Land · New Hampshire tax lien guide

New Hampshire tax sales by city and town

Verified

New Hampshire is the state in this project where the tax sale never happens. Under the lien procedure in RSA 80:58 to 80:91, the collector executes the tax lien in favor of the municipality itself, only a municipality, a county, or the state may hold it, and the owner redeems from the city or town at 14 percent interest until, two years after the lien, the collector deeds the property to the municipality. Private buyers enter only at the end, when the municipality sells tax deeded real estate at public auction or by sealed bid under RSA 80:80, after the former owner has had a statutory chance to repurchase. The ten pages below track the largest New Hampshire municipalities, the channel each one actually uses to move tax deeded property, and the most recent sale each has officially published.

The local variation sits inside that fixed frame. Six of the ten municipalities sell through the same retained auctioneer, JSJ Auctions, on bank fund deposits and a buyer's premium; Laconia sells by sealed bid; Keene has used sealed bids and a development request for proposals; and Dover and Portsmouth dispose of tax deeded parcels case by case on council action, with no standing sale program to calendar. Interest, notice, and surplus rules are statewide and do not vary: 8 percent before the lien, 14 percent after it, and a municipal recovery capped by RSA 80:90 with any excess owed to the former owner under a statute that dates from 1998. Read the state frame first, then the page for the municipality that holds the parcel.

Verify before you go: a city or town can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 10 jurisdictions

Each row links to that jurisdiction's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a jurisdiction has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How New Hampshire tax liens work

• New Hampshire collects delinquent real estate taxes through its cities and towns under the tax lien procedure in RSA 80:58 to 80:91, which each municipality adopts locally. There is no tax sale and no auction of liens.
• Taxes are a lien on the real estate. If all taxes are not paid in full by December 1 after assessment, the collector, after at least 30 days notice of impending lien by certified mail (RSA 80:60), executes a lien in favor of the municipality itself and reports it to the county register of deeds within 30 days (RSA 80:61 and RSA 80:64). Only a municipality, a county, or the state may hold the lien (RSA 80:63).
• Interest runs at 8 percent per annum on taxes unpaid after December 1 (RSA 76:13), and at 14 percent per annum on the whole recorded lien amount from the date the lien is executed (RSA 80:69). Mortgagees of record are notified within 60 days after execution (RSA 80:65).
• Anyone with a legal interest may redeem at any time before a deed is given, by paying the lien amount with 14 percent interest and the statutory costs; partial payments are allowed and are refunded if redemption is not completed (RSA 80:69 and RSA 80:71).
• After 2 years from execution, and after at least 30 days further notice to the owner and to mortgagees (RSA 80:77 and RSA 80:77-a), the collector deeds the property to the municipality (RSA 80:76). A municipality may refuse a deed over environmental or other liability concerns, which leaves the lien and the redemption right in effect indefinitely.
• The municipality may then sell the tax deeded property, under governing body authority, at public auction or by advertised sealed bids, or in another manner as justice may require (RSA 80:80). Most larger New Hampshire municipalities auction through a retained auctioneer.
• Before any offering, the former owner must be notified at least 90 days ahead and may repurchase by paying all back taxes, interest, costs, and the statutory penalty (RSA 80:89).
• On a municipal sale, the municipality may keep only the back taxes, interest, costs, and penalty defined in RSA 80:90, which includes a penalty of 10 percent of the equalized assessed value. Any excess must be paid to the former owner, through a Superior Court interpleader or, where there are no record lienholders and the owner is easily identified, by direct payment (RSA 80:88). This surplus rule dates from 1998; New Hampshire enacted no amendment responding to Tyler v. Hennepin County.

New Hampshire municipalities keep their own tax liens and never auction them; a private buyer can only purchase the real estate after the municipality takes a tax deed two years later and sells the property, and on that sale the municipality may keep no more than the back taxes, interest, costs, and statutory penalty, with any excess owed to the former owner.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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Get the alert, not just the calendar.

The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. New Hampshire jurisdictions open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid.