Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Maine

Re: family vacation home

The short answer is no. You may own the cottage as joint tenants, which means that you automaticly inherit the other person's half upon their death. If you own as tenants in common, then you each can put your half of the property in your Will and give it to someone else.

In either case, one party making repairs or improvements will not change the percentage of ownership. Upon sale you may both agree that as a matter of fairness or equity he gets his investment back before the proceeds are split, however, in the case of a partition action in which a Court is asked to determine how proceeds are to be split, the amount of improvements made by your brother may mean a Judge, due to "equity", will award him more of the proceeds.