New Hampshire HOA Reserve Studies

New Hampshire HOA Reserve Studies
Reserve study factor New Hampshire treatment
Statutory reserve study required No. Neither the New Hampshire Condominium Act (RSA 356-B) nor any planned-community statute requires a reserve study; the recorded declaration and board fiduciary duty set reserve practice.1
Communities covered RSA 356-B governs condominiums created on or after September 10, 1977.2 Non-condominium HOAs have no comprehensive statute and answer to their recorded CC&Rs and corporate law (RSA 292).3
Initial study deadline Not required by statute. Any timing duty comes from the recorded declaration.1
Study update interval Not required by statute. RSA 356-B fixes no interval.1
On-site / physical inspection interval Not required by statute. RSA 356-B sets no physical-inspection requirement.1
Preparer qualification Not required by statute. RSA 356-B sets no preparer standard, and New Hampshire licenses no community association managers.4
Reserve funding required Not required by statute. The condominium instruments authorize and govern reserves; RSA 356-B:3, III treats reserve assessments as a category of common expense, not a mandate.5
Funding standard No statutory standard or percentage. Where a condominium keeps reserves, the board must state the basis on which it calculates and funds them (RSA 356-B:40-c).6
Component / useful-life scope Not defined by statute. The declaration and board judgment govern scope.1
Annual member disclosure Yes, for condominiums. The annual budget summary must include any reserves and the basis on which they are calculated and funded (RSA 356-B:40-c);6 financial information must be available 30 days before the annual meeting (RSA 356-B:37-e).7
Resale / buyer disclosure Yes, for condominiums. On resale, the association must furnish a statement of the status and amount of any major maintenance or replacement reserve and anticipated capital and major maintenance expenditures for the current or succeeding two fiscal years (RSA 356-B:58);8 the public offering statement for new sales must state whether the budget provides for capital expenditures or major maintenance reserves (RSA 356-B:52).9
Reserve account protections No statutory segregation requirement identified. The declaration and board fiduciary duty govern reserve accounts.1
Waiver or underfunding mechanism Not applicable. There is no statutory funding mandate to waive. Owners ratify the annual budget, including reserves, and reject it only by a two-thirds vote of all unit owners (RSA 356-B:40-c).6
Enforcement / penalty No reserve-specific penalty. Enforcement runs through the Attorney General's registration and disclosure authority and a private civil remedy (RSA 356-B:65); owners enforce board fiduciary duties in Superior Court.10
Primary statutory citation(s) RSA 356-B:3, III;5 RSA 356-B:40-c;6 RSA 356-B:37-e;7 RSA 356-B:44;11 RSA 356-B:52;9 RSA 356-B:58.8

1. Overview: Reserve study requirements in New Hampshire

New Hampshire does not require community associations to commission a reserve study or to fund reserves to any particular level. Reserve practice rests on two things — the recorded declaration and the board's fiduciary duty — not on a statutory schedule or a funding percentage.1 The governing statute for condominiums is the New Hampshire Condominium Act, RSA chapter 356-B. It applies to every condominium and condominium project created on or after September 10, 1977, and it superseded the older Unit Ownership of Real Property Act, RSA 479-A.2

The Condominium Act covers condominiums and nothing else. New Hampshire has never enacted a comprehensive planned-community statute, so a non-condominium homeowners association answers to its recorded covenants, conditions, and restrictions; to the New Hampshire Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA chapter 292, for corporate formalities; and to common-law contract and property principles.3

Step back, and the states sort into three groups. Hard-mandate states fix study intervals and funding rules. Disclosure-mandate states require associations to report reserve information. No-mandate states do neither. New Hampshire sits in the no-mandate group — though its Condominium Act does carry developed budget and disclosure provisions that touch reserves indirectly.6 The sections that follow lay out what RSA 356-B actually says about reserves, what governs non-condominium associations, the order of precedence among the declaration, corporate law, and fiduciary duty, and the specific obligations that apply to each kind of community.

2. The reserve framework under New Hampshire law

2A. The New Hampshire Condominium Act and reserves

RSA chapter 356-B governs how condominiums in New Hampshire are created, governed, and disclosed to buyers. It sets out detailed provisions on declarations, bylaws, board duties, meetings, budgets, assessments, and consumer disclosure.2 The Act does address reserves — but it never mandates them. Its definition of common expenses includes funds "lawfully assessed for the creation and/or maintenance of reserves pursuant to the provisions of the condominium instruments," which ties any reserve obligation back to the declaration rather than to the statute.5 RSA 356-B:44 follows the same logic, letting a condominium add surplus common profits to reserves only "to such extent as the condominium instruments may require."11

The budget provision, RSA 356-B:40-c, does the most work. At least once a year, the board must adopt a proposed budget and, within 30 days, give every unit owner a summary "including any reserves, and a statement of the basis on which any reserves are calculated and funded." Owners then ratify that budget, and they reject it only if two-thirds of all unit owners vote against it.6 The design is disclosure-and-ratification, not funding-by-formula. Nothing in RSA 356-B requires a condominium to commission a reserve study, to fund reserves to any percentage, or to inspect its components on a schedule. The plain result: RSA 356-B treats reserves as a budget and disclosure category, and it imposes no reserve-study or reserve-funding mandate.1

2B. The absence of a planned-community statute

New Hampshire has not enacted a comprehensive planned-community or common-interest-ownership statute. It is not a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act state; RSA 356-B stands on its own as a condominium statute, separate from the UCIOA framework that some neighboring states have adopted.12 For a development that is not a condominium, no statutory analog to RSA 356-B governs budgets, reserves, or disclosure.

Instead, a non-condominium HOA answers to its recorded CC&Rs and, where it is incorporated, to the New Hampshire Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA chapter 292 — the law under which most New Hampshire associations organize as nonprofit corporations.3 A narrow 2024 provision, RSA 292:8-m, added super-majority and dissolution-hearing guardrails for homeowners associations organized under RSA 292, but it is not a reserve or budget statute.3

Which framework applies turns on how the community came into being. If a developer submitted the property to the Condominium Act through recorded condominium instruments, RSA 356-B governs. If the community is a deed-restricted subdivision with a homeowners association but no condominium instruments, it falls outside RSA 356-B and answers to its CC&Rs and corporate law. That threshold question controls every reserve question that follows.

2C. The declaration, corporate law, and fiduciary backstop

In both condominiums and non-condominium HOAs, the recorded declaration is the primary source of any reserve obligation. Because RSA 356-B ties reserves to "the provisions of the condominium instruments," a New Hampshire board looks to its declaration and bylaws to learn whether it must maintain reserves, how to calculate them, and which components they cover.5

For condominiums, the statute sets the order of precedence: when the declaration or bylaws conflict with RSA 356-B, the statute controls.2 At the corporate level, RSA 292 supplies the formalities of nonprofit governance — records, meetings, dissolution — but it dictates no reserve practice.3

The last backstop is fiduciary duty. RSA 356-B imposes a fiduciary relationship on condominium board members, and New Hampshire courts give boards wide latitude to run an association, while still requiring that decisions stay within the board's authority and remain reasonable.12 The implication is direct: in New Hampshire, the declaration and prudent board judgment set reserve practice, not the statute. A board that keeps low or zero reserves may satisfy the statute and still draw fiduciary criticism — and still face the real prospect of special assessments.

3. Compliance obligations

A. Study and inspection obligations

  • No statute requires a reserve study — not for condominiums (any duty is contractual, arising from the recorded declaration, not from RSA 356-B) and not for non-condominium HOAs (no overlay statute applies at all).1
  • No statutory on-site or physical-inspection interval applies to either community type. Even so, boards in both structures owe a fiduciary duty to plan for predictable capital needs.12

B. Funding obligations

  • No statute requires reserve funding at any level for either community type. For condominiums, RSA 356-B treats reserve assessments as a category of common expense authorized "pursuant to the provisions of the condominium instruments," so the funding duty is contractual and fiduciary, not statutory.5
  • For non-condominium HOAs, funding obligations come solely from the CC&Rs and board fiduciary duty. New Hampshire imposes no percentage-funded threshold and no dollar minimum on any association.1

C. Disclosure obligations

Disclosure is where the Condominium Act does impose binding duties, and they reach condominiums only.

  • Under RSA 356-B:40-c, the board must give unit owners a budget summary that includes any reserves and the basis on which they are calculated and funded. Statutory; condominiums only.6
  • Under RSA 356-B:37-e, the association must make its financial information available to unit owners 30 days before the annual meeting. Statutory; condominiums only.7
  • On resale, RSA 356-B:58 requires the association to give a prospective buyer a statement of the status and amount of any major maintenance or replacement reserve, plus anticipated capital and major maintenance expenditures for the current or succeeding two fiscal years. Statutory; condominiums only.8
  • For new sales, RSA 356-B:52 requires the public offering statement to state whether the budget provides for capital expenditures or major maintenance reserves. Statutory; condominiums only.9
  • Non-condominium HOAs carry no equivalent statutory disclosure duty; any obligation is contractual.

D. Account and governance obligations

  • RSA 356-B contains no reserve-account segregation or trust-protection requirement, so account protections for both community types rest on the declaration and board fiduciary duty, not on statute.1
  • For condominiums, governance of the budget is statutory: under RSA 356-B:40-c the budget, including any reserves, takes effect through owner ratification and is rejected only by a two-thirds vote of all unit owners.6
  • Enforcement is not reserve-specific. The Attorney General's Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau administers condominium registration and disclosure, and owners may pursue a private civil remedy and fiduciary claims in Superior Court.10

4. Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

One recent bill took aim at how condominium boards levy special assessments for capital projects. It did not survive committee.

Status Died in committee
⌾ Last verified June 22, 2026
Docket

HB 1306 · 2024 Regular Session

Effective
N/A
Sunset
N/A
Relative to special assessments for capital improvements in condominiums
Synopsis

HB 1306 would have amended RSA 356-B:52, I(d) to bar a condominium board from imposing a special assessment for capital improvements that exceeds 5 percent of budgeted gross expenses without the unit owners' association's approval. The bill never advanced out of the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee, and it is dead.[13]

Operational impact
What this means, by role
Property managers Nothing changes in current practice; the existing budget and special-assessment process under RSA 356-B:40-c still governs capital assessments.
HOA board members Boards keep their existing authority to levy capital special assessments, subject to the declaration and the ratification process, with no new percentage cap.
Community association attorneys Tell clients the proposed 5 percent cap is not law, and track reintroduction in a future session.
Homeowners No new statutory ceiling caps capital special assessments; your protections remain the declaration and the budget-rejection vote.

4B. Recent appellate rulings

New Hampshire has no intermediate appellate court — appeals from the Superior Court go straight to the New Hampshire Supreme Court.14 In the past 36 months, that court has not issued an opinion addressing condominium reserves, reserve or budget adequacy, or board fiduciary duty in the reserve context. The closest decision in the window, AZNH Revocable Trust v. Spinnaker Cove Yacht Club Association, turned on association spending authority and never reached reserve or budget adequacy. The leading New Hampshire authority on deference to association boards, Schaefer v. Eastman Community Association, 150 N.H. 187 (2003), predates the window.

Status Final
⌾ Last verified June 22, 2026
Case

AZNH Revocable Trust v. Spinnaker Cove Yacht Club Association

Supreme Court of New Hampshire · No. 2021-0385
Decided
Aug 3, 2023
Court
N.H. S. Ct.
Synopsis

In AZNH Revocable Trust v. Spinnaker Cove Yacht Club Ass'n, the New Hampshire Supreme Court read a condominium association's spending authority under RSA 356-B:42 — specifically, its power to acquire real property. The decision is the closest in-window condominium ruling, but it does not reach reserve funding or budget adequacy.[15]

Operational impact
What this means, by role
Property managers Read AZNH for what it actually decides — the reach of association spending and acquisition authority — and not for guidance on reserves, which it does not address.
HOA board members Do not treat AZNH as a reserve ruling; the duty to plan and fund reserves still rests on the declaration and your fiduciary judgment.
Community association attorneys Cite AZNH on spending and acquisition authority under RSA 356-B:42, and note the absence of recent appellate guidance on reserve adequacy.
Homeowners The ruling clarifies what your association may spend money to acquire; it says nothing about how much it must hold in reserve.

4C. Active legislative debates

HB 1343 (2026) would authorize remote and hybrid meetings, along with electronic quorum and voting, for unit owners' associations, and it amends the budget-meeting provision of RSA 356-B:40-c. It remained pending in the 2026 session and is the principal active condominium-governance measure touching budget procedure.16 New Hampshire runs a light-touch regime for community associations, and reserve-specific legislation has not been a sustained focus of the General Court.

5. National positioning and related coverage

New Hampshire sits in the no-mandate group for reserve studies, alongside its northern New England neighbors, Maine and Vermont. That puts it well behind the hard-mandate states, which fix study intervals and funding rules. California requires a reserve study with a visual inspection at least every three years under Civil Code section 5550.17 Florida requires Structural Integrity Reserve Studies for condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more stories under SB 4-D, codified at Florida Statutes section 718.112(2)(g).18 Maryland adopted a statewide reserve-study mandate, effective October 1, 2022, under House Bill 107.19 And New Jersey adopted a reserve-study and structural-inspection mandate, effective January 8, 2024, under S2760/A4384, P.L. 2023, c.214.20

New Hampshire also stands apart from disclosure-mandate states such as Colorado, which makes associations adopt a reserve-study policy and disclose reserve information even though it sets no funding minimum.21 New Hampshire's framework is a condominium-only statute with no planned-community analog, and the state has no intermediate appellate court — so the law develops through the General Court and a single appellate forum. For a multi-state operator, the practical takeaway is plain: a New Hampshire portfolio carries far lighter statutory reserve obligations than a California, Florida, Maryland, or New Jersey portfolio, and reserve discipline rests on the declaration and board judgment rather than on a compliance deadline.

HOA Weekly's New Hampshire Reserve Studies coverage updates quarterly as the General Court and the New Hampshire Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC OTARD rule — also apply to New Hampshire associations regardless of the state framework.

  1. New Hampshire Condominium Act, RSA ch. 356-B (full chapter; contains no reserve-study or reserve-funding mandate) ↩
  2. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:2, Application (Act applies to all condominiums and condominium projects created on or after Sept. 10, 1977; supersedes RSA 479-A; statute controls over conflicting condominium instruments) ↩
  3. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 292:8-m, Homeowners' Associations (2024 super-majority and dissolution-hearing guardrails for HOAs organized under the Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA ch. 292) ↩
  4. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:40-a, Managing Agent and Contractors; Disclosure of Fees; Qualifications (imposes no community association manager licensing requirement; RSA 356-B sets no reserve-study preparer standard) ↩
  5. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:3, III, Definitions ("common expenses" include funds "lawfully assessed for the creation and/or maintenance of reserves pursuant to the provisions of the condominium instruments") ↩
  6. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:40-c, Adoption of Budgets and Special Assessments (budget summary "including any reserves, and a statement of the basis on which any reserves are calculated and funded"; ratification rejected only by two-thirds of all unit owners) ↩
  7. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:37-e, Disclosure of Financial Information and Meeting Minutes to Unit Owners (financial information available 30 days before the annual meeting) ↩
  8. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:58, Resale by Purchaser ("a statement of the status and amount of any reserve for the major maintenance or replacement fund" and anticipated capital and major maintenance expenditures for the current or succeeding two fiscal years) ↩
  9. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:52, Public Offering Statement (must state "whether any provisions have been made in the budget for capital expenditures or major maintenance reserves") ↩
  10. New Hampshire Department of Justice, Consumer Protection and Antitrust Bureau, Condominium and Subdivision Registration (enforcement authority over RSA 356-B; private civil remedy under RSA 356-B:65) ↩
  11. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:44, Rights to Common Profits (surplus added to reserves only "to such extent as the condominium instruments may require") ↩
  12. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 356-B:40, Members of the Board of Directors and Officers (statutory fiduciary relationship of the board); Schaefer v. Eastman Community Ass'n, 150 N.H. 187 (2003) (deferential standard of review of association board decisions) ↩
  13. New Hampshire General Court, HB 1306 (2024), Relative to special assessments for capital improvements in condominiums (status: did not advance from the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee) ↩
  14. New Hampshire Judicial Branch, Supreme Court Appeal Process (the New Hampshire Supreme Court is the state's sole appellate court; appeals from the Superior Court proceed directly to it) ↩
  15. AZNH Revocable Trust v. Spinnaker Cove Yacht Club Ass'n, Inc., No. 2021-0385 (N.H. Aug. 3, 2023) (association authority under RSA 356-B:42 to acquire real property; does not reach reserve or budget adequacy) ↩
  16. New Hampshire General Court, HB 1343 (2026), Allowing remote and hybrid meetings for the governing body of the organization of unit owners (amends RSA 356-B:40-c; pending in the 2026 session) ↩
  17. Cal. Civ. Code § 5550 (reserve study with a visual inspection at least once every three years) ↩
  18. Fla. SB 4-D (2022 Special Session), enrolled text amending Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(g), Structural Integrity Reserve Studies for buildings three or more stories in height ↩
  19. Md. House Bill 107 (2022), Cooperative Housing Corporations, Condominiums, and Homeowners Associations — Reserve Studies — Statewide (effective Oct. 1, 2022; reserve study required and updated every five years) ↩
  20. N.J. S2760/A4384, P.L. 2023, c.214 (effective Jan. 8, 2024; structural inspections and capital reserve studies for covered residential condominium and cooperative buildings), New Jersey Department of Community Affairs FAQ ↩
  21. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-209.5 (associations must adopt a reserve-study policy and disclose reserve information; no state-set funding minimum) ↩
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