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Merchant cash advance debt in Maine: the off-season, the guarantee, and the thirty-day window

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Maine businesses do not fail evenly across the year. A coastal restaurant, a marina, a seasonal contractor, a tour operator: revenue arrives in a compressed run and the rest of the calendar is spent living off it. A merchant cash advance written against July receipts and repaid at a fixed daily draw does not know that. The debit is the same size in February.

That is the shape of most Maine files, and it decides which arguments are worth making. There is no usury defense in this state, not because the research is thin but because Maine never wrote a commercial rate ceiling. What remains is the contract, the guarantee, the lien and one hard deadline.

Reconciliation is the Maine argument, and the season is the evidence

A legitimate purchase of receivables moves with receivables. That is the whole theory of the product: the funder bought a percentage of what comes in, so when less comes in, less goes out. Nearly every agreement contains a reconciliation clause saying so, usually in a paragraph nobody reads at signing.

Then the season turns and you request the adjustment the contract promises. The funder asks for statements. Then for more statements. Then the request sits, and the fixed daily amount keeps clearing against a quarter of the revenue it was priced on. Ignoring a reconciliation request is not aggressive collection. It is a breach of the funder's own paper, and it is the cleanest thing to document in a Maine file because the seasonality is objective. Deposits do not argue.

Make the request in writing, name the percentage the contract specifies, attach the deposit records, keep the timestamps. Do it before you miss a payment. A documented, ignored reconciliation demand is worth more than anything you will say on a call.

Why nobody in Maine is going to call your advance usurious

Maine put all of its rate ceilings in one place, the Maine Consumer Credit Code at Title 9-A. Then it wrote 9-A M.R.S. § 1-202: this Act does not apply to extensions of credit primarily for business, commercial or agricultural purposes. First exclusion, first line. The tiered 30, 24 and 18 percent limits in § 2-401 are consumer numbers and a business borrower cannot reach any of them.

A full-text search of the entire Maine Revised Statutes for the word usury returns exactly one hit, and it is in the purposes section of the very Code that excludes you. There is no criminal usury offense either. The Maine Criminal Code runs 52 chapters and contains no usury, loansharking or extortionate credit provision. The 6 percent figure in 9-B M.R.S. § 432 is not a cap: it is the rate that applies when nobody wrote one down, it binds only financial institutions, and a written agreement displaces it.

So a 200 percent effective rate on a Maine advance breaks no Maine law. A firm that opens by converting your factor rate into an APR and calling it illegal is reading a New York script at a Maine file. Ask instead what it intends to do about the reconciliation clause and the guarantee.

A judgment from away, and the thirty days it cannot move

Maine has no confession of judgment procedure. The official consolidated Rules of Civil Procedure use the word judgment 436 times and never use confess, cognovit or warrant of attorney. The only Maine statute voiding such an authorization, 9-A M.R.S. § 3-306, sits inside the Consumer Credit Code, and § 1-202(1) already put your advance outside that Code. A funder holding a signed confession has no Maine counter to walk it into.

So it takes the judgment somewhere that will give it one, then brings it here under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act. Filed with the clerk of a District or Superior Court under 14 M.R.S. § 8003, the judgment is treated as a Maine judgment and, in the statute's own words, is subject to the same procedures, defenses and proceedings for reopening, vacating or staying as a Maine one.

Then the deadline. Section 8004 requires an affidavit with your last known address and requires the clerk to promptly mail you notice. Subsection 3: no execution or other process for enforcement of a foreign judgment filed hereunder shall issue until 30 days after the date the judgment is filed. Thirty days between the filing and anything reaching your accounts. That envelope from the clerk is not a formality. It is a countdown.

What actually triggered the personal guarantee, and where the lien lives

Most merchant cash advance guarantees are not unconditional. They are performance guarantees, triggered by defined breaches: selling the business, moving the deposits, blocking the debit. A slow month is usually not on the list. So the first question is which clause the funder says you tripped, and whether it covers a missed ACH or an act you actually took. The contract is often narrower than the demand letter.

The lien is the other half. Maine files financing statements with the Secretary of State, 11 M.R.S. § 9-1501, and numbers its Article 9 sections with a leading 1, so the familiar 9-513 is 9-1513 here. Subsection (3) gives the secured party 20 days after a signed demand to send or file a termination statement. Note the word: Maine is on the 2022 amendments and says signed, not authenticated.

Miss the 20 days and 11 M.R.S. § 9-1625(5) adds $500 in each case on top of actual damages. Fixtures, timber to be cut and extracted minerals go to the county Registry of Deeds instead, which matters if a funder took a broader description than your receivables. Pull the search yourself before you negotiate.

Maine's unfair trade practices act runs through the Attorney General, not through you

The prohibition in 5 M.R.S. § 207 is broad and it is not limited to consumers: unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are declared unlawful, with Maine courts directed to follow federal readings of the FTC Act.

Then 5 M.R.S. § 213(1) closes the door on you specifically. The private right of action runs only to a person who purchases or leases goods, services or property primarily for personal, family or household purposes. A Maine business cannot bring a damages action under the statute over a merchant cash advance. Subsection 1-A also requires a written demand 30 days before filing a damages action unless the claim is a counterclaim.

What is left is 5 M.R.S. § 209, which lets the Attorney General sue in the name of the State, obtain restoration of money to anyone who suffered ascertainable loss, and seek up to $10,000 per intentional violation. That channel is not closed to a business, but it is not yours to drive. Neither the Attorney General's site search nor the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection's returns any result for merchant cash advance. Filing a complaint is worth ten minutes. Do not build the plan around it.

The clock, the warning signs, and what to gather

Maine uses one limitations clock rather than separate written and oral periods. 14 M.R.S. § 752: all civil actions shall be commenced within 6 years after the cause of action accrues, with judgments carved out on the section's own terms. Six years on the funding agreement, six on the written guarantee, a different regime once a judgment exists.

Count how many describe your business today. You are considering a new advance to cover an old one. The daily ACH exceeds 15 percent of daily revenue. You have bounced a payment. You are choosing between payroll and the debit. You signed a personal guarantee. You have two or more active positions. Three or more, and waiting no longer improves the file.

Gather six things. Every funding agreement, complete with signature pages and the reconciliation paragraph. Any written reconciliation request you sent and whatever came back. Twelve months of bank statements, not three, because the seasonality is the point. Every demand or default letter. A current UCC search from the Secretary of State. And anything at all that arrived from a court clerk, with the date it was postmarked.