is extinguished unless proceedings to enforce it are instituted within 6 years after the full amount of the assessments becomes due, a period set by PL 2019, c. 3. Subsection (g) says a judgment or decree in any action or suit under the section shall include costs and reasonable attorney's fees for the prevailing party, which cuts both ways: an owner who defeats the association recovers fees on the same terms. Subsection (h) requires the association to furnish, on written request, a recordable statement of the amount of unpaid assessments currently levied against the unit within 10 business days, and that statement binds the association, the executive board and every unit owner, so it is the reliable payoff figure before a closing. Subsection (f) preserves the association's right to sue for the money instead of foreclosing, and to take a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Interest is capped elsewhere: § 1603-115(b) permits interest on past due common expense assessments at a rate set by the association not exceeding 18% per year.

Because § 1603-116(a) sends the association to foreclose in like manner as a mortgage, the mechanics come from Title 14, chapter 713, and Maine is a judicial foreclosure state. Under 14 M.R.S. § 6321 the action is filed in the Superior Court or the District Court for the division where the premises are, and a copy of the complaint or a clerk's certificate must be recorded in the registry of deeds within 60 days of commencement. Section 6322 provides that on a finding of breach the court issues a judgment of foreclosure and sale and fixes the amount due including reasonable attorney's fees and court costs, and the redemption period is 90 days from the date of judgment for any mortgage executed on or after October 1, 1975. Section 6323 then requires notice of a public sale published once in each of 3 successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, with the first publication not more than 90 days after the redemption period expires and the sale held not less than 30 nor more than 45 days after that first publication, plus mailed notice at least 30 days before the sale to every party who appeared.

One scope point matters for older buildings. Section 1601-102(a) lists § 1603-116 among the handful of sections that apply to condominiums created in Maine before the Condominium Act took effect, so the automatic lien reaches pre-Act condominiums as well, though only with respect to events and circumstances occurring after the effective date. Chapter 31 is the Maine Condominium Act and its language is written around units, unit owners and declarations, so a subdivision homeowners association that is not a condominium takes its collection rights from its own recorded declaration rather than from this section.

The association's enforcement route is a civil action, not a self-help remedy. It may sue for the money under § 1603-116(f), foreclose the lien in the same manner as a real estate mortgage under § 1603-116(a), or accept a deed in lieu of foreclosure. Whichever it chooses, § 1603-116(g) attaches costs and reasonable attorney's fees to the judgment for the prevailing party, so an owner who wins is entitled to fees from the association. If the association waits too long it loses the lien outright: § 1603-116(e) extinguishes it unless proceedings are instituted within 6 years after the full amount became due.

On the owner's side, the leverage is the payoff statement in § 1603-116(h), which must be produced within 10 business days of a written request and is binding on the association and the board. Separately, § 1603-102(a)(18) bars an association from denying a delinquent unit owner or other occupant access to the unit, and from withholding a service where doing so would endanger the health, safety or property of any person. § 6323 are free of that mortgagee's lien by operation of § 1603-116(i).