Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Maine’s State Property Tax Deferral Program is open to homeowners 65 or older or unable to work due to disability, with a 2024-raised income ceiling under $80,000, and its lien statute puts the state ahead of every other mortgage and lien on the property; language as strong as Wyoming’s.
What Maine’s deferral requires
Maine’s State Property Tax Deferral Program, 36 M.R.S. chapter 908, §§6250-6266, opens to homeowners 65 or older, or unable to work because of disability, as of April 1 of the filing year. For applications filed on or after January 1, 2024, covering the 2025 and 2026 program years, income must be under $80,000 and liquid assets under $100,000 for a single owner or $150,000 for multiple owners; both figures roughly doubled from the pre-2024 thresholds of $40,000 income and $50,000 to $75,000 in assets. There is no stated home-equity cap. Claims are filed after January 1 but no later than April 1 each year.
An interest rate tied to the general delinquent rate, and the strongest lien priority here
Maine does not fix a flat deferral interest rate in the statute; instead §6255 sets it at the state’s general §186 interest rate minus one percentage point. That general rate is published at 10% for 2024-2025 and 9% for 2026, which works out to a deferral rate of 9% for 2024-2025 and 8% for 2026; a derived figure, not a single line item Maine Revenue Services states directly, but one calculated from two of the state’s own published numbers. What makes Maine distinctive is what happens once the lien is filed: §6254 states, in so many words, that the lien creates a mortgage on the real estate to the State and has priority over all other mortgages, liens, attachments and encumbrances of any nature; explicitly senior to a homeowner’s existing mortgage, not merely equal to it or silent on the question. Only Wyoming makes a comparably unqualified priority claim in this family.
When it comes due
The deferred balance is due within 12 months of the death of the last surviving claimant; the sale of the property, entry into a contract to sell it, or its acquisition by someone other than the taxpayer; the property ceasing to be the taxpayer’s homestead, except when the taxpayer’s absence is required for health reasons; or a mobile or floating home moving out of state.
Maine’s broader senior property-tax picture, covering exemptions, freezes and circuit-breaker credits, not just the deferral: property tax breaks for seniors in Maine.
How every state’s programme compares: property tax relief for seniors by state. What a deferral means in general, and who it catches out: the property-tax deferral lien trap.
Statutory text read at each state’s own legislature, revisor, or revenue agency this session. General information, not tax or legal advice; rates, caps and thresholds change most years and a county or state agency retains the final say on your own application.