Landlord Atlas

What does Maine law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 Correction September 5, 2026 All Maine topics →

Maine law deems every landlord to covenant and warrant that a rented dwelling unit is fit for human habitation, and separately forbids a landlord to maintain or permit any condition that endangers or materially impairs the health or safety of the tenants.

Cited to 14 M.R.S. § 6001 (forcible entry and detainer; presumption of retaliation) (3), (4), (5) and 10 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

The warranty action has no day count: the tenant must give written notice without unreasonable delay and be current in rent when that notice is given, and the landlord must have unreasonably failed to take prompt, effective steps. Remedies come from a judge, who may order repairs, set the fair value of the tenant's use and occupancy and order a rebate of rent paid above it, or let the tenant vacate during repairs; consequential damages are not available. Self-help is separate and narrower: after 14 days from written notice by certified mail, a tenant may fix a dangerous condition and deduct the greater of $500 or half a month's rent, unless the building holds five units or fewer and the landlord lives in one of them. Heat is a capacity standard, requiring equipment able to hold 68 degrees when it is 20 below outside, and since July 29, 2026 mold and other biological growth from a leak or chronic moisture is a breach of the warranty as well. Eviction after a good-faith repair complaint is presumed retaliatory for six months, and no writ of possession may issue unless the landlord rebuts that presumption.

Maine habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details Maine codified the warranty rather than leaving it to the courts. Under 14 M.R.S. § 6021(2), in any written or oral agreement for rental of a dwelling unit the landlord is deemed to covenant and warrant that the unit is fit for human habitation. A second, independent statutory duty sits in § 6026(1): a landlord renting premises for human habitation may not maintain or permit any condition that endangers or materially impairs the health or safety of the tenants. Maine's highest court calls it the statutory warranty of habitability and decides these cases inside the statute, describing the landlord-tenant relationship as the subject of extensive legislation in Maine and deferring to the Legislature in this area. No Maine decision creates or preserves a separate court-made warranty alongside § 6021. One piece of common law does survive alongside the statute, but it is a different legal object: the rule that a landlord is generally not liable in tort for personal injuries caused by a defective condition in premises under the tenant's exclusive control, with exceptions for latent defects, negligent voluntary repairs and an express agreement to keep the premises in good repair.
Who is covered Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair The general standard carries most of the weight: the unit must be fit for human habitation, and no condition may exist that endangers or materially impairs the health or safety of the tenants. Maine's highest court has put concrete content into it, holding that the lack of running water in a year-round dwelling, by itself, makes the dwelling unfit. Two specific standards sit on top of the general one. The first is heat, stated as a capacity requirement rather than a thermostat setting. The second is new: since July 29, 2026 it is a breach of the warranty for a landlord to offer for rent a dwelling unit in which there is a leaking event, chronic moisture, or humidity conditions outside the tenant's control that result in the growth of mold, bacteria or other biological organisms, with a leaking event defined as a water leak from flooding or from a system or structural failure such as a failure of a roof, window, door, plumbing system, foundation or appliance. The same act rewrote the section's definitions, so a dwelling unit now expressly includes mobile homes, apartments, buildings and other structures, including the common areas thereof, rented for human habitation. A separate section imposes a full bedbug regime with its own duties and deadlines. Municipalities may adopt more stringent standards; less restrictive municipal standards are of no force.
Heat standard type A duty to provide working heating equipment — capability, not a temperature guarantee
Heat standard details The standard asks what the equipment can do, not what the thermostat reads. Where the landlord is obligated by agreement or lease to provide heat, it is a breach of the warranty if the dwelling unit's heating facilities are not capable of maintaining a minimum temperature of at least 68 degrees Fahrenheit, measured 3 feet from the exterior walls and 5 feet above floor level, at an outside temperature of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. A unit the tenant heats is outside that requirement entirely. Two companion standards apply where the landlord provides heat: it is also a breach to maintain an indoor temperature so low as to be injurious to the health of occupants not suffering from abnormal medical conditions, and to fail to operate the heating facilities so as to protect the building's equipment and systems from freezing. The parties may agree in a separate signed document to heat below 68 degrees, with a floor of 62 degrees. Municipalities may set stricter standards, and a less restrictive municipal ordinance is invalid and suspended by the statute.
Headline repair day count No statutory day count — the notice and repair rules below govern
Notice and repair-window rules The warranty action states no day count at all. It runs on two reasonableness standards: the tenant must give the landlord, or the person who customarily collects the rent, written notice of the condition without unreasonable delay, and the landlord must have unreasonably failed under the circumstances to take prompt, effective steps to repair or remedy it. The notice requirement can be satisfied by actual notice to the rent collector. A complaint must also state that the condition endangers or materially impairs the health or safety of the tenants, that it was not caused by the tenant or a person under the tenant's control, and that the tenant was current in rental payments when written notice was given. That last element is a precondition to the claim rather than a defense, so a tenant who stops paying can lose the claim itself. Once the allegations are proved, the landlord is deemed to have breached the warranty as of the date actual notice was given. The self-help track is the one with a clock: 14 days after written notice sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, shortened to as promptly as conditions require in an emergency. The bedbug section runs on its own deadlines, requiring an inspection within 5 days of written or oral notice and contact with a licensed pest control agent within 10 days of finding an infestation.
Repair and deduct Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The remedy is available where the reasonable cost of compliance is less than $500 or an amount equal to half the monthly rent, whichever is greater, so for rents above $1,000 a month the half-month figure governs. Where a foreclosure action against the building is pending or a foreclosure judgment has been entered, the ordinary limit falls away and the reasonable costs of compliance may run up to the equivalent of two months' rent. — The tenant must first notify the landlord in writing of the intention to correct the condition at the landlord's expense. If the landlord fails to comply within 14 days after written notice by certified mail with return receipt requested, or as promptly as conditions require in an emergency, the tenant may have the work done with due professional care and with the same quality of materials as those being repaired. Installation and servicing of electrical, oil burner or plumbing equipment must be done by a professional licensed under Title 32. After submitting an itemized statement to the landlord, the tenant may deduct the actual and reasonable cost, or the fair and reasonable value of the work, within the limit. Three things forfeit the remedy: a condition caused by the tenant, the tenant's guest or an invitee; unreasonable denial of access to the landlord; and extreme weather conditions that prevent the landlord from making the repair. The tenant may not be reimbursed for labor performed by the tenant or any member of the tenant's immediate family, though parts and materials the tenant buys are reimbursable, and the landlord is free from liability for injury to the tenant or others caused by work the tenant undertakes. One large group of tenancies is outside this section altogether: a dwelling unit in a structure containing no more than 5 units, one of which the landlord occupies. That exemption removes both the self-help remedy and the section's prohibition on dangerous conditions, but it does not touch the warranty, which those tenants keep. Where the landlord breaches the heat standard, the tenant's purchase of heating fuel counts as a cost of compliance under this section.
Rent withholding or escrow Only on conditions that commonly defeat it — see this page — How: withholding raised as a defense once the landlord sues; a court or agency escrow program — There is no right to withhold rent before litigation, and withholding is actively risky, because the warranty claim itself requires the tenant to have been current in rent when written notice was given. What Maine gives instead is a defense and a court-held escrow. In an eviction brought on the ground that the tenant is in arrears, the tenant may raise any alleged violation of the implied warranty and covenant of habitability as an affirmative defense, provided the landlord or the landlord's agent received actual or constructive notice, unreasonably failed under the circumstances to take prompt, effective steps to repair or remedy the condition, and the condition was not caused by the tenant or a person under the tenant's control. On finding the unit unfit for human habitation the court must let the tenant choose: end the rental agreement without prejudice, or reaffirm it, with the court assessing against the tenant an amount equal to the reduced fair rental value for the period rent is owed, payable pro rata at the usual rent intervals. The landlord may not charge the tenant the full rental value until the unit is fit for human habitation. The escrow arrives later, on appeal: a tenant appealing an eviction pays the unpaid current month's rent or the arrearage, whichever is less, to the landlord or, if there is a dispute about the rent, to the District Court, and the Superior Court conditions a stay on payment of accruing rent into an escrow account administered by the clerk, with either party able to apply for payments out of it for appropriate expenses related to the premises. The notice of appeal must be accompanied by an affidavit of compliance.
Termination over habitability failures Only on conditions materially narrower than the general repair duty — Maine gives the tenant no self-executing right to walk away over a defective condition. Every remedy in the warranty section is a court order, and all but one are discretionary: the court may issue injunctions ordering the landlord to repair conditions that endanger or materially impair health or safety, may determine the fair value of the tenant's use and occupancy from the date the landlord received actual notice until the condition is repaired and declare what the tenant owes or what rebate the landlord owes for rent paid above that value, and may authorize the tenant to vacate temporarily where the unit must be empty during necessary repairs, with no use and occupation charge until the tenant moves back in. Only the temporary restraining order is mandatory: on the filing of a complaint the court must enter such orders as are necessary to protect the health or well-being of tenants or the public. A tenant can also obtain a mandatory repair order quickly; in one case the court denied an ex parte order but heard the preliminary injunction the next day and ordered the landlord to schedule an inspection and undertake all reasonable repairs to make the unit safe and habitable, while refusing emergency lodging costs for want of evidence. The one place a tenant elects termination directly is the eviction defense: on a finding of unfitness in a nonpayment case, the court must permit the tenant either to end the rental agreement without prejudice or to reaffirm it at reduced fair rental value.
Essential-service remedies Yes — distinct statutory remedies for essential-service failures — Maine handles essential services through faster clocks and a fuel rule rather than a separate remedy. The 14-day repair-and-deduct period is shortened to as promptly as conditions require in an emergency, and where the landlord breaches the heat standard the tenant's purchase of heating fuel is treated as a cost of compliance recoverable under that section; for tenants on general assistance, municipalities hold the tenant's rights under that provision. A separate section covers the tenant who ends up paying for heat or utility service to common areas or to other units: the tenant may recover actual damages or $250, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs, and the landlord is rebuttably presumed to be aware that the tenant has been furnishing the service. A further section deals with a landlord's failure to pay for utility service. Deliberate interruption of service by a landlord is a different subject, covered with the eviction rules.
Retaliation protection Protected by a general retaliation statute — The statute counts six months: in an eviction action there is a rebuttable presumption that the action was commenced in retaliation if the tenant did a protected act within six months before the action was begun. A second, self-contained six-month presumption applies to bedbug rights, and that one runs only if the tenant asserted those rights before being served with the eviction notice. — Maine's mechanism is the strongest form a presumption takes: a writ of possession may not issue in the absence of rebuttal of the presumption of retaliation. Where the eviction is brought for a nonpayment or similar statutory ground, or for violation of a lease provision, the presumption is switched off, unless the tenant has asserted rights under the repair-and-deduct section, which switches it back on. The bedbug presumption has its own two exclusions, for actions brought for failure to pay rent and for causing substantial damage to the premises. Separately, and with no time limit, no writ may issue where the tenant proves the eviction was commenced in retaliation for membership in an organization concerned with landlord-tenant relationships. A tenant may also defend on the ground that the landlord had a duty to offer a reasonable accommodation under state or federal fair housing law and failed to do so, where there is a causal link between the accommodation requested and the conduct the eviction is based on. — Asserting rights under the warranty section or several other named tenant-protection sections; complaining in good faith, individually or through someone acting on the tenant's behalf, of conditions affecting the tenant's unit that may violate a building, housing, sanitary or other code, ordinance, regulation or statute, to a body charged with enforcing it, or having such a body file a notice or complaint of the violation; and complaining in writing or making a written request in good faith to the landlord or the landlord's agent to make repairs required by an applicable building, housing or sanitary code, by the warranty section, or by the rental agreement. Three further acts are protected if done before the tenant is served with an eviction notice: filing a fair housing complaint with a reasonable basis, giving the landlord notice that the tenant or the tenant's minor child is a victim, and communicating about or complaining of sexual harassment by the landlord or the landlord's agent. The list names the warranty section but not the repair-and-deduct section, so a tenant using self-help ordinarily relies on the written-complaint limb instead.
Damages, penalties, and defenses The warranty is a rent-value instrument. The court determines the fair value of the tenant's use and occupancy from the date of actual notice until the condition is repaired, and declares what the tenant owes or what rebate the landlord owes for rent paid in excess of that value, working from a rebuttable presumption that the rent equals the fair value of a unit free of the condition. In practice an unrebutted presumption produces full abatement for each affected month. Consequential damages are expressly unavailable: the court may not award them for breach of the warranty, and Maine's highest court affirmed judgment against a habitability count in a serious personal-injury case on that basis, leaving injury claims to run on the separate common-law negligence track with its exclusive-control defense. A written agreement in which the tenant accepted specified conditions for a stated rent reduction or other specified fair consideration binds the damages calculation. There is no general attorney-fee award in either the warranty section or the repair-and-deduct section; fees appear in the bedbug section, the common-area utility section, the access section after a contested hearing, and where a landlord shows wanton disregard of the lease terms. A landlord's failure to comply with the bedbug section is deemed to satisfy the warranty element that the landlord unreasonably failed to take prompt, effective steps, and carries a penalty of $250 or actual damages, whichever is greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees.
Can the duty be waived or shifted Waivable in part, with a stated floor or subject-matter limit
Waiver and delegation rules A blanket lease clause giving up the warranty is void, but Maine permits two bargained exceptions, and they are narrower than they look. Under § 6021(5), a written agreement in which the tenant accepts specified conditions that may violate the warranty, in return for a stated reduction in rent or other specified fair consideration, binds both tenant and landlord; any other agreement to waive the rights or benefits of the section is void. That provision requires a writing, specified conditions rather than a blanket acceptance, and consideration, and it requires nothing else: no separate document, no minimum type size, no revocation right, and no floor on how bad the accepted condition may be. The same sentence is repeated as a damages rule the court must respect and again in the repair-and-deduct section, so it binds the warranty action, the damages calculation and the self-help remedy alike. The second exception is the heat agreement, which is tightly conditioned: a separate written document apart from the lease, clear and conspicuous, in plain English, in at least 12-point type, signed by both parties, revocable by either on reasonable notice, setting a minimum temperature no lower than 62 degrees, and providing a fair and reasonable stated rent reduction. It may not be entered into or maintained if a person over 65 or under 5 lives on the premises. Outside those two spaces, requiring a tenant to agree to a term that waives a tenant right established in the rental chapters is an unfair and deceptive trade practice, and the repair-and-deduct section separately voids a waiver of the landlord's duty to meet the standards of any duly promulgated ordinance or regulation.
Leading court decisions Belanger v. Mulholland, 2011 ME 107, 30 A.3d 836 — Held that the lack of running water in the tenants' year-round dwelling, by itself, was a condition that endangered or materially impaired the health or safety of the tenants and rendered the dwelling unfit for human habitation, so the four months without water counted alongside the months when the toilet also failed. Hauling water from neighbors was extraordinary action by the tenants rather than a cure. Damages ran on the statutory presumption that the rent equals the fair value of a unit free of the condition, which went unrebutted and produced full abatement for each affected month. • McKeeman v. Duchaine, 2022 ME 23 — Describes the duty in the court's own words as the statutory warranty of habitability, citing 14 M.R.S. §§ 6014 and 6021. The record shows a tenant obtaining fast relief: the trial court found a breach of the warranty and ordered the landlord to schedule an inspection and undertake all reasonable repairs necessary to make the unit safe and habitable, while denying emergency lodging costs for lack of sufficient evidence. The decision itself vacated on procedural grounds, because treating the preliminary-injunction hearing as a consolidated hearing on the merits after the fact violated the civil rule and due process. • Sung Ying Chiu v. City of Portland, 2002 ME 8, 788 A.2d 183 — Held that consequential damages are an inappropriate remedy for breach of the statutory warranty of habitability, affirming judgment against the habitability count in a serious personal-injury case. The court also confirmed that Maine keeps the common-law rule that a landlord is not liable to a tenant for personal injuries caused by a defective condition in premises under the tenant's exclusive control, subject to exceptions for undisclosed latent defects, negligent voluntary repairs and an express agreement to maintain the premises, and declined an invitation to abandon that rule. It separately held that a municipality's decision when and how to reinspect buildings is a discretionary activity for which its inspectors are immune, even where the city's own violation notice had promised a reinspection within thirty days.
Local rules Maine sets a one-way floor and lets towns build on it. Municipalities may adopt or retain more stringent heat standards, and any less restrictive municipal ordinance, law or regulation is invalid and of no force; the 2026 mold provision carries the same permission for stricter local standards. Municipal officers have a power no tenant holds: where they find an imminent threat to the continued habitability of leased premises, and after documenting a good-faith attempt to reach the landlord and give the landlord a chance to act by a stated time, they may provide basic necessities such as maintenance, repairs, heat or utilities, and the municipality then has a lien against the landlord for its direct and administrative costs, filed with the register of deeds within 30 days and preceded by at least 10 days' certified-mail notice to the owner and any record mortgage holder. For tenants on general assistance, municipalities hold the tenant's rights over heating fuel. What a tenant cannot do is compel any of this: the state's highest court has held a city's decision when and how to reinspect discretionary and its inspectors immune, even where the city's own notice letter promised a reinspection within thirty days.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Maine Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/maine/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Maine habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Maine have an implied warranty of habitability?
Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. Maine codified the warranty rather than leaving it to the courts. Under 14 M.R.S. § 6021(2), in any written or oral agreement for rental of a dwelling unit the landlord is deemed to covenant and warrant that the unit is fit for human habitation.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in Maine?
No statutory day count — the notice and repair rules below govern. The warranty action states no day count at all. It runs on two reasonableness standards: the tenant must give the landlord, or the person who customarily collects the rent, written notice of the condition without unreasonable delay, and the landlord must have unreasonably failed under the circumstances to take prompt, effective steps to repair or remedy it.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in Maine?
Yes — authorized by statute — Limit: The remedy is available where the reasonable cost of compliance is less than $500 or an amount equal to half the monthly rent, whichever is greater, so for rents above $1,000 a month the half-month figure governs. Where a foreclosure action against the building is pending or a foreclosure judgment has been entered, the ordinary limit falls away and the reasonable costs of compliance may run up to the equivalent of two months' rent. — The tenant must first notify the landlord in writing of the intention to correct the condition at the landlord's expense.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in Maine?
Only on conditions that commonly defeat it — see this page — How: withholding raised as a defense once the landlord sues; a court or agency escrow program — There is no right to withhold rent before litigation, and withholding is actively risky, because the warranty claim itself requires the tenant to have been current in rent when written notice was given. What Maine gives instead is a defense and a court-held escrow.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in Maine?
Protected by a general retaliation statute — The statute counts six months: in an eviction action there is a rebuttable presumption that the action was commenced in retaliation if the tenant did a protected act within six months before the action was begun. A second, self-contained six-month presumption applies to bedbug rights, and that one runs only if the tenant asserted those rights before being served with the eviction notice. — Maine's mechanism is the strongest form a presumption takes: a writ of possession may not issue in the absence of rebuttal of the presumption of retaliation.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in Maine?
Waivable in part, with a stated floor or subject-matter limit. A blanket lease clause giving up the warranty is void, but Maine permits two bargained exceptions, and they are narrower than they look. Under § 6021(5), a written agreement in which the tenant accepts specified conditions that may violate the warranty, in return for a stated reduction in rent or other specified fair consideration, binds both tenant and landlord; any other agreement to waive the rights or benefits of the section is void.

Changes since last full verification

The Verified date above (August 30, 2026) marks the last time every figure on this page was verified end-to-end against official state sources. The changes below were published since then, each verified against the official source it names (what these dates mean).

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of Title 14, chapter 710 of the Maine Revised Statutes on the Legislature's official statutes site, section by section for sections 6021, 6021-A, 6024, 6024-A, 6026, 6026-A and 6030, together with sections 6001, 6002 and 6008 from chapter 709; the enacted chapter text of Public Law 2025, chapter 515 (H.P. 1288, L.D. 1927), read in full from the Legislature's own printed chapter, and the Revisor of Statutes' Laws of Maine volumes for the 132nd Legislature, whose statutes-amended tables and legislative statistics pages supplied the amendment record, the adjournment date and the general effective date; and the official texts of Belanger v. Mulholland, McKeeman v. Duchaine and Sung Ying Chiu v. City of Portland, each read in full, the last two from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court's own opinion archive.