How to fill out Maine Bill of Sale

The Bureau's own one-page receipt, and the only piece of the private sale that Maine publishes as a form you can print at home. It is not a substitute for the assignment on the back of the certificate; it is what the buyer is told to bring to the town office alongside it, and on a vehicle too old to be titled it becomes the main evidence that the car changed hands. It carries a second job people miss: a full odometer disclosure statement with its own two exception boxes, and a certification that no lienholder is still attached to the vehicle.

Written against Bill of Sale (no revision printed), issued under 29-A M.R.S. section 662. The odometer paragraph on this sheet is written for the seller and signed by the seller, and the buyer's signature underneath only acknowledges it. If the reading is wrong, the sheet does not spread the blame - it records exactly who said what and who merely heard it.

Two documents, and they are not the same thing. Take the blank Bill of Sale from the maine.gov copy so you get the revision that is current today, then print our Bill of Sale guide and keep it beside you while you fill theirs in.

Step 1 · the form itself Blank Bill of Sale — Motor Vehicle Bill of Sale PDF at maine.gov · new tab Step 2 · how to fill it in Our filled-in Bill of Sale guide PDF · print and keep beside you

Filled in

What a completed one looks like

This is the actual Bill of Sale, rendered from the PDF the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles publishes and completed end to end: letterhead, every field, and the blocks at the foot.

Amber — you write it
Grey — not yours to fill
Numbered — explained below

The Maine Motor Vehicle Bill of Sale filled in as an annotated sample. Marielle A. Ouellette of Winterport is printed as seller and Perley T. Rancourt of Readfield as buyer, the purchase price reads 12,400 dollars, and the vehicle row carries a 2014 Toyota Tacoma pickup in blue with its vehicle identification number. The odometer disclosure statement shows 138,204 miles with both exception boxes left unticked, the lien certification is ticked, and both parties have signed and dated it. — Both exception boxes under the odometer statement are deliberately empty here, because the reading is the actual mileage. The tick that is present is the one directly under Lien Holder Information, and it certifies something rather than acknowledging it: that there is no active lienholder on this vehicle. All four signature rules are bare, because the Bureau built this sheet with no fillable box behind any of them - they are meant for a pen, in front of the other party.

Field by field

Every line, in the order you meet it

1
You fill this in
Print both names
Seller and buyer, printed, on the two lines at the top.
Watch out: Print the buyer's name the way their licence prints it. This sheet and the assignment on the certificate have to name the same person in the same words or the counter reconciles them by hand.
2
You fill this in
The purchase price
The figure the buyer agrees to pay in exchange for the possession and ownership of the vehicle.
Watch out: The sheet says in as many words that taxes are not included in the purchase price, so this is the bare sale figure and not what the buyer eventually hands over at the town office.
3
You fill this in
Describe the vehicle
Year, make, model, vehicle identification number, body type and colour, in one row.
Watch out: Copy the identification number off the certificate rather than off the dashboard. A digit taken from the wrong place turns this sheet into evidence about a different car.
4
You fill this in
The odometer reading
The mileage with no tenths, written into the middle of the printed sentence.
Watch out: Read it on the day of the sale, not on the day you wrote the advert. Maine wants the reading at transfer and the buyer is signing to say they heard the one you wrote.
5
You fill this in
The two exception boxes
Tick one only if it applies: mileage in excess of its mechanical limits, or the reading is not the actual mileage.
Watch out: The second box prints WARNING-ODOMETER DISCREPANCY beside it and that is what the buyer will read. Ticking it honestly is far cheaper than not ticking it.
6
You fill this in
The lien certification
Tick the box certifying that there is no active lienholder on this vehicle.
Watch out: If a lender is still on the certificate this box cannot honestly be ticked, and there is no other lane on this sheet for naming one. Clear the lien first.
7
You fill this in
Sign, address, date
Your signature, a second signature if the certificate names a second owner, your address and the date.
Watch out: The address here is yours, not the car's garaging address. It is how the buyer reaches you if the paperwork stalls in Augusta.
8
The buyer fills this in
Let the buyer sign last
Their signature, address and date, under the instruction not to sign until everything above is complete.
Watch out: Their signature acknowledges your odometer disclosure. Getting it before the reading is written turns the acknowledgement into nothing.

At a glance

What goes where

On the form	What to put in it
Parties	Seller and buyer, both asked for in print rather than in signature. The heading over the two lines says please print, and the two signature lanes further down are where handwriting belongs.
Purchase Price	One dollar figure, framed as a sentence: the buyer agrees to pay the amount to the seller in exchange for the possession and ownership of the vehicle described below.
The vehicle	Six boxes across one row - year, make, model, vehicle identification number, body type and colour.
Taxes	Printed text rather than a box, and worth reading before anybody argues about it at the kerb. Municipal, county and state taxes in relation to the purchase, including sales taxes, are not included in the purchase price.
Odometer Disclosure Statement	The reading with no tenths, then two boxes to be ticked only if they apply: mileage in excess of its mechanical limits, which the sheet glosses as the odometer started at zero again, and the reading is not the actual mileage, which prints the words WARNING-ODOMETER DISCREPANCY beside it.
Lien Holder Information	A single certification with a tick box: I certify that there is no active lienholder on this vehicle. There is nowhere on this form to name a lender, because a vehicle with a live lien is not one this sheet can describe.
Seller(s) Signature	Two lanes, because Maine titles two owners as often as one, then the seller's address and the date.
Buyer(s) Signature	Two more lanes under a printed instruction: do not sign below until all sections above have been completed and signed, and signing indicates you are aware of the odometer disclosure statement made by the seller.

What gets this one rejected

•A blank mileage line. The odometer statement is the half of this sheet that is doing legal work, and an empty reading makes the rest of it decorative.
•A tick in the lien certification when a lender still holds the title. The sentence being certified is that there is no active lienholder, and it is signed under the buyer's nose.
•A price line left open so the buyer can write in a lower number later. The figure is what the use tax is charged on and what a dispute would be measured against.
•The buyer signing first. The printed instruction on the sheet is that they do not sign until every section above is complete.
•Using this instead of the assignment on the reverse of the certificate. For a vehicle inside Maine's twenty-five-year title window this sheet supports the transfer; it does not perform it.
•One signature where the certificate names two owners. Both sellers sign here for the same reason both sign the certificate.

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

•It is not proof of ownership on its own. The Bureau's own list of what a private buyer brings to register a car names the signed bill of sale and the title signed from the previous owner as two separate items. This sheet is the first of them.
•On a title-exempt vehicle it carries much more weight. Maine stops titling at twenty-five model years. Below that line there is no certificate to assign, and the registration certificate plus this bill of sale is the whole documentary record of the sale.
•Write the price you were actually paid. The tax on a casual sale is charged to the buyer at registration and calculated on the purchase price. Understating it is the buyer's exposure, in your handwriting, on a sheet you signed.
•Keep a copy with the date on it. The date on this sheet is the day possession changed, and possession is the thing that ends a Maine seller's liability for what happens to the car afterwards.

Every line here was read off Bill of Sale (no revision printed) itself — the PDF is here — and off the Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles pages. This is plain-language help with a form, not legal advice, and where our wording and the agency's differ, theirs governs.

Back to all Maine seller paperwork, or what selling a car in Maine involves.

How to fill out Maine Bill of Sale

What a completed one looks like

Every line, in the order you meet it

Print both names

The purchase price

Describe the vehicle

The odometer reading

The two exception boxes

The lien certification

Sign, address, date

Let the buyer sign last

What goes where

What gets this one rejected

Rules that decide whether it is accepted

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