FROM MR. LAKEFRONT BLOG: http://blog.mrlakefront.net/2013/06/06/road-associations-important-to-maine-lakefront-property-owners/

WHEN marketing your lakefront home, it’s important that you belong to a road association. Prior to the credit crisis of September 2008, a private road association, or lack thereof, was of little concern to lenders. But the reforms ushered in after the crisis made membership in a road association vital in meeting the standards of the secondary market, Fannie Mae. 

IF your camp is located on a private road, there needs to be a road association that maintains it year round and plows it in the winter. If not, the secondary market won’t buy the paper from a mortgage broker or bank. Banks are forced to write the deal as a portfolio loan at a much higher rate, making the seller’s property less attractive to potential buyers.

CAMP ROADS, which are privately owned and therefore not maintained by municipalities, have been known to greatly contribute to lake water quality problems. Their sub-standard construction often features unstable and undersized culverts, poor surface materials, inadequate ditch size or no ditches at all and erosion. State laws require landowners to maintain “adequate and timely measures to prevent unreasonable erosion and sedimentation” and are set to protect our natural resources.

All photography by Julia Ellsworth.