New Hampshire · Homeowners’ law guide

Every New Hampshire HOA law, in one place.

New Hampshire regulates condominiums closely and everything else hardly at all. There is a detailed Condominium Act with open meetings, records deadlines and a budget veto — and, outside a condominium, a single 2023 section in the non-profit chapter plus whatever your own declaration says. Ten chapters hosted in full across nine pages, plus the scattered provisions summarized on a tenth. This guide is the map.

10 pages 338 sections in force N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann.

The tab, page by page

Ordered by how much they are likely to matter to an owner, not by chapter number. The first two are a fork: read the Condominium Act if you own a unit, the Voluntary Corporations chapter if you do not.

01 Condominium ActRSA ch. 356-B, 82 sections. Start here if you own a condominium unit. Almost everything an owner argues about is in this chapter. The assessment lien, whose six months of regular assessments plus collection costs and attorney's fees outrank the first mortgage — but only if the association gave notice within 70 days of the delinquency and warned the lender 30 days before filing (RSA 356-B:46). Board meetings open every quarter with 10 days' notice (5 where 70 percent of owners are full-time residents), executive session limited to four subjects and no final vote in it — though neither section reaches a condominium of 25 or fewer units (RSA 356-B:37-c, 356-B:37-d). Financial records in 15 days (RSA 356-B:37-e). A budget that ratifies itself unless 2/3 of all owners reject it (RSA 356-B:40-c). Removing a director on a simple majority of votes cast (RSA 356-B:40-b). And the flag on your deck (RSA 356-B:47-a). → 02 Voluntary Corporations and AssociationsRSA ch. 292, 49 sections. Start here if you are not in a condominium. New Hampshire has no planned-community act, so outside a condominium your association is governed by its own declaration plus this corporate chapter — and by RSA 292:8-m, the state's only general HOA statute, added in 2023. Once developer control ends, if one person acquires more than 50 percent of the votes a 2/3 majority is needed to change bylaws, budgets or the management contract; and an association the planning board approved cannot be dissolved until that board has held a hearing. Also here: RSA 292:6-b, under which members have no voting rights except as the articles or bylaws provide — but no member or director may ever have more than one vote, which is fatal to weighted voting. → 03 Unit Ownership of Real Property ActRSA ch. 479-A, 28 sections. The older condominium law, superseded in 1977 but still governing every building submitted to it before 10 September 1977, with two exceptions in RSA 356-B:2 for time-share offers and for ten or more units added by later amendment. Three differences decide real disputes. Its lien sits behind the whole first mortgage with no six-month carve-out (RSA 479-A:22). Its records right is a visit “at convenient hours of weekdays”, with no deadline at all (RSA 479-A:19). And a buyer is jointly and severally liable for the seller's unpaid assessments unless they demand the statement that caps it (RSA 479-A:23). The chapter applied only to owners who opted in by recording a declaration, so the registry answers which statute governs your building — not the age of the roof. → 04 Law Against DiscriminationRSA ch. 354-A, 41 sections. New Hampshire's fair housing law, enforced by the Commission for Human Rights. The section an owner asking for an exception needs is RSA 354-A:11, III(b): refusing a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services is a civil rights violation. Physical modifications are a different rule and come at the disabled person's expense. RSA 354-A:13 voids covenants restricting occupancy by race, color, religion or national origin — and makes it a fresh violation to honor one in the chain of title. Watch the clock (RSA 354-A:21, RSA 354-A:21-a): 180 days to file with the Commission, and no later than 3 years for a court action, which you cannot take and then return to the Commission. Read RSA 354-A:8 and 354-A:10 together — their protected-class lists differ. → 05 Consumer protection and collection practicesRSA chs. 358-A and 358-C, 19 sections. New Hampshire's answer to the FDCPA, and it reaches further than the federal act because RSA 358-C:1, VIII(a) defines a debt collector as any person enforcing a consumer credit transaction debt — with no third-party requirement. The paragraph to know in arrears is RSA 358-C:3, X: no interest, fee or charge incidental to the principal may be collected unless expressly authorized by the agreement creating the obligation. If a late fee is not in your declaration or bylaws, that is the objection. Recovery under RSA 358-C:4 is $200 plus costs and attorney's fees per violation or actual damages, whichever is greater — but a claim a court finds frivolous costs you the collector's fees. Every violation is also an unfair or deceptive act under RSA 358-A:2. → 06 Conveyances of realty, covenants and easementsRSA ch. 477, 72 sections. Where homeowners are sent when a covenant is in dispute, and where the solar question gets its answer — which is an absence. RSA 477:49 to 477:51 create a voluntary skyspace easement between neighbours, not a right to install panels over an association's objection, and nothing in the 27 New Hampshire chapters hosted here restricts what a declaration may say about solar, EV charging, clotheslines, political signs or satellite dishes. Two sections do help: RSA 477:3-b voids forfeiture clauses in most modern deeds while letting the restriction survive as a covenant “without forfeiture”, and RSA 477:4-f makes a seller tell a condominium buyer, in writing, what documents they may demand. Note that RSA 477:46, headed “Restrictions Enforceable”, is about conservation and preservation restrictions — not HOA covenants. → 07 Condominium conversion and tenant protectionsRSA ch. 356-C, 10 sections. What happens when your rented building is turned into condominiums. Under RSA 356-C:3 a tenant in residence gets at least 270 days before being required to vacate; a tenant who is 65 or older, or disabled within the chapter's definition, gets at least 18 months. RSA 356-C:5 gives you 60 days of first refusal, and a sale to anyone else is voidable at your option if that right was ignored. The rent cannot be raised to pay for the conversion, and any lease term waiving these rights is void as against public policy. Under RSA 356-C:2, buildings of 10 units or fewer are outside the chapter — but converting a larger one in batches of ten does not escape it. → 08 Land Sales Full Disclosure ActRSA ch. 356-A, 27 sections. The registration and disclosure law for subdivided land, and it expressly does not cover condominiums. Its value to an ordinary buyer is RSA 356-A:9-b, the only resale-package right New Hampshire gives outside a condominium: on written request, the property owners' association must supply — within 10 days — its anticipated capital and major maintenance spending, the status and amount of any reserve, last year's income statement and balance sheet, pending suits against it, and what it does and does not insure. It is also where seven of the Condominium Act's own definitions actually live, which is why RSA 356-B:3 cannot be read without it. → 09 Service Animals and Search and Rescue DogsRSA ch. 167-D, 10 sections. An access statute, and it is important to know what it is not. A service animal here is a dog only, individually trained to do work or perform tasks — and RSA 167-D:2, II says in terms that emotional support, comfort or companionship is not work or tasks under this chapter. It says nothing at all about fees, deposits or damage; we searched every held chapter and found no New Hampshire statute that does. For an assistance animal in your home, the governing rule is the reasonable-accommodation duty at RSA 354-A:11, III(b) and the federal Fair Housing Act, which use a different test entirely. → 10 Related & miscellaneous New Hampshire lawsThe provisions filed where nobody would look, and the things people wrongly believe. The Attorney General's consumer protection and antitrust bureau administers the Condominium Act (RSA 356-B:48, RSA 21-M:9). RSA 359-G makes an association give a builder written notice and an opportunity to repair before suing over construction defects. RSA 292:8-m, II stands between a planning-approved association and dissolution — it requires a hearing under RSA 676:2, a section actually about joint meetings of two or more land use boards. Also: the co-operative and common-lands chapters some New Hampshire communities are organised under, the recording machinery an assessment lien runs through, and the limitation periods. And the myth-busters — Robert's Rules are the statutory default for a condominium association meeting, and New Hampshire has no solar, EV-charging, clothesline or political-sign right against an association at all. →

General information, not legal advice. Statutory text throughout this tab is reproduced from the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated as published by the General Court, which states that they include all changes and updates made up to December 2025, and may not reflect the most recent amendments. Repealed and reserved section numbers are kept in place so that a citation in an older declaration still leads somewhere.

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