New Hampshire HOA Foreclosure

Key Findings

• RSA 356-B, the New Hampshire Condominium Act, governs condominium associations. The state has not adopted UCIOA.
• Non-condominium HOAs answer to their recorded CC&Rs, to the voluntary-corporation rules of RSA 292, and to common-law contract and property doctrine.
• RSA 356-B:46 generally puts the association's assessment lien behind a first mortgage. A narrow six-month super-priority exists, but only if the association meets strict statutory conditions.
• Mortgage lenders foreclose non-judicially under RSA 479:25. Associations must go to court, win a judgment, and force a sale that carries a one-year redemption right under RSA 529:26.
• Once a lender completes a proper power-of-sale foreclosure, New Hampshire grants no statutory right to redeem.

Section 1 — Overview: How HOA foreclosure works in New Hampshire

New Hampshire foreclosures usually skip the courtroom. The state runs a non-judicial, power-of-sale system, it relies on a Condominium Act rather than UCIOA, it leaves planned communities to their own recorded covenants, and it operates with no intermediate appellate court.^1,2 Here is the distinction that matters most: the power of sale belongs to mortgage lenders. Condominium associations do not get one. When an association wants to collect, it has to take its assessment lien to court.³

RSA 356-B, the New Hampshire Condominium Act, controls how condominium associations form, govern themselves, levy assessments, and assert liens. For any condominium created on or after September 10, 1977, it replaces the older Unit Ownership of Real Property Act.⁴ The planned-community side looks different. New Hampshire never passed a comprehensive statute for it, so non-condominium homeowners associations take their direction mainly from recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions, with the nonprofit-corporation provisions of RSA 292 and ordinary common law filling the gaps.⁵

When a mortgage goes into default, RSA 479:25 lays out the path. The lender publishes and mails notice, the borrower keeps the right to ask the Superior Court to stop the sale, and the process ends at a public auction — with no statutory window to redeem afterward.^6,7 Federal law sits on top of all of it. Under Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, a firm that does nothing more than carry out a non-judicial foreclosure mostly falls outside the FDCPA's definition of a debt collector, while the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act and the Bankruptcy Code's automatic stay can each freeze or slow a case.⁸ The sections that follow walk through the statutory framework, the step-by-step sequence, the latest activity in the legislature and the courts, and where New Hampshire lands on the national map.

Section 2 — The statutory framework

2A. The New Hampshire Condominium Act (RSA 356-B)

RSA 356-B reaches every condominium and condominium project in the state, and for anything created on or after September 10, 1977, it supersedes RSA 479-A, the New Hampshire Unit Ownership of Real Property Act.⁴ The statute borrows much of its architecture from the Uniform Condominium Act of 1977, but do not confuse it with the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act — New Hampshire has not adopted UCIOA.⁹ The Act spells out the core vocabulary, defining the "unit owners' association," the "common areas," the "common expenses," and the "condominium instruments," that last phrase covering the declaration, the bylaws, and the site and floor plans together.¹⁰

RSA 356-B:46 creates the association's lien for unpaid assessments. It secures the unpaid common-expense assessments charged to a unit, and a judgment enforcing it sweeps in costs, reasonable attorneys' fees, and interest.¹¹ To perfect that lien, the association records a verified memorandum in the registry of deeds within six months of the assessment coming due — and it can lose the lien entirely if an owner requests a statement of what's owed and the association fails to deliver one within ten business days.¹¹ The New Hampshire Supreme Court put the priority plainly in Pinewood Estates, quoting RSA 356-B:46, I(a): the perfected lien stands "prior to all other liens and encumbrances except ... sums unpaid on any first mortgages or first deeds of trust ... securing institutional lenders." In other words, it normally ranks below a first mortgage.¹²

RSA 356-B:46, I(c) opens one narrow door: a conditional six-month super-priority. For the regular monthly assessments that went unpaid in the six months just before the association files its lien memorandum — plus collection costs and reasonable attorneys' fees — the lien can leapfrog the first mortgage. But the association earns that priority only if it follows the script. It must notify both the owner and the institutional first mortgagee, by certified and first-class mail, within seventy days of any delinquency, that the account is at least sixty days past due, and it must give the lender at least thirty days' warning before it files the memorandum.¹¹ As the Court framed it in Pinewood Estates, an association "may ... gain limited priority over a first mortgage for six months of unpaid assessments if the association follows the procedure provided in RSA 356-B:46, I(c)."¹² The priority leaves out special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties, and interest. It reaches only mortgages signed on or after January 1, 2011. And an association can hold just one priority lien at a time.¹¹ Notably, RSA 356-B sets no minimum debt an association must reach before it moves to enforce.¹¹

2B. The CC&R-primary framework for planned communities

For planned communities, New Hampshire offers no statute to match RSA 356-B.⁵ That makes non-condominium homeowners associations CC&R-primary: the recorded declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions runs the show, setting the assessment obligations, the lien rights, and whatever enforcement remedies exist.¹³ When such an HOA assesses, liens, or forecloses, its authority flows from that recorded contract — not from any dedicated law.¹³

Most associations in the state incorporate as nonprofits, and when they do, RSA 292 — the Voluntary Corporations and Associations statute — supplies the governance backbone: formation, bylaws, board authority, voting, and dissolution all run through it.¹⁴ A 2023 amendment added RSA 292:8-m. It demands a two-thirds majority to amend bylaws, budgets, or property-management contracts whenever a single person picks up more than fifty percent of the votes after the developer's control ends, and it requires a planning-board hearing before certain HOA dissolutions.¹⁵ Past the declaration and RSA 292, common-law contract and property doctrine takes over the work of interpreting and enforcing covenants — including the basic rule that a covenant lien's reach and priority depend on the recorded instrument and on ordinary first-in-time principles, unless some statute says otherwise.¹³

2C. Power-of-sale foreclosure, redemption, and federal overlays

In New Hampshire, a mortgage foreclosure runs mainly through the statutory power of sale under RSA 479:25. The lender publishes notice once a week for three straight weeks, with the first notice landing no fewer than twenty days before the sale, and it serves or mails notice to the borrower at least twenty-five days out — or at least forty-five days out when the loan is a residential mortgage.⁶ The borrower can petition the Superior Court to stop the sale, but here is the catch: skip that petition before the sale happens, and you forfeit any later challenge to whether the foreclosure was valid.⁶ A lender can instead foreclose by court action, though few choose that route.¹⁶ And once a power-of-sale foreclosure is done properly, New Hampshire gives no statutory right to redeem afterward — the borrower can only redeem by paying off the debt before the gavel falls.⁷

Disputes move through the New Hampshire Superior Court, and civil appeals head straight to the New Hampshire Supreme Court. There is no intermediate appellate court in between. The Supreme Court takes most appeals as of right, though it keeps some discretion over which cases get full review.²

Federal law overlays the state's procedure. Under the FDCPA, a third-party collector that duns an owner before foreclosure is doing debt-collection work — but in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, 586 U.S. 466 (No. 17-1307), a unanimous opinion Justice Breyer delivered on March 20, 2019, the Court held that "a business engaged in no more than nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings is not a 'debt collector' under the FDCPA, except for the limited purpose of §1692f(6)."⁸ The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act layers on stays and protections for active-duty servicemembers, and the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. 362 stops foreclosure cold the moment an owner files for bankruptcy.¹⁷

Section 3 — The New Hampshire HOA foreclosure procedural sequence

A. Lien establishment and recording

For a condominium, the assessment lien comes from RSA 356-B:46, and the association perfects it by recording a verified memorandum in the registry of deeds within six months of the assessment coming due. That memorandum has to describe the unit, name the owners, and state the unpaid amounts and their due dates.¹¹ Recording also fixes the lien's rank: it sits below a first institutional mortgage unless the association has separately cleared the I(c) super-priority notice steps.^11,12 For a non-condominium HOA, the recorded declaration drives everything — whether a lien attaches at all, what notices it requires, and how to record it — because no general planned-community statute supplies those mechanics.¹³ Either way, recording in the right county registry of deeds is what makes the lien stick against third parties.¹¹

B. Pre-foreclosure notice and demand

For condominiums, two notice tracks run in parallel. To hold onto just the ordinary junior lien, RSA 356-B:46 asks for the perfecting memorandum and a statement of the amounts due whenever someone requests it. To capture the six-month super-priority, RSA 356-B:46, I(c) asks for more: the association must send the owner and the institutional first mortgagee certified and first-class notice, within seventy days of the delinquency, that the account is at least sixty days past due, and it must give the lender at least thirty days' notice before it files the lien memorandum.¹¹ Separately, RSA 356-B:46, IX lets the association cut off common services after thirty days' written notice to the owner and the first mortgagee.¹¹ For non-condominium HOAs, the CC&Rs and general contract principles — not a statute — set the pre-foreclosure notice and demand.¹³ And whenever a third-party collector handles the account, the FDCPA's notice and validation rules govern the dunning.⁸

C. Power-of-sale foreclosure (or judicial foreclosure)

Here New Hampshire breaks from what people usually assume. A mortgage lender forecloses without a court: it publishes once a week for three straight weeks, with the first notice at least twenty days before the sale, mails or serves notice to the borrower at least twenty-five days out (forty-five days for a residential mortgage), and notifies record lienholders generally at least twenty-one days ahead.⁶ The notice has to tell the borrower about the right to petition the Superior Court to stop the sale, and the auction takes place on the property itself unless the mortgage says otherwise.⁶ An association's assessment lien works nothing like that. The association cannot use a power of sale at all — it has to sue in Superior Court to establish and enforce the lien, then win a court-ordered execution sale that the sheriff conducts under RSA 529.³ In practice, that difference decides a lot: an association cannot auction a unit on its own the way a lender can, and the court-ordered sheriff's sale comes with a one-year redemption period and leaves the first mortgage standing.^3,18 A 2023 bill that would have handed associations direct foreclosure power through RSA 479:25 and RSA 479:26 never became law.¹⁹

D. Post-sale rights and remedies

After a non-judicial power-of-sale foreclosure under RSA 479:25, no statutory redemption follows — the borrower's chance to redeem closes the moment the sale finishes.⁷ After a court-ordered execution sale on an association's judgment under RSA 529, the picture changes: the owner or record owner gets a one-year right of redemption under RSA 529:26, payable with statutory interest, and that window chills bidder interest in a real way.¹⁸ Surplus proceeds flow out by priority, and a senior foreclosure wipes out junior liens to the extent the money never reaches them.³ A foreclosing first mortgagee or buyer usually takes free of the association's junior lien, but a properly perfected six-month super-priority claim still follows the property.¹² Evicting a holdover occupant comes after title transfers. And on any deficiency, the foreclosed owner stays personally liable for assessment debt that piled up before the sale — though collecting it is often a lost cause.²⁰

Section 4 — Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

New Hampshire passed two condominium-governance measures in 2024 that touch how RSA 356-B operates day to day, and it added a 2024 omnibus condominium-governance act on top of them.

B. Recent rulings

Appellate action on New Hampshire condominium associations is thin. No New Hampshire Supreme Court opinion in the past thirty-six months has resolved a condominium or HOA foreclosure or a fight over assessment-lien priority. The case that still controls the foreclosure context is New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority v. Pinewood Estates Condominium Association, No. 2015-0514, decided September 20, 2016 and modified November 10, 2016. There the Court held that "the Condominium Act, RSA chapter 356-B ... operated to bar Pinewood's claim for unpaid pre-foreclosure condominium assessments" because the association had not followed the I(c) priority procedure, and it struck down, as contrary to RSA 356-B:46, a declaration provision that tried to make a post-foreclosure owner pay a prior owner's debt.¹² The most recent Supreme Court condominium opinion we can verify deals with governance, not foreclosure.

C. Active legislative debates

The debate that keeps coming back is whether to give condominium associations direct foreclosure authority — the change that would finally make the super-lien enforceable. CAI-New England's legislative committee pushes for it; banking interests push back. A 2023 bill on the question went nowhere.¹⁹ Around it sit related fights over condominium board authority, proxy voting, and how far recorded rules can reach.²⁵

Section 5 — National positioning and related coverage

New Hampshire occupies its own corner of the national map. It is a non-judicial, power-of-sale mortgage-foreclosure state that has not adopted UCIOA, it runs its condominiums through a standalone Condominium Act, it leaves its non-condominium HOAs CC&R-primary, and it operates with no intermediate appellate court.^1,2,5,9 That sets it apart from the UCIOA super-priority states, where associations hold a strong statutory lien and often the power to foreclose directly; from the judicial-only states, where every foreclosure goes through court; and from the comprehensive non-UCIOA states that still regulate planned communities by statute. For a multi-state operator, the takeaway is concrete: New Hampshire's association lien is relatively weak, its super-priority is conditional and easy to forfeit, and association enforcement is slow and court-bound even though mortgage foreclosure here is fast and court-free.^3,11

For boards and managers, the lesson is straightforward: perfect liens early, clear the RSA 356-B:46 super-priority notice steps whenever a first mortgage is in the picture, and remember that turning an assessment judgment into cash means a court process with a one-year redemption window hanging over it.

Recommendations

• Perfect every condominium assessment lien by recording the verified memorandum inside the six-month RSA 356-B:46 window, and calendar the seventy-day and thirty-day notices that secure the conditional six-month super-priority over first mortgages dated on or after January 1, 2011. One threshold flips the whole analysis: miss those notices, and the lien drops to junior status, where a first-mortgage foreclosure will likely wipe it out.
• Treat the declaration and RSA 356-B as controlling, and never let informal practice override them. For a non-condominium HOA, confirm the lien and foreclosure authority in the CC&Rs, because no general statute supplies it. When the CC&Rs say nothing clear about lien remedies, fall back on a money judgment and execution rather than assuming you hold a self-help power of sale.
• Watch one benchmark closely. If a first-mortgage foreclosure looks imminent, perfect the super-priority claim before you chase a judicial association sale — the junior lien will probably vanish, and a sheriff's sale drags a one-year redemption that scares off bidders. If the legislature ever grants associations direct foreclosure authority, run the numbers again, because the timeline and the bidder economics would shift in a big way.

Caveats

• The six-month super-priority is conditional. Miss the statutory notice steps and you forfeit it, and it reaches only mortgages signed on or after January 1, 2011.
• We could not independently confirm the exact bill number and signing date of the 2024 omnibus condominium act (Chapter 322) from a bill-status page at publication, so verify them before you cite them. The repeal of RSA 356-B:70 by 2024, 322:5, VI, effective January 1, 2025, does check out against the codified statute.
• Case law on HOA foreclosure is sparse. The leading precedent, Pinewood Estates (2016), falls outside the past thirty-six months, and the most recent Supreme Court condominium opinion, Moda v. Fernwood (2024), turns on common-area consent rather than foreclosure.

Footnotes

1. New Hampshire Municipal Association, Mortgage Foreclosures and Property Tax Liens (most New Hampshire foreclosures proceed without judicial oversight) ↩
2. New Hampshire Judicial Branch, Supreme Court Opinions (no intermediate appellate court; most appeals as of right) ↩
3. Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, P.C., New Hampshire Condo Associations Need Foreclosure Authority (associations lack power of sale; court-ordered sheriff's sale carries a one-year redemption and does not extinguish the first mortgage) ↩
4. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:2, Application (chapter supersedes RSA 479-A for condominiums created on or after September 10, 1977) ↩
5. RunHOA, New Hampshire State Laws (no comprehensive HOA act; governance via covenants and RSA 292) ↩
6. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 479:25, Sale Under the Power (publication and mailed-notice requirements; right to petition Superior Court to enjoin sale) ↩
7. Amy Loftsgordon, New Hampshire Foreclosure Process, Lawyers.com/Nolo (New Hampshire has no law allowing redemption after a nonjudicial foreclosure, citing RSA 479:18) ↩
8. Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, 586 U.S. 466 (2019) (a business engaged in no more than nonjudicial foreclosure is not a "debt collector" under the FDCPA except for the limited purpose of 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(6)) ↩
9. Brief of Community Associations Institute as Amicus Curiae, New Hampshire Supreme Court No. 2016-0357 (RSA 356-B derived from the Uniform Condominium Act (1977)) ↩
10. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:3, Definitions (unit owners' association, common areas, common expenses, condominium instruments) ↩
11. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:46, Lien for Assessments (paragraphs I(a), I(c), III, VIII, IX, X; perfection, conditional six-month super-priority, and notice procedure) ↩
12. New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority v. Pinewood Estates Condominium Ass'n, No. 2015-0514 (N.H. Sept. 20, 2016) (RSA 356-B bars claim for pre-foreclosure assessments where I(c) procedure not followed; declaration provision void as contrary to RSA 356-B:46) ↩
13. Amy Loftsgordon, HOA and COA Foreclosure Laws in New Hampshire, Nolo (HOAs governed by nonprofit-corporation law and CC&Rs; citing RSA 356-B:46) ↩
14. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ch. 292, Voluntary Corporations and Associations (corporate-governance backbone for nonprofit associations) ↩
15. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 292:8-m, Homeowners' Associations (two-thirds majority to amend governing documents on majority-vote acquisition; planning-board hearing before certain dissolutions; source: 2023, 114:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2024) ↩
16. Chambers and Partners, Real Estate Litigation 2025 — New Hampshire (RSA 479:25 non-judicial power of sale is standard; judicial methods under RSA 479:19 take more than one year) ↩
17. New Hampshire Judicial Branch, Complaint to Enjoin Foreclosure Sale (state foreclosure forms and procedure) ↩
18. New England Condominium, Q&A: Helpless in New Hampshire? (association may conduct a sheriff's sale under RSA 529 with a one-year redemption) ↩
19. New Hampshire HB178 (2023), Relative to the Enforcement of Condominium Liens for Assessments (would have added RSA 356-B:46, XI enforcing via RSA 479:25 and RSA 479:26; status: dead) ↩
20. Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, Collecting Delinquent Condominium Fees in New Hampshire (foreclosed former owner retains personal liability for pre-foreclosure assessments) ↩
21. New Hampshire HB1172 (2024), Relative to Meetings of Condominium Boards and Committees (signed July 3, 2024; Chapter 118; eff. Jan. 1, 2025) ↩
22. New Hampshire HB1129 (2024), Relative to the Authority to Vote by Proxy in a Condominium Association (signed July 19, 2024; Chapter 222; eff. Jan. 15, 2025) ↩
23. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:70, Repealed by 2024, 322:5, VI, eff. Jan. 1, 2025 (chapter 356-B table of contents) ↩
24. Moda v. Fernwood at Winnipesaukee Condominium Ass'n, 2024 N.H. 65, No. 2023-0268 (N.H. Nov. 26, 2024) (unit expansion into limited common area requires consent of all adversely affected unit owners under RSA 356-B:19, I) ↩
25. New Hampshire HB383 (2025), Relative to the Authority of Condominium Boards and Unit Owners to Create and Amend Condominium Instruments ↩