What can a landlord do with a tenant’s belongings left behind in Maine?

In Maine, a landlord must store property a tenant leaves behind in a safe, dry, secured location and mail the tenant a written notice listing it, and may sell or dispose of it only if the tenant does not claim it within 7 days after the notice is sent. If the tenant has vacated, the notice goes by first-class mail with proof of mailing to the tenant’s last known address and must include an itemized list of the items and containers of items. A tenant who claims the property within 7 days must be given it without paying rent arrearages, damages or storage costs, as long as the tenant arranges to retrieve it by the 14th day after the notice, and a tenant who responds is entitled to continued storage for at least 14 days after the notice was sent. Unclaimed property may be held until the tenant pays arrearages, damages and storage costs, sold for a reasonable fair market price with the proceeds applied to arrearages, damages and the costs of storage and sale and any remaining balance forwarded to the Treasurer of State, or disposed of if it has no reasonable fair market value. If the tenant is still in possession after a judgment for the landlord, the notice may not limit the time to claim the property to less than 7 days after mailing or 48 hours after service of the writ of possession, whichever is longer. This is 14 M.R.S. § 6013.

WhatMaine
Belongings left behindStore it, mail an itemized notice, wait 7 days
What the statute requires firstNotice, a waiting period or storage before disposal

What the statute says

“The notice must include an itemized list of the items and containers of items of the property and advise the tenant that if the tenant does not respond to the notice within 7 days the landlord may dispose of the property …”

Quoted word for word from the section’s text.

Source

14 M.R.S. § 6013

Read the statute in the Maine Revised Statutes (Maine Legislature): legislature.maine.gov.

Checked against the statute on November 15, 2026.

This is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances can add to them, and the terms of a specific lease may differ. Check the citation and speak to a lawyer before acting.

How Seayora uses this rule

Seayora keeps a lease’s end date and every notice sent through it, with the date it went out, in the lease record — so the dates a rule like this one counts from are on file rather than remembered.

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