Maine’s home-buying process follows the familiar sequence — offer, inspection, financing, title, closing — but a few pieces of it are worth understanding specifically before you buy here: the transfer tax works differently than a flat-rate deed tax, the state’s disclosure form is unusually detailed, and outside the state’s cities and larger towns, a lot of what you’re buying depends on a private well and septic system rather than public utilities.
Who typically handles the closing
Maine doesn’t have a single blanket rule requiring every residential closing to be run by an attorney, but attorney involvement is common in practice, and state law gives you a specific right either way: when a lender requires that an attorney search the title on a one-to-four-unit residential mortgage, Maine law guarantees the borrower the right to select that attorney themselves, rather than being required to use one the lender picks. In practice, many Maine closings are attorney-conducted, particularly outside the most routine transactions — it’s worth budgeting for the fee even if your specific deal doesn’t strictly require it.
The title search and county recording
A title search in Maine gets run against the county’s recorded land records before closing, to confirm clear title free of undisclosed liens or competing claims. Maine is one of the New England states where property is assessed at the municipal level rather than the county level — each town or city runs its own Assessor’s office — while deeds are still recorded at the county Registry of Deeds. RefPages’ County Records directory links to your county’s Registry of Deeds search tools, and to the local municipal assessor where available.
The transfer tax, split between buyer and seller
Maine charges a Real Estate Transfer Tax of $2.20 for every $500 (or fraction of $500) of the property’s value, and by statute it’s split evenly — half imposed on the seller, half on the buyer. As of November 1, 2025, an additional $3.80 per $500 applies to whatever portion of a sale price exceeds $1 million, a change aimed specifically at higher-end transactions. Like most transfer-tax allocations, the 50/50 split is a default that the purchase contract can adjust, but it’s the starting point for negotiation rather than something either side automatically avoids.
What sellers have to disclose — in real detail
Maine’s property disclosure statute is more granular than a lot of states’ versions. Sellers of most one-to-four-unit residential properties have to give buyers a property disclosure statement, before or at the same time as an offer to purchase, covering:
- Water supply — public or private, and for a private well, its location, any known malfunctions, and recent test results.
- Heating system — type, age, fuel, service history, and any malfunctions within the past two years.
- Waste disposal — public sewer or private septic, and for a private system, tank details, installation date, and maintenance history.
- Hazardous materials — known asbestos, lead paint (for pre-1978 homes), radon, underground oil tanks, and a few other specific hazards.
- Flood hazard and shoreland zoning — FEMA flood zone status, past flooding, and any shoreland zoning violations or enforcement history.
If the seller gives you the disclosure after you’ve already made an offer, you get 72 hours after receiving it to cancel without penalty. As with most disclosure statutes, the duty covers what the seller actually knew — Maine doesn’t require sellers to hire an inspector to go looking for problems first.
The Maine-specific risk: private wells and septic systems
A meaningful share of Maine’s housing stock — especially outside Portland, Bangor, and a handful of other cities — runs on a private well and septic system rather than public water and sewer, and that’s a genuinely bigger factor in a Maine purchase than it would be in a more urbanized state. A standard home inspection typically does not include water quality testing or a septic system evaluation — those are separate, specialized inspections you need to arrange yourself:
- Well water testing should be scheduled with enough lead time before closing to get results back — common tests cover bacteria, nitrates, arsenic, and increasingly PFAS, all of which show up in Maine groundwater with some regularity.
- Septic system inspection should be done by a certified inspector before purchase where possible; if weather makes that impractical, Maine allows the inspection to be completed within nine months after closing instead.
Given how much a septic replacement or well remediation can cost, treating both as a standard part of due diligence — not an optional add-on — is worth doing on any rural or semi-rural Maine property.
If the property needs work before or after closing
If an inspection turns up something that needs a permit to address, RefPages’ Building Permit Departments directory links to the relevant municipal permitting office.