Maine · Law checked October 19, 2026

Maine tax sale: your deadline, your office, your money

Behind on property taxes in Maine? Your house can be sold at a tax sale — here's how much time you have to stop it. Your house was sold at a tax sale in Maine? The extra money from the sale may be yours to claim — and there's a deadline. Both answers are on this page, from the statute.

Count my Maine deadline

How Maine sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Redemption in Maine runs until the deed is issued — 18 months after the town files its tax lien certificate in the registry of deeds — then the lien is deemed foreclosed and your right to redeem expires. After foreclosure the town still cannot simply sell: it must follow the brokered-sale process on the surplus line below Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: The tax + interest + costs secured by the lien. The interest rate is set under 36 M.R.S. §505 and stated on the town's lien notice — we do not publish a rate we could not pin to the statute in this research; the town office has your exact figure.

Source: 36 M.R.S. §943

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state installment right in the lien statute — payment arrangements are at the town's discretion, and many towns make them. Ask before the 18 months run.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): A Maine Property Tax Deferral Program for senior (65+) and disabled homeowners exists as a separate state program — its terms were not verified from statute text in this research; ask the town or the state.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the Municipality (town/city).

Your claim window: Since the 2023 reform (L.D. 101), before selling tax-acquired property the town must give you 90 days' notice, list the property with a licensed real estate broker at a fair price, and return the excess sale proceeds to you after taxes and costs. The statute text read sets no claim deadline for the owner — the duty is the town's — but chase it in writing from the day of the sale. Being double-checked

If nobody claims it: Not pinned in the sources read.

Source: 36 M.R.S. §943-C

The county figure rule. This page gives you the law — the window, the formula, the office. The exact payoff or surplus figure lives in the Municipal (town/city) treasurer's books and changes as interest runs. Ask that office for the figure, in writing, and keep the letter.

Included in the $49 TaxSaleDecoded Kit

  • The surplus claim pack: how to prove the house was yours (deed records, address history, ID), the claim-form path in your state, and what to do when the county says it has no record of your money
  • The redemption playbook: your state's window and cost formula worked step by step, who to pay, how to prove you paid, and the traps in the payoff figure (added fees and interest)
  • The heirs page: the house was a parent's — what changes, which papers prove you are an heir, and the point where it stops being simple
  • The scam shield: how surplus-recovery companies work, the fee caps your state sets for them, and the assignment papers you should never sign
  • The lookback module: what Tyler won, what Pung limited (the extra money is the sale price minus the debt — not your home's value), and the dated state lookbacks, including Illinois claims that die in July 2028

Get the TaxSaleDecoded Kit — $49

One payment of $49. No subscription. The kit is a web page you can return to and print — the claim pack, the redemption playbook, the heirs page, and the scam shield.

All 50 states · The surplus, explained · Redemption, explained