Maine Specially Adapted Housing Property Tax Exemption

Title 36, section 653(1)(D-1) is the largest of Maine's veteran property tax exemptions: estates up to the just value of $50,000, having a taxable situs in the place of residence, for specially adapted housing units. The gate is a federal grant rather than a rating. The veteran must be a veteran as described in 38 U.S.C. 2101 and must have received a grant from the United States Government for such housing. Section 2101 is the specially adapted housing authority, which VA administers as the SAH and SHA grant programs for veterans with defined severe service-connected disabilities such as loss or loss of use of extremities, certain severe burns, and blindness combined with loss of use of an extremity. Because the test is the grant, the practical question is simply whether VA approved a specially adapted housing grant, not what percentage appears on the rating decision. A veteran who received the grant has the evidence the assessor needs. The service condition sits alongside it. The veteran must have served during a federally recognized war period, including the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, the periods from August 24, 1982 to July 31, 1984 and December 20, 1989 to January 31, 1990, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn, or during the period from February 1, 1955 to February 27, 1961, or must have been awarded an expeditionary medal. A Vietnam War veteran must have served after February 27, 1961 and before May 8, 1975. The exemption also runs to the unremarried surviving spouse of such a veteran, which keeps an adapted home affordable after the veteran dies. It applies to property held in joint tenancy with a spouse and to property held in a revocable living trust for the veteran's benefit. The same procedure and the same limits as the ordinary veteran exemption apply. The applicant must be a Maine resident, written application and proof go to the local assessors on or before April 1 of the first year claimed, the exemption then continues while residency continues, and an individual may not take an exemption under more than one paragraph of section 653. A veteran eligible for both this and the $6,000 exemption takes this one. As with every amount in this section, the assessor multiplies the exemption by the ratio of current just value on which the assessment is based, so the local value can be less than $50,000 of market value in a town assessing below full value.