Maine · Landlord Forms

Free Maine Landlord Forms

Every Maine landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the Title 14 section behind it — including three provisions that took effect twelve days before this page was written and are still missing from the state’s own statute website.

Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. Maine tenancies run on 14 M.R.S. chapters 709, 710 and 710-A, and Maine asks landlords for more written notices at the start of a tenancy than almost any state in the country — radon, energy, bed bugs, smoking, lead. Getting those right matters as much as getting a notice to quit right.

Three Things That Changed on 29 July 2026

The new tenant-information rule

New section 6025-B bars a landlord or agent from disclosing a tenant’s or prospective tenant’s personal information without express consent, where it is done “with the intent to harass, intimidate or otherwise cause a person to vacate a rental property outside of the judicial process… and without a legitimate business purpose”.

The protected categories are wide: name, address, telephone and email; racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, health conditions, sexual activity, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, citizenship, immigration status or alien registration number; social security number and driver’s licence or non-driver identification; billing, financial and payment method; and status as a crime victim.

Five exceptions apply: a valid discovery request, subpoena or judicial warrant; giving it to Maine state, local or county law enforcement in exigent circumstances or as reasonably necessary to prevent or prosecute a crime; as reasonably necessary for a sale or refinancing; as reasonably necessary for federally or state-supported affordable housing funds and services; and as reasonably necessary to respond to a municipal code enforcement officer, fire inspector or similar officer. The remedy is actual damages or one thousand dollars, whichever is greater, plus injunctive relief and reasonable attorney’s fees — and a violation now supports a protection-from-harassment action.

Mould is now a habitability breach

New section 6021(6-B): “It is a breach of the implied warranty of fitness for human habitation when a landlord offers for rent a dwelling unit in which there is a leaking event, chronic moisture or humidity conditions outside of the control of a tenant that result in the growth of mold, bacteria or other biological organisms.” The same act defines “leaking event” as “a water leak from flooding or a system or structural failure, such as a failure of a roof, window, door, plumbing system, foundation or appliance”, and confirms that a municipality “may adopt more stringent standards by ordinance”.

The Seven-Day Nonpayment Notice Carries Two Numbers and a Script

Maine’s nonpayment ground is that “the tenant is 7 days or more in arrears in the payment of rent”. The notice, though, is more prescriptive than the day count suggests.

Requirement	Detail
First figure	The amount of rent that is seven days or more in arrears as of the date of the notice
Second figure	The reinstatement amount — all rental arrears, plus all rent due as of the date of payment, plus filing fees, plus service-of-process fees actually paid by the landlord
Mandatory language, word for word	“If you pay the amount of rent due as of the date of this notice before this notice expires, then this notice as it applies to rent arrearage is void. After this notice expires, if you pay all rental arrears, all rent due as of the date of payment and any filing fees and service of process fees actually paid by the landlord before the writ of possession issues at the completion of the eviction process, then your tenancy will be reinstated.”

Two more points on the rent ground. Payment or written assurance of payment through the general assistance programme has the same effect as payment in cash. And habitability is a full affirmative defence to a nonpayment case where the landlord had actual or constructive notice and unreasonably failed to remedy — the court then assesses a reduced fair rental value pro rata.

Ending a Tenancy at Will: Thirty Days, or Seven on Six Grounds

The baseline is “a minimum of 30 days’ notice… in writing”, from either party. Two details are easy to miss: where the tenant has paid rent through the date a thirty-day notice would expire, the notice must expire on or after the date through which rent has been paid; and the termination “is not affected by the receipt of money… until the date a writ of possession is issued” — so accepting rent does not undo it.

Waiver of the thirty days is possible but tightly bounded: only in writing “at the time the notice is given, and at no other time prior to the giving of the notice”.

Seven-day ground	Detail
A. Substantial damage	Caused by the tenant, their family or an invitee, and not repaired before the notice
B. Nuisance or unlawful conduct	Nuisance, permitting an invitee to render the unit unfit, or having “violated or permitted a violation of the law regarding the tenancy”
C. Rent	Seven or more days in arrears
D. Domestic violence perpetrator	Where the victim is also a tenant
E. Violence or threat	Against another tenant, a tenant’s guest, the landlord or the landlord’s employee or agent, with a victim carve-out
F. Unauthorised occupant	“The person occupying the premises is not an authorized occupant of the premises.”

All six are available only where the landlord “can show, by affirmative proof”. A thirty-day and a seven-day notice may be combined in one notice. And the notice “must indicate the specific ground claimed”.

There is no general statutory cure period for a lease violation in Maine. No provision of chapters 709, 710 or 710-A creates one; the only statutory cure right is for rent arrearage, and section 6002 governs tenancies at will. Commercial landlord sites assert a general seven-day cure right — it is not in the statute. With a written lease, the notice must comply with the lease; and where a term has expired less than seven days ago, an eviction lies without notice. See our Maine eviction notice laws guide.

Every Maine Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy

An alphabetical list is the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.

Security Deposits: Thirty or Twenty-One, and Total Forfeiture If Late

Chapter 710-A had no amendments in 2024, 2025 or 2026, so every figure here is stable.

Rule	Value
Cap	“A lease or tenancy at will agreement for a dwelling intended for human habitation may not require a security deposit equivalent to more than the rent for 2 months.”
Return — written lease	Within the time stated in the agreement, not to exceed thirty days
Return — tenancy at will	Twenty-one days after termination or surrender and acceptance, whichever occurs LATER
Itemisation	A written statement itemising the reasons for retention, and it “must be accompanied by a full payment of the difference”. Mailing the statement and payment to the last known address is deemed compliance
Permitted deductions	Costs of storing and disposing of unclaimed property, nonpayment of rent, and unpaid utility charges the tenant was required to pay directly to the landlord — not an exhaustive list, but normal wear and tear is never chargeable
Late = total forfeiture	Failure to provide the statement or return the deposit in time means “the landlord shall forfeit his right to withhold any portion of the security deposit”
Double damages	After the tenant gives seven days’ notice of intent to sue, failure to return the entire deposit raises a presumption of wrongful retention; wrongful retention then costs double the amount wrongfully withheld, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs
Burden of proof	“the landlord has the burden of proving that the landlord’s withholding… was not wrongful”

Commingling is separately prohibited and separately punished. The deposit “may not be treated as an asset to be commingled”, and deposits received after October 1979 must be held “under terms that place the security deposit beyond the claim of creditors of the landlord…, including a foreclosing mortgagee or trustee in bankruptcy”. On request, the landlord must disclose the name of the institution and the account number. A single escrow may hold all tenants’ deposits, and may even span separate buildings owned by different entities “as long as the different entities are substantially controlled or owned by a single landlord”. The remedy for commingling is actual damages, or five hundred dollars or one month’s rent, whichever is greatest, plus costs.

On a sale, the deposit and an accounting must go to the successor no later than at the real estate closing, with written proof at closing and notice to the tenant — or the funds returned. Any waiver of the chapter for the tenant’s benefit is void. A surety bond may be offered but never required, and before claiming against one the landlord must give the tenant ten days’ written notice with an itemised list, within the thirty or twenty-one day window, or forfeit the claim. See our Maine security deposit laws guide.

Entry: A Presumption, Not a Minimum

Section 6025(2): “Except in the case of emergency or if it is impracticable to do so, the landlord shall give the tenant reasonable notice of the landlord’s intent to enter and shall enter only at reasonable times.” Then: “Twenty-four hours is presumed to be a reasonable notice in the absence of evidence to the contrary.”

Permitted purposes are the familiar list: inspecting; necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements; supplying necessary or agreed services; and exhibiting the unit to prospective or actual purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors — with the tenant not to unreasonably withhold consent. An animal-welfare emergency permits entry without twenty-four hours’ notice. If a tenant changes the lock they must give the landlord a duplicate key within forty-eight hours, or seventy-two for a victim who changed the locks at their own expense; and where no key was given, in an emergency the landlord “may gain admission through whatever reasonable means necessary and charge the tenant reasonable costs for any resulting damage”. Any agreement waiving the section is against public policy and void. See our Maine landlord entry laws guide.

The Written Notices Maine Requires Before a Tenancy Starts

This is what makes Maine distinctive, and what makes its results page unusually deep. Several of these are documents in their own right.

Requirement	What it demands
Energy efficiency	For tenants who pay for an energy supply: the statutory statement, or a list of each prior energy supplier plus the sentence “You have the right to obtain a 12-month history of energy consumption and the cost of that consumption from the energy supplier.” Before the tenant contracts or pays a deposit, the landlord must provide it, obtain the tenant’s signature, sign it, and retain the signed statement for a minimum of three years
Radon	Test by March 2014 and, unless a mitigation system is installed, every ten years thereafter when requested by a tenant; buildings first occupied after March 2014 test within twelve months. Written notice to the tenant within thirty days of receiving results, or before a lease or a deposit. A civil violation with a fine up to two hundred and fifty dollars. At four picocuries per litre or above, EITHER party may terminate on a minimum of thirty days’ notice
Bed bugs	On written or oral tenant notice, inspect within five days; on finding an infestation, contact a certified pest control agent within ten days. Before renting, tell a prospective tenant if an adjacent unit is infested or being treated, and on request the last date the unit or adjacent units were found free. A landlord may not offer for rent a unit they know or suspect is infested. Reasonable assistance with preparation must be offered, with any charge spread over a repayment schedule not exceeding six months. Penalty: two hundred and fifty dollars or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus fees
Smoking policy	A written statement of whether smoking is prohibited, allowed throughout, or allowed in limited areas — identifying those areas — by written lease or a separate notice for a tenancy at will. Before the tenant contracts or pays a deposit the landlord shall obtain a written acknowledgment
Lead renovation notice	Pre-1978 buildings: thirty days’ notice before repair, renovation or remodelling, by exterior-door sign and certified mail to every unit; shorter notice only with a signed waiver in the prescribed twelve-point boldface form; emergency repairs exempt. Civil fine up to five hundred dollars per violation

The Total Price Statement That Makes or Breaks the Lease

A related cap sits alongside it: the initial payment may not exceed the first full month’s rent plus the security deposit plus any properly stated mandatory recurring fee.

Application Fees Are Banned

Maine bars a landlord from requiring “an applicant to pay a fee to submit an application… or… for the landlord to review or approve an application”. The narrow exception is the actual cost of only ONE of a background check, a credit check, or another screening process — and even then the landlord must give the applicant a complete copy of the information obtained, must have told them of that duty beforehand, and “may not charge an applicant more than one fee… in any 12-month period”. See our Maine tenant screening laws guide.

Rent Increases: Forty-Five Days, or Seventy-Five

Separately, rent may not be increased at all while the unit is in breach of the warranty of habitability (tenant-caused breaches excepted). See our Maine rent increase laws guide.

Late Fees, Heat and the Clauses Maine Voids

• Rent is not late until fifteen days after it is due.
• The late fee may not exceed four per cent of one month’s rent — and no penalty may be charged at all “unless the landlord gave the tenant written notice at the time they entered into the rental agreement” that a penalty of up to four per cent might be charged.
• Heat: it is a breach of habitability where the heating facilities cannot maintain “a minimum temperature of at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit at a distance of 3 feet from the exterior walls, 5 feet above floor level at an outside temperature of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit”. A reduced-heat agreement is permitted only “in a separate written document, apart from the lease”, in at least twelve-point type, for a fair rent reduction, never below sixty-two degrees — and it is invalid if anyone over sixty-five or under five lives on the premises.
• Common-area utilities: a tenant may not be made solely responsible for utilities serving common areas unless both parties agreed in writing to a stated rent reduction or fair consideration approximating actual cost. Violation costs actual damages or two hundred and fifty dollars, whichever is greater.

Serving Notices, and the Three Good-Faith Efforts

A notice to quit is “given to the other party”. Where that fails, there is a fallback — but it has a precondition and it is conjunctive.

There is no add-days-for-mailing rule in the statute — termination is fixed “at the expiration of the time fixed in the notice”. We could not find Maine appellate authority either adding or refusing to add days, so we state the statutory position and stop there.

Court, Costs and the Writ

Forcible entry and detainer is heard in the District Court, in the division where the property is located. Small claims rose to ten thousand dollars on 1 January 2026 — a page still saying six thousand is quoting the superseded version, which the statute displays alongside the current one.

Item	Value
Filing fee	One hundred dollars for a forcible entry and detainer (including a fifteen-dollar mediation fee); small claims seventy dollars; writ preparation twenty-five dollars; the summons form is clerk-issued at five dollars. Effective 9 March 2026
Return day — 14 days	Not fewer than fourteen days from the date of service — raised from seven in February 2024. The superseded rule file still ranks in search results and still says seven
Hearing	“as soon as practicable, but no later than 10 days after the return day”, absent a continuance for good cause. The complaint must be filed no later than three days before the hearing, with any written lease and any termination notice attached
Recorded hearing	A defendant wanting one must file a written answer enumerating all known defences on or before the return day
Writ of possession — 7 calendar days	“Seven calendar days after the judgment is entered, the court shall issue the writ of possession”, on request and payment of the fee
48-hour removal	Failure to remove within forty-eight hours of service by the constable or sheriff makes the defendant “a trespasser without right” and the goods “abandoned”

Maine’s Judicial Branch does publish a numbered eviction set: CV-007 Complaint for Residential Forcible Entry and Detainer, CV-034 the Summons (clerk-issued only), CV-100 the filing instructions, CV-195 Request for Issuance of Writ of Possession, CV-204 Affidavit of Service, CV-256 the Information Sheet and Mediation Request, and OTH-045, the packet combining CV-100, CV-256 and CV-007. There is no numbered Notice to Quit form — landlords draft their own, which is exactly where the seven-day notice’s two figures and mandatory language have to be got right.

Retaliation Blocks the Writ

Related exposure: an illegal eviction — utility shutoff, lockout or seizing tenant property outside the judicial process — costs actual damages or two hundred and fifty dollars, whichever is greater, plus costs, expenses and reasonable attorney’s fees, and the remedies are non-exclusive.

Which Maine Form Do I Need?

1. The tenant is seven or more days in arrears. The seven-day notice, with both figures and the reinstatement language word for word.
2. There is substantial damage, nuisance, violence or an unauthorised occupant. Seven days — but be ready to show it by affirmative proof.
3. Nobody is at fault. Thirty days, expiring on or after the date through which rent has been paid.
4. A lease term has been broken. Whatever your lease provides; the statute gives no general cure period.
5. You want to raise the rent. Forty-five days, or seventy-five if the rise is ten per cent or more, cumulatively over twelve months.
6. You need to get into the property. Reasonable notice at a reasonable time, with twenty-four hours the working assumption.
7. A radon test comes back at four picocuries or above. Either party may terminate on at least thirty days’ notice.
8. The tenant has moved out. Thirty days on a written lease, twenty-one on a tenancy at will — and the statement must arrive with the money.

How to Fill Out a Maine Seven-Day Notice

1. Confirm the tenant is seven or more days in arrears.
2. Name every tenant and describe the premises as the agreement does.
3. State the arrearage as of the date of the notice. That is the first figure.
4. Set out the reinstatement amount — arrears, plus rent due at the date of payment, plus filing fees, plus service fees actually paid.
5. Reproduce the statutory reinstatement paragraph word for word. It is mandated language, not a template suggestion.
6. Include the right-to-contest sentence. Omitting it will not sink the case, but it will let a default judgment be set aside.
7. Serve it in person if you can. The mail-and-post fallback needs three good faith efforts first, and it needs both steps.
8. Do not add days for mailing. There is no such rule; the period runs as fixed in the notice.

What Happens If the Form Is Wrong

The distinctively Maine failure is a seven-day notice carrying one figure instead of two, without the reinstatement script. It is the most prescriptive notice in the state and the least likely to survive a challenge if improvised.

The second is serving by mail alone, or by post alone, without the three good faith efforts that unlock the fallback in the first place.

The third is a rent increase noticed at forty-five days when it should have been seventy-five — and note the cumulative rule, which catches landlords who raise rent twice in a year.

And the fourth is the deposit: sending the statement without the money. The statute requires them together, and being late forfeits the right to withhold anything at all.

What This Page Does Not Have

We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Maine landlords also commonly want a rental application, a month-to-month agreement, a sublease, a roommate agreement, a commercial lease, a property management agreement, a mould addendum, a lease amendment or extension, a pet addendum, an adverse action notice and a rental verification form.

And we should be direct about a bigger gap. Maine requires written notices on radon, energy efficiency, bed bugs and smoking policy, plus a mandatory written rent receipt for cash payments and the signed total price statement without which the lease is unenforceable. We do not currently publish fillable forms for any of those. They are documents Maine law obliges you to produce, and until we build them this page tells you what they must contain rather than handing you the form.

Common Maine Landlord Form Mistakes

• A seven-day notice with one figure, or without the mandatory reinstatement paragraph.
• Omitting the right-to-contest sentence, which lets a default judgment be set aside.
• Believing rent is not “in arrears” for fifteen days. That clock is for late fees.
• Offering a general seven-day cure for a lease violation. No such statutory right exists.
• Serving by mail alone or posting alone, or skipping the three good faith efforts.
• Treating twenty-four hours as a fixed entry minimum. It is a rebuttable presumption.
• Publishing the hundred-dollar entry penalty. It is now two hundred and fifty.
• Noticing a ten per cent rent increase at forty-five days, or missing that increases aggregate over twelve months.
• Sending the deposit statement without the payment, or missing thirty or twenty-one days entirely.
• Assuming the owner-occupied exemption is narrow. It disapplies the whole deposit chapter.
• Commingling deposits, or refusing to name the institution and account number on request.
• Charging an application fee, or more than one screening fee in twelve months.
• Signing a lease without the total price statement. It renders the lease unenforceable.
• Relying on the energy termination remedy. Its own text says it begins in 2030.
• Quoting a six-thousand-dollar small claims limit. It has been ten thousand since January 2026.
• Working from a fourteen-day return day of seven days. The rule changed in February 2024.

Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Maine Form Sites

Maine has one of the deepest results pages in this project below the very top, and the reason is its required-notice regime: three separate rankers clear two thousand words, and the deepest is about two thousand three hundred. Depth here is earned by law rather than padded — there is simply more a Maine landlord has to be told.

What none of those pages carries is the current position. The entry penalty, the new tenant-information section and the mould provision all changed on 29 July 2026, and the state’s own statute site still shows the old law with no warning attached. Publishing the current rule is worth more than another copy of a generic lease.

Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first — and remember Maine lets you charge the actual cost of only one check, once in twelve months.

Maine Landlord Forms: FAQ

Related Maine Guides

• Maine landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
• Maine eviction notice laws — every ground and the notice it needs.
• Maine security deposit laws — the thirty and twenty-one day split.
• Maine lease termination laws — thirty days, and the seven-day grounds.
• Maine breaking lease laws — early termination and the duty to mitigate.
• Maine rent increase laws — the forty-five and seventy-five day rules.
• Maine late fee laws — fifteen days, four per cent, and the notice condition.
• Maine landlord entry laws — the presumption and the new penalty.
• Maine habitability laws — heat, mould and repair-and-deduct.
• Maine pet and ESA laws — pets, deposits and assistance animals.
• Maine tenant screening laws — the application fee ban and screening limits.

About the Author

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team

Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. For Maine we did not stop at the Revisor’s statute site, because it is stale in a way that produces affirmatively wrong law and gives no warning. We downloaded the Session Laws volume and read the enacted chapters directly — which is how we can publish the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar entry penalty, the new tenant-information section and the mould provision, none of which appears on the obvious authoritative source today.

Updated 2026

Screen Maine Applicants Before They Sign

Most Maine landlord-tenant disputes trace back to a tenant a thorough screening would have flagged. Order FCRA-ready credit, criminal and eviction reports and start every tenancy on solid ground.

Start Tenant Screening Compare Report Options

Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Maine landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. Three provisions took effect on 29 July 2026 and are not yet reflected on the state’s own statute website, which carries no warning that anything is missing. One enacted remedy on this page does not operate until 2030 by its own terms. Portland, Bangor and South Portland operate municipal rules that may override state defaults, and we have not researched them. Confirm the current position with the District Court or with a Maine attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.