Fence laws in Maine

Who owns the fence between two properties in Maine?

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

Maine splits a fence on a property line in equal shares between the people using the land on each side. The share is owed by whoever occupies and improves the land, not by whoever is named on the deed, and it lasts only while both sides keep improving. When one side stops improving, that side stops owing a share.

The occupants of lands enclosed with fences shall maintain partition fences between their own and the adjoining enclosures, in equal shares, while both parties continue to improve them.

30-A M.R.S. 2952Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Read 13 September 2026

How tall can a fence be in Maine?

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Maine law has no rule about this. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide it instead.

Maine sets no statewide limit on how tall a fence at a house can be. The four feet in the fence chapter is a floor for a fence that holds farm animals. The six feet in the spite fence section is the point where a neighbor can start a nuisance claim, and that claim still has to show the fence was built to bother them. Neither number is a cap. The town or city sets the limit.

Documents read before writing that:

• 30-A M.R.S. 2951Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes
• 17 M.R.S. 2801Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes

Do I need a permit for a fence in Maine?

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

Which Maine towns have to enforce the state building code comes down to head count. A town with more than four thousand residents has to enforce the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code, using inspections that meet the standard in Title 25. People held in a jail or prison in the town are not counted toward the four thousand.

The Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code must be enforced in a municipality that has more than 4,000 residents.

10 M.R.S. 9724(1)Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Read 13 September 2026

Pool fence requirements in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

Maine has no statewide pool fence rule. The state building and energy code normally cancels a town building rule that disagrees with it, and pool fencing is the one exception. A town may adopt the pool fencing standards in Appendix G of the second edition of the 2009 International Residential Code, and only word for word, with no changes of its own. The statute names that 2009 edition and no later one.

This section does not prohibit the adoption or enforcement of an ordinance of any political subdivision that sets forth the swimming pool fencing standards, without amendment, contained in Appendix G of the 2nd edition of the 2009 International Residential Code.

10 M.R.S. 9724(5)Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Read 13 September 2026

Spite fence laws in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

A fence in Maine counts as a private nuisance when it goes over six feet for no reason and is kept there on purpose to bother the neighbors. Both parts have to be true. Height alone is not enough, and neither is bad feeling about a fence under six feet. The rule is not in the property law at all. It sits in Title 17, the criminal title, in the chapter on nuisances.

Any fence or other structure in the nature of a fence, unnecessarily exceeding 6 feet in height, maliciously kept and maintained for the purpose of annoying the owners or occupants of adjoining property, shall be deemed a private nuisance.

17 M.R.S. 2801Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Read 13 September 2026

6 ftheight a fence has to exceed before the spite fence rule applies

How fence height is measured in Maine

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Maine law has no rule about this. The chapters that were read are listed below. Cities and counties decide it instead.

Maine gives a six foot number and never says where to measure it from. Title 17, section 2801 makes a fence over six feet a private nuisance when it is kept there to bother a neighbor. The section never names a surface. It does not say whether the six feet is read from the low side of a slope, from a graded yard, or from the top of a retaining wall. The zoning section, 30-A section 4352, does not answer it either. That section lists what a town zoning rule has to include, and height is not on the list. So the number is in state law and the starting point is not.

Documents read before writing that:

• 17 M.R.S. 2801Maine Legislature
• 30-A M.R.S. 4352Maine Legislature

Fence rules for corner lots in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

Maine has a blocked view rule and it is about signs, not fences. Title 23 bars putting up or keeping a sign, billboard, poster or other ad where it blocks a clear view of a crossing highway, and it treats the highway as reaching thirty three feet on each side of the center line. Section 1401-A in the same title bars buildings, pumps and other fixed items inside the right of way or within thirty three feet of the center line. Neither one reaches an ordinary fence standing back on a corner lot. The town or city sets that rule.

A person may not post, erect, display or maintain or cause to be posted, erected, displayed or maintained a sign, billboard, panel, placard, poster, notice or other advertising device in, upon or above any highway or so situated with respect to any highway as to obstruct clear vision of an intersecting highway or highways or otherwise so situated as to prevent the safe use or obstruct the maintenance of the highway.

23 M.R.S. 1153Maine Legislature · Read 13 September 2026

Retaining wall rules in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

A retaining wall in Maine needs no building permit if it is four feet tall or less, measured from the ground up to the top of the wall. Most states measure the same four feet from the bottom of the footing, which sits below the ground, so a Maine wall can be taller before a permit is needed. Maine gets there by adopting the 2021 International Residential Code, then deleting item 3 of the list of work that needs no permit and writing its own. A wall holding up a surcharge needs a permit at any height. A surcharge means extra weight pressing on the soil behind the wall, such as a driveway or a building.

Retaining walls that are not over 4 feet (1219 mm) in height measured from finish grade to the top of the wall, unless supporting a surcharge.

16-642 CMR ch. 5, Section 5(12), revisions to IRC Section R105.2Maine Department of Public Safety, Bureau of Building Codes and Standards · Read 13 September 2026

4 ftheight above finish grade at or below which a retaining wall needs no building permit

Fence materials allowed in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

Maine lists what a fence can be made of before it counts as legal and good enough. Rails, wood, stone walls, iron or wire all count, and so do brooks, rivers, ponds, creeks, ditches and hedges. Anything else the town fence viewers judge equal to those counts too. Wire is named without separating barbed wire from plain wire, and no material is ruled out.

All fences 4 feet high and in good repair, consisting of rails, timber, stone walls, iron or wire, and brooks, rivers, ponds, creeks, ditches and hedges, or other things which in the judgment of the fence viewers having jurisdiction thereof are equivalent thereto, are legal and sufficient fences.

30-A M.R.S. 2951Maine Legislature · Read 13 September 2026

4 ftheight a fence has to reach to count as legal and sufficient

Livestock and boundary fence law in Maine

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Maine answers this in its own law. The words that do it are quoted below.

A legal fence in Maine is four feet high and in good repair. Rails, wood, stone walls, iron and wire all count, and so do brooks, rivers, ponds, creeks, ditches and hedges when the town fence viewers judge them just as good. This is the standard for a fence that holds farm animals. It is not a rule for a fence in a yard.

All fences 4 feet high and in good repair, consisting of rails, timber, stone walls, iron or wire, and brooks, rivers, ponds, creeks, ditches and hedges, or other things which in the judgment of the fence viewers having jurisdiction thereof are equivalent thereto, are legal and sufficient fences.

30-A M.R.S. 2951Maine Legislature, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Read 13 September 2026

4 ftheight a fence needs to count as legal and sufficient