The gap, stated precisely

A New Hampshire owner in a covenanted community can now hold a municipal right to build an accessory dwelling unit and a private-law prohibition against building one, at the same time, with nothing in the statute resolving the conflict.

RSA 674:72 directs what a town's zoning ordinance must permit. It says nothing about a recorded declaration, and a recorded declaration is a contract running with the land that the legislature did not purport to override. A board enforcing a covenant against second dwelling units is not defying state law; it is enforcing a different body of law that the state law did not touch.

The practical consequence for a board is more applications, not fewer. An owner who reads a news story about a state ADU mandate and applies to the architectural review committee is genuinely surprised to be told no, and the surprise is reasonable — the coverage almost never mentions covenants.

The legislature looked at this and stopped

HB 1136 (2026) contained the condominium-conveyance sentence as new matter and would also have amended RSA 674:71 and repealed RSA 674:73 on detached units. It was reported Inexpedient to Legislate on a 17-0 committee vote on March 3, 2026 and died without a floor vote when the House adjourned on March 12.

But the sentence reached the statute books anyway, through one of the two later amendments. So the outcome of the 2026 ADU fight on the condominium point is that the rule exists and the bill that carried it does not.

HB 1012 (2026) would have repealed the entire ADU framework — RSA 674:71, :72 and :73 — and was killed on the House floor by voice vote on February 5, 2026 after a unanimous 16-0 committee report. HB 1006, on ADU parking requirements, went the same way the same day.

HB 1017 (2026) would have gone in a different direction, letting a municipality require a recorded restrictive covenant to enforce workforce-housing status on an accessory dwelling unit: "A municipality may require a restrictive covenant consistent with RSA 674:60, IV to be recorded in the registry of deeds to enforce compliance with these definitions." It came out of committee on a 10-8 split with an Ought-to-Pass minority report, and died without a floor vote.

Detached units remain contested. The New Hampshire Municipal Association's review of 2026 zoning legislation records proposals to "Repeal the contradictory detached Accessory Dwelling Unit law (ADU), RSA 674:73" and to "Restore the local option for whether a municipality shall allow detached ADUs."²

What a board can actually do

Read your own declaration first. Many New Hampshire declarations do not prohibit accessory dwelling units in terms; they prohibit "more than one single-family dwelling per lot," or restrict use to "single-family residential purposes," or cap the number of kitchens. Whether those clauses reach an accessory dwelling unit is a question about the words, and a board that assumes the answer is exposed either way.

Decide before the application. A board that has not considered the question until an owner has plans drawn is making a contentious decision under pressure, and inconsistency between the first application and the second is what gets litigated.

Distinguish the two approvals in writing. Tell owners, once, that a municipal permit and association approval are separate and that neither substitutes for the other. It prevents the most common and most expensive misunderstanding.

Note the conveyance limit. Even where a board permits an accessory dwelling unit, the owner cannot later condominiumize it separately absent municipal permission. An owner building one as an investment that they intend to sell off should be told that now.

What to watch next

Federal money is about to push in the same direction. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which became law on July 11, 2026, expands FHA loan limits for accessory dwelling units — though the operative terms will be set in HUD rulemaking that has not started, so nothing is available yet.

On the state side, LSR 2027-0235, filed by Rep. Ellen Read, is titled "relative to the number of accessory dwelling units permitted." It is a title with no text, and the title does not disclose whether it would raise the number or lower it.