For about eight months in 2004, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins was bound by two mortgages that each named a different house as her principal residence, one in Washington and one in Bangor.
Collins, a Republican seeking a sixth term, has used a similar arrangement as a line of attack against her Democratic opponent, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson. At their Oct. 6 debate, she hit Jackson over the federally backed mortgage on an Augusta house that listed it as his primary home while he represented Allagash in the Maine Senate.
“How can he have a primary residence in Allagash for which he was reimbursed $160,000 for travel back and forth, and have a primary residence in Augusta?” Collins said, citing a figure for legislative travel reimbursements from 2019 to 2023 reported by The Maine Wire, the conservative media arm of the Maine Policy Institute.
Collins has made the same kind of claims about her homes in Maine and Washington, according to records reviewed by the Bangor Daily News. She twice signed mortgage documents pledging to use a Washington rowhouse as her principal residence while she owned a home in Bangor, where she has claimed Maine’s homestead exemption.
In 2004, she went a step further. Four months after refinancing the Washington house, she told a Bangor bank that a new house there would be her principal residence, while her D.C. pledge was still in effect.
The records do not show that Collins broke the law. But they show she made the same kind of pledge she and her allies are criticizing Jackson for as they joust in the final weeks of a toss-up race that could help decide control of the U.S. Senate. The incumbent is leaning on her seniority to stave off national Democrats in a state tilting their way.
The BDN asked Collins’ campaign whether her loans were priced as primary-residence mortgages and whether she claimed the federal tax break on home-sale profits when she sold the rowhouse in 2010. The campaign did not directly answer either question.
Collins spokesperson Blake Kernen said Jackson’s loan was different because it was backed by the Federal Housing Administration, which requires the home to be the borrower’s primary residence. Kernen described the program as meant for first-time and low-income buyers, but FHA loans have no income limits and are not restricted to first-time buyers.
“By contrast, Senator Collins used conventional loans which aren’t just meant for primary homes,” Kernen said. “She does not claim a D.C. homestead exemption, and she has accurately claimed her house in Maine as her primary residence.”
Tax records confirm Collins does not claim Washington’s homestead property tax break on her townhouse there. But neither Collins nor her campaign provided tax records or a letter from her accountant after BDN requests. Jackson’s campaign provided a letter from his accountant saying he did not claim a home-sale tax break when he sold the Augusta house in 2021.
Unlike Collins in 2004, Jackson was not bound by two principal-residence pledges at once. The one-year requirement on his Allagash mortgage had expired in 2016, before he bought the Augusta house.
The standard forms Collins signed require buyers to live in the house as their principal residence for at least a year, unless the lender agrees otherwise in writing. Kernen said Collins relied on professionals who were aware of her Senate role when she signed the documents.
Conventional loans can be used for second homes, but the borrower’s pledge stays in place unless the lender attaches a page called a “second home rider.” Mortgages on a home the buyer lives in can often cost less because lenders see them as less risky.
Collins first agreed to the terms when she bought the Capitol Hill rowhouse in 2000. Her Bank of America mortgage listed her address as Bangor, but it required her to live primarily in the Washington house.
The senator has used the second-home option on other properties, including an Enfield camp she bought in 2000 and Capitol Hill townhouse she bought with Tom Daffron, now her husband, in December 2010.
A single homeowner can avoid federal taxes on up to $250,000 in profit from selling a primary residence, but only if they lived there for at least two of the five years before the sale. Federal rules allow only one primary residence at a time.
Collins sold the rowhouse for $511,000 in November 2010 after buying it for $240,000 about 10 years earlier. Her interest rates and tax returns are not public, so it is not clear whether either benefit applied to her.
Jackson’s Augusta home was central to a 2023 complaint to the Maine Ethics Commission. He told the commission he used the house as “a temporary place to stay” and that he still voted and claimed the homestead exemption in Allagash. Yet his Augusta mortgage listed the house as his primary one. Commissioners voted 5-0 against an investigation after Jackson’s lawyer noted federal mortgage residency requirements differed from state ones.
The issue has still found its way into attack ads, including one from the pro-Collins Pine Tree Results PAC. It spent nearly $2.4 million to run it for more than two months, ending earlier this week, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
“Troy Jackson: falsifying documents, ripping off taxpayers, and a bully we can’t trust,” it closes.
