Maine Laws

Maine foreclosures may only be pursued through judicial proceedings. The court may allow a lender to pursue a strict foreclosure however, which allows the lender to conduct the foreclosure sale on their own.

First, a lender must file the appropriate documents in court. If the court decides that a default has in fact occurred, they will rule in favor of a foreclosure and then decide whether or not to allow a strict foreclosure. A strict foreclosure is based on the idea that under Maine law, a lender legally owns a property under mortgage until the homeowner pays off their loan. If the court allows strict foreclosure, the lender is entitled to immediately repossess the property and assume all rights to ownership. They may then schedule a sale on their own volition in order to retrieve the amount lost on the loan.

For strict or ordinary Maine foreclosure, no sale may occur until 90 days have passed since the court's ruling. The homeowner has until the sale to retain ownership and stop the foreclosure by paying off the default amount owed to the lender.

Before a sale, a Notice of Sale must be published in a weekly newspaper for three weeks leading up to the sale date. If the sale must be postponed over a week, the original sale must be cancelled and a new one scheduled entirely.

On the day of the sale, the homeowner's property is auctioned off to the highest bidder by either a trustee of the lender (for strict foreclosures) or a court clerk (ordinary foreclosures). The winning bidder must provide a deposit on their bid immediately and arrange to pay the balance within 30 days.

If the Maine mortgage involved in the foreclosure was issued before 1975, the homeowner may have up to three months in which to redeem their property by paying off the full sale price of the property to the lender. If the mortgage was enacted after 1975, the homeowner is allowed up to 12 months to redeem.

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