Skip Maine state header navigation

State Search:

Agencies | Online Services | Help

Page Tools Page Tools Email page Map addresses En español En français English

How to Get Mortgage Information
to Town Tax Collectors?

When a Maine mortgage is sold and re-sold among out-of-state lenders on the secondary market, it is not only the consumer who may lose track of the identity of the current owner.

It’s also a struggle for municipal tax collectors, who are required by law to notify both the homeowner and the current mortgage holder when placing a tax lien on the property.

Twenty years ago, the municipal clerk would simply call the financial institutions in town, which generally kept such loans in their own portfolios. Now, with both those lenders and non-bank mortgage companies producing loans primarily for immediate resale on the secondary market, such current information is no longer available.

Frustrated at not being able to resolve tax lien issues, town tax collectors asked Representative Royce Perkins of Penobscot to introduce L.D. 17, titled “An Act to Require a Mortgagee to Notify Annually the Municipality in Which Mortgaged Property is Located.”

In testimony before the State and Local Government Committee, state mortgage regulators applauded the intent of the measure, but opposed the specific proposal, which would have imposed a requirement unique to Maine and which would have been impractical to enforce against unlicensed, out of state investors. However, the Committee formed a short-term task force to discuss the situation and report its recommendations.
The resulting memorandum, submitted to the Committee on March 22, 1999, suggests the following:

• Regulators were asked to remind lenders and assignees that they must file assignments in the Registry of Deeds in order to properly secure their security interests. This will create an up-to-date record for the municipalities.
• Homeowners, who must by law be notified when their mortgage changes hands, should be encouraged to share that information with their town tax authorities, so that payment problems can be remedied.
• Maine-based lenders should cooperate fully with municipal taxing authorities when requested.

Participants in the process, such as the bank and credit union trade association, were asked to publicize the results of the review in newsletters or other media, so as to increase the awareness of the issue and the suggested ways to address the problem.