A new law could allow the owners of properties that are sold during tax foreclosures to receive some extra money back.

Maine is one of a dozen states where municipalities are not required to return any excess proceeds to most owners after a property has been sold through a tax lien foreclosure.

But in May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of a woman who had sued a Minnesota county for selling her property for more than double what she owed in taxes and then refusing to give back the difference. The justices found the county’s actions had violated the Fifth Amendment’s “takings clause,” which states that private property cannot “be taken for public use without just compensation.”

Rep. Chad Perkins, a Dover-Foxcroft Republican, said he introduced his legislation to change the law in Maine before the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the Minnesota case. Under a law enacted in Maine in 2015, homeowners who are 65 or older and met certain income thresholds were already eligible to receive the excess proceeds from a municipal tax foreclosure.

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