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Maine Alliance for Road Associations

Has anyone applied for tax abatement for unequal taxation for road maintenance.

  • 24 Aug 2019 2:17 PM
    Message # 7847442
    Deleted user
    If property taxes pay for road mainenance and if I can show that I am taxed at the same rate as my neighbors, but I have to pay to maintain  my road and my neighbors taxes pay for that same maintenance, isn't that unequal taxation?
  • 25 Aug 2019 8:07 AM
    Reply # 7848022 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    I'm not sure this answers your question but would like to start things off with these thoughts and am interested to hear from others. 

    Municipal Property taxes pay for public road maintenance. If your road is private, its maintenance costs are not funded from public sources. Unfortunately, I have not heard of reduction of property tax rates for owners of properties along private ways unless the local Assessor counts this factor negatively in your property valuation. In this regard, some buyers (and assessors) may see added value in living on a private road.

  • 25 Aug 2019 12:04 PM
    Reply # 7848128 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    As founder of Maine ROADWays, (Residents & Owners on Abandoned & Discontinued Ways,) I see this complaint all the time, so this may be a more lengthy response than you bargained for!

    People on roads that are not maintained by the public effectively get taxed twice - once in municipal taxes, which largely go towards maintaining all the other roads in town, and a second time for maintaining the road they live on. It's bad enough when it's a private road, where the owners can restrict public traffic, but abandoned and discontinued roads often remain "public easements," making them open to unrestricted public traffic as well.

    There are some towns that do take the status of road frontage into account in their assessments, and place a lower value on properties where the access is not maintained by the public. But many towns do not consider this a factor. I even know of two towns that assessed properties on discontinued roads as being among the highest value in town. Sure, they were nice properties, but what good is that if you can't get there because the road is so bad? Or if you have to spend a huge percentage of your income trying to keep the road passable?

    The rationale many use is that even those who live on privately maintained roads get the same benefit of use of the public roads in town that everyone else does. Or they argue that it's like paying your taxes to help support the public schools, even if you have no school aged children. Everyone benefits from having an educated public. But there's a flaw in this argument. If you have no school aged children, you are not also spending money to educate children at home. (Double taxing for schools - we hear this similar complaint from people who homeschool their children. They pay taxes to support the local school, then must pay again to buy their own curriculum and pay other expenses related to homeschooling. If it's a benefit to the public to have every child educated, why doesn't the public pay education expenses for the homeschooled child?)

    The problem is magnified on discontinued roads that remain public easements. There, the land owner not only pays to keep the road passable for their own use, but for the public’s use as well. Since these are often through roads, public use can become a huge burden. Returning to the school analogy, this would be like requiring the homeschooling family to build and supply a school of their own and allow the general public to attend it for free, while also supporting the local public school.

    In any case, whether the road is private or a public easement, there remains the question of what you are getting in return for your tax dollar. The U.S. and Maine Constitutions state that private property cannot be taken for public use without just compensation. On public easements, it’s easy to see that the public use “takes” the land owner’s gravel without compensation. As for tax dollars, that gets a bit more subtle. If you are turning over your money to the public, you should be able to expect something in return, just as when you walk into a store and pay the cashier, you expect to leave with merchandise. Yes, paying taxes gives you the right to use the town’s public roads, school, library, or any other public facility or service your tax dollar supports. But if your tax payment uses up the dollars you would otherwise have spent maintaining your road, and as a result the road becomes impassable, you lose the only possible means of getting from your home to the nearest public road. How can you then receive any return for your tax dollar, if you cannot get to where the services you’ve paid for are offered??

    You pay tax dollars out. You have a Constitutional right to expect equal value in return. You should not have to pay an extra fee (in road maintenance) in order to get what you paid for - especially when others in town do not have to do the same. In fact, your tax dollar is going to maintain their roads so that they can access town services without paying an extra fee.

    So why do towns do this? We call it “mining taxes.” Wherever there is a road in town that costs the town nothing to maintain, the town can get “free” tax dollars to use elsewhere in town. If it comes down to a town vote on policy, those on publicly maintained roads will likely have the majority of votes. And since they don’t live on a privately maintained road, they don’t understand what a struggle it can be. They don’t have to cope with mud season, or worry about how emergency vehicles will reach them during a snow storm or towards the end of winter when the snowbanks have narrowed the road to the width of one car. They will say, “You knew what you bought when you bought it.” Or, “You get lake frontage. You should expect to pay more for it.” Or they will use the argument about childless couples supporting the public school.

    While there may be some truth in each of those arguments, there are also less obvious truths that can only be fully appreciated by those who have actually lived on one of these roads. Maine ROADWays has been fighting for years to get legislative reform regarding abandoned and discontinued roads. In recent years we have begun to make small progress. Real estate agents must now disclose to the buyer if the access to a property is not maintained at public expense. Hopefully that will mean that the buyer really will know what they are buying - although the full impact of “private road” status may not hit until later.

    The question of property tax evaluation on privately maintained roads has yet to be addressed by the legislature, although the question has come up during discussion of other bills. When and if a bill ever does come before the legislature on this subject, I’ll be sure to post it on the MARA forum. Meanwhile, you can try requesting a tax abatement, but depending on which town you are in, you may or may not get any reduction.


  • 28 Aug 2019 7:04 AM
    Reply # 7852856 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Wow! Thank you, Roberta. You make a great case for ROADWays relief and for property tax consideration for owners of property on private roads. So well said!

  • 13 Jun 2023 9:47 PM
    Reply # 13214957 on 7847442

    I realize I am responding to a topic from 2019, but I am a new member of MARA and the issue of private road taxation has recently been a hot topic in our neighborhood. Thank you, Roberta, for your well-written explanation, and I plan to share your thoughts with my neighbors at our next annual association meeting.

    Our new Town Tax Assessor has decided to ADD a tax for the road acreage of our private association road (it has not been taxed as such since it was built 30 years ago). The assumption of our neighborhood has always been that the road was part of the assessed value of each of our (10) homes' properties. But the Assessor has told us that he has the legal right to tax all private property, including the road itself.

    Has anyone else been issued a separate road tax? Like all property owners on private roads, we do not receive any Town services and must pay to maintain our road. This extra tax feels like double (now triple!) taxation.

    Is there a bill currently in the works with our State Legislature to try to get a tax reduction for private road property owners? I understand that the SB 250 tax credit bill passed in the NH Senate this past March. This is great, and a step in the right direction, but this law does not REQUIRE NH Towns to issue the tax credit, it only ENABLES them to do so. As in my neighborhood's case, our Town would probably choose not to issue the credit - why would they if they didn't have to? It would reduce their tax revenue base.

    I have been made aware that our Town will never accept a private road as public. And new private roads are being built all the time - at some point, the number of property owners on private roads in Maine will match or exceed those on public roads. There needs to be a MANDATORY tax credit to compensate private property owners for the extra expenses they are forced to incur to maintain their private roads.

  • 14 Jun 2023 1:11 PM
    Reply # 13215250 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Welcome to the club!  Yes, this is an ongoing issue, even though the post dates back a few years.   But taxing for the land under the road adds another dimension to the problem!  As you say, it amounts to a triple tax.

    You might try pointing out to your Town that under Maine law, it wasn't until Dec 31, 1976 that town ways were required to be taken "in fee simple," that is, the town takes ownership of the land under the road. (See 23 MRS Section 3023.)  Before that, most roads were simply taken as easements over the land.  The land under the road is still owned by the owner of the land from which it was taken, although their rights to use that land are suspended while the road is in existence. 

    Most people are unaware of this, and find it a bit hard to believe, or even ludicrous to suggest that they own the land to the center line of the public road in front of their house.  But it's true in most cases, except for roads established after 1976.  That's why when roads were discontinued before 1965, it often left properties legally land locked because the land that had been a public road went back to being a patchwork of little pieces of private land. 

    It's also why in 1965 the law was changed to say that when a road is discontinued, a public easement over the road remains even though the public no longer maintains the road.  The theory was that it was necessary to keep access to land, but it would be unconstitutional to require one landowner to allow another private landowner to retain access over his land.  That would be a taking of private property for private use, which is unconstitutional.

    So to satisfy the Constitution, they changed the discontinuance law to retain a public easement, because that's a taking for public use, and therefore the Constitution allows it.  The trouble is, that also results (in my opinion) in an unconstitutional taking because the private landowners who depend on the road for access end up maintaining the road at private expense, while the public continues to have unrestricted use of the road for free.  This is one step worse than private roads, where the landowners must maintain the road but at least they are doing so for themselves as a group of interested landowners, and not for the public as a whole.

    Anyway, my point is that probably the land under most of the roads in your town is legally owned by the abutters, not by the town.  So if they are going to tax people on private roads for the land under the road, then to be be fair and equitable they must also tax most of the town residents and landowners for the land under the road abutting their property.  Try that, and see how fast the voters object in numbers that can't be ignored!

    As for legislation to address that issue, there is none that I am aware of at present.  Our best hope is the Abandoned and Discontinued Roads Commission, which was formed by the Legislature last year as a permanent Commission under 23 MRS section 3036 to address the problems on those roads.  While the Commission does not have the authority to address issues on private roads as such, there is certainly an overlap in the issues. 

    The Commission has already been assigned to look at legislation that was proposed by MARA to clarify the definitions of confusing terms such as "private way," "private road," and "public easement," and to require towns to inventory their various types of roads.  The latter is to address the fact that as you said, "at some point, the number of property owners on private roads in Maine will match or exceed those on public roads."  The Legislature is much more likely to hear our complaints and act on them if they know how many of us there are.

    The Commission should be resuming meetings again soon - it has been inactive for a number of weeks, which I find frustrating.  When it does start meeting again, perhaps you could submit testimony agreeing with those on discontinued roads who find current taxation policies unfair.

  • 21 Jun 2023 2:45 PM
    Reply # 13218169 on 7847442

    Roberta, I so appreciate your knowledge on this subject, and your point about the taxation of land under roads really grabbed my attention - we will definitely approach our Town on this matter!

    I plan to follow this issue and will support MARA on any testimony in this regard. Having been a military spouse for 30 years, living in several different states across the country, I had never heard of private roads - every road we lived on, no matter how small, received town services. I am not sure if this is just a New England thing, or if more recently, other states outside of the northeast are also now not accepting newly built roads & subdivisions as public?

    Our Legislature needs to do a town-by-town survey to get the true statistics of private vs. public road residents, because you are correct - they probably are not aware of the numbers. And they need to be, before any action will ever be made to force the towns to issue a tax credit to private road property owners.

  • 26 Jun 2023 12:47 PM
    Reply # 13220042 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Hi Tammy,

    Since before MARA's first meeting with Senator Vitelli and Representative Hepler (who sponsored LD 461), I have been complaining that legislators have no idea how many of their constituents live on private roads and therefore do not know how many of their constituents are affected by these statutes. As two examples, in Phippsburg, there are 205 private roads and 46 town owned roads (also known as public roads). In Acton, there are 128 private roads and 32 town owned roads. These are just two examples. (These numbers come from town issued comprehensive plans.)

    At the LD461 hearing, I testified to the need to have an inventory of private roads.  It was deemed by one committee member as an "unfunded mandate" that seemed to make the other committee members bristle. While I agree it would technically be a mandate, I see it as just another task in the day-to-day responsibilities of the town clerk and/or assessor. It The use of the term "unfunded" is, in my opinion, an unnecessary alarm bell. I testified that the town already knows which roads are town owned and which are private simply because they know which roads they plow and sand. Each municipality has a list of all its roads and someone is telling the plow drivers which of those roads to plow. Maybe some people will think this is too simplistic of a way to think about it but sometimes it's better to look at a problem in its most simplistic terms. 

    Last modified: 11 Jul 2023 7:54 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)
  • 27 Jun 2023 6:05 AM
    Reply # 13220413 on 7847442
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Thank you, Erin.

    To your point and for the record, MARA proposed the following amendment on this topic which you supported in your testimony but was not approved by the Committee:

    Sec 12. Municipalities to develop or update list of town ways, private ways maintained by the town, and private roads with 4 or more parcels maintained privately. Each municipality shall develop or update publicly available inventories relating to all known town ways maintained by the town private ways and private roads with 4 or more parcels maintained privately within its borders and share such inventories with the Department of Transportation, Bureau of Maintenance and Operations by November 1, 2024. Boards of county commissioners, landowners, road associations, surveyors and other interested parties may share relevant information related to town ways maintained by the town private ways and private roads with 4 or more parcels maintained privately with municipalities and the Department of Transportation, Bureau of Maintenance and Operations. By January 1, 2024, the Department of Transportation shall provide to the Joint Standing Committee on State and Local Government an update on the status of road maintenance inventories developed by municipalities under this section.

    [MARA note: We believe using road maintenance requirements to develop the lists will simplify and facilitate compilation of the lists. Private roads are proliferating statewide. The information will be helpful for providing necessary funding to municipalities and appropriate legislation for private road associations and inhabitants.

    Last modified: 04 Jul 2023 5:53 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

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