A disability accommodation claim was waved off at trial – then the top court took a closer look
Maine's top court has thrown out a condo association's foreclosure win, ruling the trial judge shut a unit owner out on her disability accommodation claim.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court released the decision on May 21, 2026. It vacates both the foreclosure judgment and the ruling against the unit owner's counterclaim, and sends the case back to the District Court in Biddeford for a fresh hearing.
The dispute started in Old Orchard Beach. Judith L. Moskal-Kanz took title to a unit at the Tidewater Loft Condominium development by warranty deed dated December 26, 2017. The unit was conveyed subject to a Declaration of Condominium dated April 6, 1987, which requires owners to pay association fees, charges, and assessments. She fell behind. By the time the trial court ruled, she owed Tidewater tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid dues, expenses, and legal fees.
Tidewater mailed her a notice of her right to cure on March 11, 2022. She did not cure. The association filed its complaint for foreclosure and sale on April 21, 2022.
Moskal-Kanz answered with a counterclaim. Her daughter lives in the unit and has a disability requiring accommodations related to snow removal and trash disposal, she alleged. Tidewater, according to her filing, had agreed to provide those accommodations if she paid the fees she owed, then breached that agreement. She invoked the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act and asked the court to find she was not in default.
In April 2023, the District Court held a conference and identified her counterclaim as one of four issues to be addressed at trial. Then the case sat. By the time the bench trial began in May 2025, a different judge was on the bench, and the picture had shifted.
Moskal-Kanz, representing herself, told the court the trial was also meant to cover her counterclaim. The judge disagreed and told her the counterclaim was not part of the trial. When she tried to cross-examine Tidewater's witness about provisions of the Fair Housing Act, the court shut down the inquiry. She might have a separate cause of action under federal disability and housing law, the court said, but it was not relevant to the foreclosure.
Then came the ruling. The court ordered foreclosure and sale, and entered judgment for Tidewater totaling $58,885.48 in association dues, expenses, and legal fees, including $36,962.09 in attorney fees. Moskal-Kanz had ninety days to pay before the association could take exclusive possession of the unit to sell. The court also ruled against her on the counterclaim, on the basis that she had presented no persuasive evidence in support of it – evidence she had not been allowed to put on.
On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court called that a procedural due process violation. Citing precedent, the panel said due process requires notice of the issues, an opportunity to be heard, the right to introduce evidence and present witnesses, the right to respond to claims and evidence, and an impartial fact-finder. Moskal-Kanz received none of that on her counterclaim. The court vacated that ruling.
The justices went further. On the record before them, they could not say the foreclosure was factually and legally independent from the counterclaim, so the foreclosure judgment had to go too.
They also flagged the attorney fee award, noting the record does not fully support the $36,962.09 figure. Moskal-Kanz contended that $11,606.40 of it was incurred in a separate Maine Human Rights Commission matter involving her daughter, and the court observed that invoices in evidence show at least several thousand dollars of the fees awarded to Tidewater were tied to that separate matter and not to this case.
The case returns to the District Court. This time, the trial court must give Moskal-Kanz an opportunity to present evidence on her counterclaim before deciding whether either side is entitled to the relief it seeks.
