Contemporary Information Corp provides verifiably accurate screening data that enables landlords and property owners to make informed decisions in tenant selection and screening. Among Contemporary Information Corp’s offerings is insight into the latest regulations surrounding rent control, which impact landlords at many levels.
Maine is a state with an evolving rent control landscape. A voter initiative led to the waterfront city of Portland instituting rent control for the first time on January 1, 2021. With a dynamic cultural scene and growing economic base, the city is seen as a desirable place to live, and this led to a premium on rents that many locals feared was making their city unaffordable.
Over 50 percent of city residents are tenants, and the proposed law passed 58 percent to 42 percent. Proponents claimed it would slow gentrification and preserve the ability of essential workers to continue to live in an area defined by tourism. Many property owners, however, felt that the law stifled their ability to collect fair market value on invested properties.
Whichever side of the debate one falls on, the laws in Portland do place strict limits on rent increases. Rent hikes may only occur once every 12 months, and must fall within the allowable increase percentage (AIP) range. Since implementation of the law, the AIP has fallen. It was 4.3 percent in 2022 and 7.0 percent in 2023, but has been within the 2.0 to 2.5 percent range since 2024, and currently sits at 2.2 percent.
Landlords are allowed to enact a one-time 5 percent rent increase in cases where a new tenant moves in, but only if the last tenancy ended in a voluntary termination. Landlords also have the option of applying banked rent, saved from years past, in increasing the current year’s rent more than the allowable 2.2 percent. Banked rent is the amount of allowable increase that the landlord did not charge one year. This carries over to a future year as “an amount to use” for a larger-than-otherwise-allowed rent increase.
There are exceptions to the rent increase limits. For example, landlords can go directly to the Rent Board and file applications for rent increases as high as 10 percent, with the aim of obtaining a fair rate of return on investment.
The statute also makes it illegal to discriminate against tenants based on participation in Section 8 and General Assistance subsidized housing programs, as well as due to source of income. All future rent increases in covered units must be accompanied by a written notice no less than 90 days before the increase goes into effect.
South Portland has since implemented its own set of rent control rules, known as the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. These rules are not as strict, as they place a limit on annual rent increase at 10 percent, with this only applying when the rental unit is one of 16 or more units with affiliated or common ownership structure.
Since 2024, a number of Maine communities have moved to adopt rent stabilization ordinances focused on mobile home parks. An example is the city of Lewiston’s temporary rent moratorium ordinance, which prevents lot rent increases across the municipality’s seven mobile home parks.
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