Free New Hampshire Notice of Non-Renewal

Direct answer: whether a New Hampshire landlord may decline to renew depends entirely on one prior question — is the property restricted or nonrestricted? RSA 540:1-a defines nonrestricted property as all real property rented for nonresidential purposes plus three residential categories: single-family houses where the owner does not own more than 3 single-family houses at any one time; rental units in an owner-occupied building containing a total of 4 dwelling units or fewer; and single-family houses acquired by banks or other mortgagees through foreclosure. Restricted property is everything else rented for residential purposes. For nonrestricted property, RSA 540:2, I lets the owner terminate any tenancy by written notice, no reason required. For restricted property, RSA 540:2, II permits termination “but only for one of the following reasons” — and until 1 July 2026 the expiry of the lease term was not on that list. It is now: 2025 N.H. Laws ch. 263 (HB 60), approved 1 August 2025 and effective 1 July 2026, added RSA 540:2, II(i), which makes the expiration of a lease of 12 months or longer a ground, provided the landlord gave written notice at least 60 days in advance of the termination date of the lease term that the lease will not be renewed and that the tenant must vacate, and provided the landlord files a possessory action within 6 months of the lease expiring. That amendment is in force as this page is written. The form below determines the property type, refuses to assert that expiry alone ends a restricted tenancy, and builds either the 60-day non-renewal notice or the RSA 540:3 eviction notice that the facts actually call for.

Answer the property question first — everything downstream depends on it. If the property is nonrestricted under RSA 540:1-a, I, the generator produces a no-cause eviction notice under RSA 540:2, I with the RSA 540:3, II period. If the property is restricted, the generator will not produce anything until you choose a ground from RSA 540:2, II, and it will never produce a document whose operative sentence is that the lease has ended. Choosing the new expiry ground unlocks the 60-day non-renewal notice and computes both the last lawful day to serve it and the last day to file the possessory action.

Watch: New Hampshire non-renewal and RSA 540:2 explained

▶ Watch overview

Direct answer: yes for nonrestricted property, and yes for restricted property only if a ground in RSA 540:2, II applies — which, since 1 July 2026, the expiry of a 12-month-or-longer lease can be. RSA 540:2 is written in two halves and the halves do opposite things. Paragraph I says the lessor or owner of nonrestricted property “may terminate any tenancy by giving to the tenant or occupant a notice in writing to quit the premises in accordance with RSA 540:3 and 5” and stops there — no reason, no ground, no justification. Paragraph II repeats that sentence for restricted property and then adds five words that change everything: “but only for one of the following reasons.”

Almost every dispute about New Hampshire non-renewal is really a dispute about which half of RSA 540:2 the property falls into, and almost every wrong answer on the open web comes from skipping that question. A landlord who owns three single-family rentals and a landlord who owns four are in different statutory worlds. So are a four-unit building whose owner lives in one of the units and the identical four-unit building next door whose owner does not.

What actually happens when a New Hampshire lease term ends

For nonrestricted property, the answer is ordinary: the term ends, the parties may or may not sign a new agreement, and if the tenant stays on with rent accepted, a periodic tenancy arises which the owner may end under RSA 540:2, I with an eviction notice served under RSA 540:3 and 540:5. Nothing more is needed.

For restricted property, the term ending is a fact about the contract, not a fact about possession. Before 1 July 2026 it had no independent force at all: the tenancy simply continued, and to recover possession the landlord had to reach one of the enumerated grounds — nonpayment, damage, a material lease breach, health-and-safety behaviour, a lead hazard, pest-preparation failure, the RSA 540:11-b situation, or “other good cause.” Since 1 July 2026 the expiry has force, but only as a conditional ground: the lease has to have been 12 months or longer, the landlord has to have given 60 days of advance written notice of non-renewal, and the possessory action has to be filed within six months of expiry. Fail any of those and the position reverts to what it was before — the tenancy continues and some other ground is required.

The instrument this page produces

Because two different documents are in play, the generator above produces whichever one the facts call for. Choose the expiry ground and it produces the 60-day notice that the lease will not be renewed — the instrument RSA 540:2, II(i)(1)(A) actually describes, carrying both of the statements that subparagraph requires. Choose any other ground, or a nonrestricted property, and it produces an eviction notice under RSA 540:3 stating the reason with specificity and carrying the 7-day or 30-day period that RSA 540:3, II attaches. What it will not produce, in any configuration, is a document that tells a restricted-property tenant the tenancy is over because the lease ran out.

Direct answer: RSA 540:1-a, I lists what is nonrestricted, and RSA 540:1-a, II sweeps everything else residential into restricted. The definition is a closed list, so the test is mechanical: run the property against the four nonrestricted categories, and if none fits, the property is restricted and good cause is required.

Reading the two thresholds precisely

The two numbers in the definition are doing careful work and neither is a rounding of the other.

Three single-family houses. The I(a) category asks how many single-family houses the owner owns at any one time, not how many are rented, not how many are in New Hampshire on the face of the text, and not how many are held in the same name. An owner of three is nonrestricted; an owner of four is restricted as to all of them, because the category simply ceases to describe the house. The test is also dynamic: buying a fourth house changes the regime for the three already owned going forward. Nothing in the definition freezes the status at the start of the tenancy.

Four dwelling units, owner-occupied. The I(b) category has two elements and both must hold. The building must contain a total of four dwelling units or fewer, and it must be owner-occupied. A five-unit building is restricted no matter who lives in it. A four-unit building whose owner has moved out is restricted, and moving out mid-tenancy is a change in the regime, not a grandfathered condition. Note also that the count is of dwelling units in the building, which is not the same as the number rented out: an owner living in one unit of a four-unit building is inside I(b), and an owner living in one unit of a five-unit building is not.

Foreclosure. The I(d) category is narrow: a single-family house, acquired by a bank or other mortgagee, through foreclosure. A house bought at a foreclosure sale by an investor who is not the mortgagee is not within I(d), and a multi-family building acquired by a bank through foreclosure is not within it either.

The occupancies RSA 540 does not reach at all

Separately from the restricted / nonrestricted split, RSA 540:1-a, IV lists occupancies to which the chapter does not apply. This is a third category and it is not the same as being nonrestricted — a nonrestricted tenancy still uses RSA 540:3 notice periods and the RSA 540:12 possessory action, while these occupancies are outside the chapter altogether:

• Rooms in rooming or boarding houses rented to transient guests for fewer than 90 consecutive days, where the statutory written statement is used.
• Rooms in hotels, motels, inns, tourist homes and other dwellings rented for recreational or vacation use.
• Rooms in student dormitories, nursing homes, hospitals, any other facility licensed under RSA 151 or certified under RSA 126-A, convents, monasteries, asylums and group homes.
• A single-family home in which the occupant has no lease and which is the primary and usual residence of the owner.
• Residential real estate under RSA 540-B (shared-facility occupancies).
• Vacation or recreational rental units under RSA 540-C.
• Residential units leased by a member of a fraternal or social organisation providing student housing for a postsecondary institution.
• Occupancies in which the occupant is hired to provide care or assistance for a person with disabilities, where there is a written agreement, not less than 72 hours written notice to vacate, and payment of money due.

A landlord in one of those situations who serves an RSA 540:3 eviction notice has not done anything harmful, but has also not done anything necessary; the applicable procedure is elsewhere. The generator above refuses to produce an RSA 540 notice when this category is selected and says why, because a document reciting the wrong chapter is worse than no document.

Direct answer: there are nine, they are a closed list, and the eviction notice must state which one applies with specificity. Four of them carry a 7-day notice under RSA 540:3, II; the rest carry 30 days.

“Other good cause” is wider than fault, and narrower than it looks

RSA 540:2, V is the provision most often quoted and least often quoted in full. It says other good cause “includes, but is not limited to, any legitimate business or economic reason and need not be based on the action or inaction of the tenant, members of his family, or guests.” That is a genuinely broad standard, and it is the reason New Hampshire is not a just-cause state in the sense that some cities are: a landlord who intends to sell the building, take a unit off the market, occupy it, or restructure the property has a legitimate business reason and does not need the tenant to have done anything.

What narrows it is RSA 540:2, III, and it runs in the direction most summaries get backwards. Where the other good cause is based on the actions or inactions of the tenant, a member of the family or a guest, the landlord must, before issuing the eviction notice, give the tenant written notice stating that in the future such actions or inactions would constitute grounds for eviction. That warning must be served in accordance with RSA 540:5 or by certified mail. So a fault-flavoured “other good cause” is a two-step process and the first step cannot be done retroactively. There is no equivalent extra step for a purely economic reason.

Refusing a rent increase

RSA 540:2, IV supplies a specific application of II(e): a tenant’s refusal to agree to a change in the existing rental agreement calling for an increase in the amount of rent constitutes good cause for eviction under II(e), provided the landlord gave written notice of the amount and effective date of the increase at least 30 days before it takes effect. This matters on a non-renewal page because a very common commercial motive — the tenant will not accept the new rent — already has its own statutory route and does not need the expiry ground at all. Our New Hampshire rent increase rules guide covers the 30-day increase notice itself.

Two limits that sit on top of the list

RSA 540:2, VI restricts termination for nonpayment in the situation where the tenant has covered the landlord’s utility obligations; the paragraph sets conditions and should be read in full before a nonpayment notice issues in any case where the tenant has paid a utility that was the landlord’s responsibility. RSA 540:2, VII deals with domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, and subparagraph (g) makes the protection an affirmative defence to possessory actions brought under II(b), (c), (d) or (e) — which is to say, to four of the grounds a landlord is most likely to reach for after an incident at the property.

Direct answer: RSA 540:2, II(i) makes the expiration of a lease a ground for terminating a restricted tenancy, but only for a lease of 12 months or longer, only where the landlord gave written notice at least 60 days in advance of the termination date of the lease term that the lease will not be renewed and that the tenant must vacate, and only where the possessory action is filed within 6 months of the lease expiring. The subparagraph was added by 2025 N.H. Laws ch. 263, section 1, enacted as HB 60, approved 1 August 2025, effective 1 July 2026.

This is the single most consequential change to New Hampshire non-renewal practice in decades, and at the time of writing it is almost invisible on the open web. Of the pages currently ranking for this query, none builds a section around it, and the deepest of them — a New Hampshire eviction-process guide — does not mention it at all. Several state flatly that lease expiry is never good cause in New Hampshire, which was correct until 30 June 2026 and is now wrong. Others state that a New Hampshire landlord may end any tenancy on 30 days without a reason, which was wrong before the amendment and is still wrong after it.

The three conditions, in the statute’s own words

Subparagraph (i)(1) reaches “a lease the original term of which is 12 months or longer, or … a lease the term of which is less than 12 months but which has been renewed for a total period of 12 months or longer.” Two consequences follow immediately. A true month-to-month tenancy that has simply continued for years is not within the ground, because it has no term that expires. And a six-month lease that has been renewed once is within the ground, because the renewals aggregate to twelve.

Condition (A) is that “the landlord has provided the tenant with written notice at least 60 days in advance of the termination date of the lease term that the lease will not be renewed and that the tenant must vacate the rental property at the end of the lease term.” Three details inside one sentence. The notice must be written. The 60 days runs backwards from the termination date of the lease term, not forwards from anything the landlord does. And the notice has two mandated statements — that the lease will not be renewed, and that the tenant must vacate at the end of the term. A notice that says only “we will not be renewing” and stops has arguably given one of the two.

Condition (B) is that “the landlord has filed a possessory action within 6 months of the lease expiring.” It is a filing deadline measured from expiry, not from the notice, and not from the end of the RSA 540:3 eviction-notice period. A landlord who lets seven months pass while negotiating has lost this ground — not the tenancy, and not every other ground, but this one.

What the statute does not say, and where this page stops

RSA 540:2, II(i) does not state when the RSA 540:3 eviction notice may be served relative to the lease expiry, and RSA 540:3 does not address it either. Two readings are available on the face of the text: that the eviction notice may issue only once the ground exists, that is on or after expiry; or that it may issue earlier so long as the period it gives does not expire before the tenancy would end. This page does not resolve that question, because the statutes do not. The conservative sequence — 60-day non-renewal notice, lease expires, 30-day eviction notice, then the possessory action filed inside the six months — satisfies both readings and is what the generator’s printed instructions describe. A landlord who wants to compress the timetable by serving the eviction notice before expiry should take New Hampshire advice rather than rely on a form.

The screening consequence most landlords have not noticed

Section 2 of the same act added RSA 540:2, VIII, also effective 1 July 2026: a no-fault termination of tenancy is not to be considered an eviction for the purposes of rental applications and tenant screening reports by the lessor or the lessee; “no-fault termination of tenancy” means any termination under RSA 540:2, II(i); the court handling the proceeding is to note in the court documentation that the termination was at no fault of the tenant; and the subparagraph is not to be construed to limit a landlord’s ability to perform due diligence inquiries regarding a prospective tenant. For a landlord this cuts both ways. It means the expiry route does not brand the outgoing tenant, which removes one objection to using it. It also means that an incoming applicant whose file shows a New Hampshire possessory action may be showing a no-fault expiry case rather than a fault eviction, and the court record is supposed to say so. Our New Hampshire tenant screening rules guide covers how that interacts with the rest of the screening file.

Subparagraph (i)(2) adds a preservation clause: nothing in the subparagraph affects a tenant’s defence of retaliatory eviction as set out in RSA 540:13-a, or a tenant’s protections from discrimination. The cross-reference as enacted reads RSA 354:10; New Hampshire’s law against discrimination, including its housing provisions, is codified at RSA 354-A. Either way the point stands and it is not decorative — because the 60-day notice and the six-month filing window will very often fall inside the six-month presumption period in RSA 540:13-b, the retaliation analysis below applies to expiry cases with full force.

Direct answer: for all residential tenancies RSA 540:3, II provides that 30 days notice shall be sufficient in all cases, except that 7 days is sufficient where the reason is one of RSA 540:2, II(a), (b), (d) or (h). The section is titled “Eviction Notice” — the statutory term has been “eviction notice” rather than “notice to quit” since 2006, and RSA 540:3, V provides that for leases in effect on 1 July 2006 a notice to quit is deemed an eviction notice under the section.

Two things this table deliberately does not contain. There is no tier for length of occupancy: a tenant of twenty years and a tenant of two months receive the same period for the same reason, and any page describing a New Hampshire notice period that lengthens with the tenancy has imported a rule from another state. And there is no ladder of local overlays: New Hampshire has no municipal rent-control or just-cause ordinances layering additional non-renewal requirements beneath RSA 540. The statewide statute is the whole of the local law on this question.

The clock starts at service, not at signature

The period runs from the date the notice is served under RSA 540:5, not from the date it was drafted, signed or dated. A notice signed on 1 March and served on 15 March gives its days from 15 March. This is the most common arithmetic defect in New Hampshire eviction practice and it is entirely avoidable: the generator above computes the earliest lawful demanded date from the service date you enter and refuses to print a shorter one.

A lease may lengthen the period but cannot shorten it

A lease clause requiring the landlord to give 90 days is enforceable as a contract term and the landlord must honour it. A lease clause purporting to authorise less than the RSA 540:3 minimum is ineffective as to that provision; the statutory minimum still applies. A tenant may of course agree contemporaneously to leave sooner, which is a settlement rather than a waiver.

Direct answer: RSA 540:3, III requires the eviction notice to state with specificity the reason for the eviction, RSA 540:3, IV requires a nonpayment notice to inform the tenant of any right to avoid the eviction by paying arrearages and liquidated damages under RSA 540:9, and RSA 540:5, II requires a valid notice to include the same information requested on the judicial branch forms even though using those forms is optional.

That last requirement is easy to skim past and is the closest thing New Hampshire has to a prescribed content list. RSA 540:5, II provides that the district court shall make forms for a demand for rent and an eviction notice available in the clerks’ offices and on the New Hampshire judicial branch website, that a landlord is not required to use them, but that “a valid demand for rent or eviction notice shall include the same information as is requested and provided on such forms.” A landlord drafting from scratch is therefore measured against the official form’s information set, not against the drafter’s own judgment about what matters.

What RSA 540:9 actually says, and why a nonpayment notice must mention it

RSA 540:9 is titled “Payment After Notice” and it is a cure provision, not a service provision. It allows the tenant to defeat a nonpayment eviction by paying all rent due and owing, plus other lawful charges contained in the lease, plus $15 liquidated damages, plus any filing fee and service charges, with the landlord filing a receipt; and it provides that a tenant may not defeat an eviction for nonpayment by use of the section more than 3 times within a 12-month period. Because RSA 540:3, IV requires the notice to inform the tenant of that right where it exists, a New Hampshire nonpayment notice that omits it is defective on the face of the statute. Our New Hampshire 7-day nonpayment notice form is built around that requirement; this page’s generator prints the RSA 540:9 statement whenever the nonpayment ground is selected.

What the 60-day non-renewal notice must contain

The content of the 60-day notice is prescribed by RSA 540:2, II(i)(1)(A) itself, and it is short: written notice that the lease will not be renewed and that the tenant must vacate the rental property at the end of the lease term. Both statements, not one. The generator prints both verbatim in the operative paragraph, identifies the lease and its termination date, and states the date by which the possessory action must be filed. It does not attempt to make the 60-day notice do the RSA 540:3 eviction notice’s job, because it cannot.

Direct answer: RSA 540:5, I provides that any notice of a demand for rent or an eviction notice may be served by any person and may be served upon the tenant personally or left at his or her last and usual place of abode. Those two methods are the whole of the residential rule. There is no substituted-service tier, no requirement that a person of suitable age receive it, no posting-plus-mailing sequence, and no mailing step at all for a residential tenancy.

Proof of service is defined, and it is unusually forgiving

RSA 540:5, I provides that “proof of service must be shown by a true and attested copy of the notice accompanied by an affidavit of service, but the affidavit need not be sworn under oath.” Two practical points follow. The proof is a package — the attested copy and the affidavit — so keeping only a photocopy of what was served is not proof. And because the affidavit need not be sworn, there is no notary step and therefore no excuse for not producing one on the day of service, while the server’s memory of the time, place and manner is fresh. The generator prints an affidavit block naming the person who served, the date, and the method chosen.

Do not import another state’s service ladder

Several states require a landlord to work down a fixed sequence: personal service first, then delivery to a person of suitable age and discretion, then posting accompanied by a mailed copy, with days added for the mail. New Hampshire has none of that. A New Hampshire landlord who posts the notice to the door and mails a copy has not done anything wrong, but the mailing adds nothing and the posting counts only because leaving a notice at the abode is itself one of the two authorised methods. Conversely, a landlord who relies on certified mail alone for a residential tenancy has used the commercial rule and has not perfected service.

A demand for rent is a separate instrument

RSA 540:4 governs the demand for rent, and RSA 540:5, I adds that a notice of a demand for rent is sufficient if served upon the tenant at any time after the rent becomes due and prior to or simultaneously with the service of an eviction notice. For a non-renewal this is background, but it matters when a landlord is choosing between grounds: if arrears exist, the nonpayment route under II(a) carries a 7-day notice and requires a demand, while the expiry route under II(i) carries 30 days and requires the earlier 60-day notice. They are different instruments on different clocks and mixing them into one document produces neither.

Direct answer: for nonrestricted property RSA 540:2, I permits the owner to terminate any tenancy by written notice to quit in accordance with RSA 540:3 and 540:5, with no reason required — and the notice period is still the 30 days RSA 540:3, II gives for residential tenancies.

This is the part of New Hampshire law that the “30-day no-cause” summaries are half right about. For a landlord with three or fewer single-family houses, for an owner living in a building of four or fewer dwelling units, and for a bank holding a foreclosed single-family house, the non-renewal is genuinely a non-renewal: serve a written notice giving 30 days from service, state the demanded date, serve it personally or at the abode, keep the attested copy and affidavit, and if the tenant does not leave, bring the RSA 540:12 possessory action.

Three cautions apply even here, and they are the reason the generator prints them on a nonrestricted notice as well.

• Retaliation still applies. RSA 540:13-a and 540:13-b are not limited to restricted property. A no-cause notice served within six months of a code complaint carries the RSA 540:13-b presumption exactly as a ground-based one would.
• Fair housing still applies. The federal Fair Housing Act and New Hampshire’s law against discrimination do not care that no reason was required. A no-cause notice is not a reasonless notice; it is a notice whose reason the statute does not make the landlord state, and if the real reason is a protected characteristic the absence of a stated reason is no defence.
• The status can change. Buying a fourth single-family house, or moving out of the owner-occupied four-unit building, moves the property into the restricted column prospectively. A notice served after that change is a restricted-property notice and needs a ground.

Direct answer: the notice does not remove anyone. RSA 540:12 gives the owner the right to recover possession from a person holding without right after notice in writing to quit as prescribed, and RSA 540:13 sets the mechanics of the writ, the return day and the hearing. The possessory action under RSA 540:12 is the action RSA 540:2, II(i)(1)(B) requires to be filed within six months of the lease expiring.

RSA 540:12 is worth naming precisely because it is so often miscited. It provides that the owner, lessor, or purchaser at a mortgage foreclosure sale may recover possession from a lessee, occupant, mortgagor, or other person in possession holding it without right, after notice in writing to quit as prescribed in the chapter. RSA 540:11 is not the possessory action — it is “Termination by Lessee”, the tenant-side provision under which a tenant may end a month-to-month tenancy on 30 days notice, with a rule about the rent due date. Pages that cite “RSA 540:11” for the landlord’s action have crossed the two.

The timetable once the case is filed

• The writ of summons and the notice provided in RSA 540:13, II are returnable 7 days from the date of service of the writ by the sheriff.
• The tenant must file an appearance no later than the return day appearing on the writ.
• A hearing is scheduled within 10 days of the appearance, with notice mailed no fewer than 6 days before it.
• On default, the court mails notice at least 3 days before the writ of possession issues.
• Appeal: a notice of intent to appeal within 7 days, a notice of appeal to the supreme court within 30 days, and rent must be paid as it comes due during the appeal.
• RSA 540:13, III caps any money judgment in the possessory action at $1,500; larger claims belong elsewhere.
• A written decision is required in any contested hearing.

Set against that timetable, the six-month filing window in II(i)(1)(B) is generous but not unlimited, and the practical planning point is that the six months runs from expiry rather than from the end of the eviction-notice period. A landlord who serves the 30-day eviction notice five and a half months after expiry has left almost no margin.

Holdover and tenancy at sufferance

A tenant who remains after a valid notice period has run is holding without right within the meaning of RSA 540:12, and the landlord’s remedy is the possessory action — not a lock change, not a utility interruption, and not removal of belongings. Accepting rent after the notice period is a real risk in any jurisdiction and New Hampshire is no exception: it is evidence that the parties treated the tenancy as continuing, and for the II(i) ground it invites the argument that a new term or a renewal arose. Where money must be taken during a holdover, it should be identified in writing as use and occupancy rather than rent, and the file should record that the landlord is not waiving the notice.

Direct answer: RSA 540:13-a makes retaliation a defence to a residential possessory action, and RSA 540:13-b creates a rebuttable presumption of retaliation where the landlord acts within 6 months of the protected event. RSA 540:2, II(i)(2) expressly preserves that defence against the new expiry ground.

RSA 540:13-a — the defence

The section is titled “Defense to Retaliation” and it makes it a defence to a possessory action that the action was brought in retaliation for the tenant (I) reporting a violation of RSA 540-A or a violation of the housing or health code, (II) initiating an RSA 540-A action or using RSA 540:13-d, or (III) meeting or gathering with other tenants for any lawful purpose. The third limb is broader than it looks — it protects tenant organising as such, without requiring the meeting to be about a complaint. The section is not available where the tenant owes the landlord the equivalent of one week’s rent or more, which is a meaningful limit and one that the popular summaries routinely omit.

RSA 540:13-b — the presumption

The section is titled “Evidence of Intent to Retaliate” and it creates a rebuttable presumption of retaliation where a possessory action, a rent increase, or a substantial alteration in the terms of the tenancy is instituted within 6 months after the landlord received notice of the violation, completed the repairs, received notice of an RSA 540-A action, or discovered activity protected by RSA 540:13-a, III — unless the court finds that the tenant’s act was primarily intended to prevent an eviction.

For non-renewal specifically, the six-month presumption window is longer than most of the sequences this page describes. A 60-day non-renewal notice, a lease expiry, a 30-day eviction notice and a filing can all occur inside six months of a single code complaint. That does not make the notice unlawful; it means the landlord carries the burden of displacing a presumption, and the evidence that displaces it has to predate the notice. Contemporaneous records of the business reason — a signed purchase and sale agreement, a renovation contract, a board decision, a documented rent-increase refusal — are what make an expiry or “other good cause” case defensible.

Fair housing

The federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., and New Hampshire’s law against discrimination reach non-renewal directly. A notice that targets a tenant on the basis of race, colour, religion, national origin, sex, familial status or disability is unlawful whether or not RSA 540:2 gave a ground and whether or not RSA 540:3 gave enough days. Disparate-impact analysis also reaches facially neutral practices, so a pattern of expiry-ground non-renewals concentrated in one demographic is exposure even where each individual notice is procedurally perfect. Servicemember protections under 50 U.S.C. § 3901 et seq. apply independently.

Direct answer: RSA 540-A:2 forbids a landlord to wilfully violate a tenant’s right to quiet enjoyment or to attempt to circumvent lawful eviction procedures under RSA 540, and RSA 540-A:4, IX(a) applies the civil remedies of RSA 358-A:10 — actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, doubled to trebled for a wilful or knowing violation, plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.

RSA 540-A:3 sets out the specific prohibited acts. Among them: shutting off utilities; wilfully seizing, holding or otherwise directly or indirectly denying a tenant access to and possession of the premises other than through proper judicial process; seizing the tenant’s property; entering without consent except for emergency repairs; and disposing of a vacated tenant’s belongings before the statutory storage period has run.

The numbers are worth stating exactly, because the shorthand “a $1,000 fine” understates them badly:

• RSA 358-A:10, I sets recovery at actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, and for a wilful or knowing violation the court shall award as much as 3 times, but not less than 2 times, that amount, plus costs and attorney’s fees.
• RSA 540-A:4, IX(e) sets a floor: damages for an unlawful dispossession or lock-out where the landlord has re-let the premises or has a new tenant shall not be less than $3,000.
• RSA 540-A:4, IX(a) makes each day a violation continues after issuance of a temporary order a separate violation.
• RSA 540-A:4, III charges no filing fee for a tenant’s petition and permits the tenant to proceed without counsel; VI requires a hearing within 30 days of filing or 10 days of service, whichever is later.
• RSA 540-A:4, XI bars the landlord from bringing a possessory action for 6 months against a tenant who proves an RSA 540-A:3 violation, subject to exceptions for nonpayment, violation of a substantial lease obligation, and violation of the subdivision.

That last provision is the one with teeth for a non-renewal. A landlord who changes the locks after a 60-day notice expires, rather than filing the RSA 540:12 action, can find the possessory action itself barred for six months — which, on the expiry ground, may consume the entire II(i)(1)(B) filing window and extinguish the ground.

This query has an unusually conflated results page. Seven of the nine pages we could read treat “non-renewal” as a sub-case of eviction rather than a distinct instrument, and the two deepest are titled “eviction process.” The claims below were observed on pages currently ranking; the corrections are from the statute as published by the New Hampshire General Court.

The pattern behind those errors predicts the next one. Most of the incorrect claims come from fifty-state tables in which New Hampshire occupies one row, and a row needs a number. New Hampshire does not have a number; it has a property-type test, a nine-item list of reasons, two notice periods and, since July 2026, a conditional expiry ground with a 60-day precondition and a 6-month deadline. A row cannot hold that, so it gets filled with “30 days, no reason required” — the answer that is true for a minority of New Hampshire rentals and dangerous for the rest.

Skipping the property-type determination

The first and largest. Everything downstream — whether a reason is needed, which reasons are available, whether 7 or 30 days applies, whether the 60-day notice was a precondition — depends on whether the property is restricted. A landlord who never asked the question has a notice whose correctness is a coincidence.

Serving a no-cause notice on restricted property

A document that recites the end of the term or gives no reason at all states nothing that RSA 540:2, II recognises and fails RSA 540:3, III’s specificity requirement. It cannot support a possessory action, and the time spent waiting out its period is lost.

Treating the 60-day notice as the eviction notice

They are different instruments with different statutory homes. The 60-day notice creates the ground; the 30-day eviction notice under RSA 540:3, II supports the action. A landlord who serves only the first arrives at court without a notice the possessory action can rest on.

Serving the 60-day notice late

The 60 days runs backwards from the termination date of the lease term. A notice served 45 days before expiry does not become sufficient by giving the tenant a later date to leave — the condition in II(i)(1)(A) is about when the notice was provided, and it cannot be repaired after the term has ended.

Using the expiry ground on a short or periodic tenancy

II(i) reaches a lease of 12 months or longer, or a shorter lease renewed to a total of 12 months or longer. A nine-month lease that has never been renewed is outside it, and a month-to-month tenancy has no term to expire. For those, some other ground in RSA 540:2, II is required.

Missing the six-month filing window

Filing the possessory action more than six months after the lease expired forfeits the ground. The window runs from expiry, not from the end of the eviction notice, and it is not extended by settlement discussions or by the tenant’s promises to leave.

Using fault-flavoured “other good cause” without the RSA 540:2, III warning

Where the other good cause is based on the tenant’s actions or inactions, the prior written warning is a precondition and must have been served under RSA 540:5 or by certified mail before the eviction notice issued. It cannot be back-dated or bundled into the same envelope.

Counting the period from the date on the notice

The period runs from service. A notice dated 1 March and served on 15 March that demands possession on 31 March is short, whatever arithmetic appears on its face.

Choosing 7 days for a 30-day ground

Seven days belongs to RSA 540:2, II(a), (b), (d) and (h) only. A 7-day notice for a material lease breach under II(c), for other good cause under II(e), or for the expiry ground under II(i) is short by 23 days and is defective for that reason alone.

Serving by certified mail, email or text on a residential tenancy

None of the three is among the residential methods RSA 540:5, I gives. A landlord who used only one of them has an unserved notice regardless of proof of receipt.

Omitting a tenant

Every adult tenant or named occupant should be named and served. A notice that omits one is not a notice as to that person, and a possessory action against an unnoticed occupant is exposed.

Accepting rent after the period runs without labelling it

Money taken after the notice period, unlabelled, is evidence that the parties treated the tenancy as continuing — and on the expiry ground it invites the argument that a renewal arose, which would reset both the 12-month analysis and the six-month window.

Changing the locks instead of filing

RSA 540-A:3, II prohibits denying the tenant access other than through proper judicial process, and RSA 540-A:4, XI can bar the landlord’s own possessory action for six months. On an expiry-ground case that bar may outlast the filing window entirely.

Direct answer: a defective notice is a complete answer to the possessory action it was meant to support. The tenant stays, the landlord starts again, and the statutory period runs afresh from service of a corrected notice.

Test the property type first

The tenant’s mirror image of the landlord’s first question. If the building has five or more dwelling units, or the owner does not live in it, or the landlord owns four or more single-family houses, the property is restricted under RSA 540:1-a, II and a notice with no stated reason is defective on its face. This is often checkable from public records before the return day.

Raise the defect as a defence to possession

Where the notice states no reason, states one without the specificity RSA 540:3, III requires, gives fewer days than RSA 540:3, II allows, or was not served in one of the two ways RSA 540:5, I authorises, the defect is raised in the possessory action and the case fails on it.

Test the II(i) conditions individually

On an expiry-ground case there are four separate things to check, any one of which defeats the ground: whether the lease was 12 months or longer, or renewed to that; whether a written non-renewal notice was given at all; whether it was given at least 60 days before the termination date; and whether it said both that the lease would not be renewed and that the tenant must vacate at the end of the term. A fifth follows at the filing stage: whether the action was filed within six months of expiry.

Assert the retaliation presumption

Where the notice followed a code or RSA 540-A complaint, an RSA 540-A action, or tenant organising within the previous six months, RSA 540:13-b puts a rebuttable presumption of retaliatory intent on the landlord, and RSA 540:2, II(i)(2) confirms the defence survives the new expiry ground. Note the RSA 540:13-a limit: the defence is not available where the tenant owes a week’s rent or more.

Bring an RSA 540-A petition where self-help occurred

A tenant locked out, cut off or dispossessed outside the court process may petition under RSA 540-A:4 with no filing fee and without counsel, obtain a hearing within 30 days of filing or 10 days of service, and recover under RSA 358-A:10 with the $3,000 floor where the unit has been re-let. Proving an RSA 540-A:3 violation can also bar the landlord’s possessory action for six months.

Fair housing and habitability

Discrimination claims run independently of RSA 540 and are not answered by a technically perfect notice. Habitability disputes are a common backdrop to non-renewal and are set out in our New Hampshire habitability rules guide; a tenant who complained about conditions inside the last six months should read RSA 540:13-b before deciding whether to leave.

The arc below assumes restricted property and the RSA 540:2, II(i) expiry ground — the route a landlord most often has in mind when searching for a New Hampshire non-renewal. For any other ground, delete steps 3 and 4 and start at step 5 with the period RSA 540:3, II gives that ground.

Citations are to the New Hampshire Revised Statutes Annotated as published by the New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire has no municipal rent-control or just-cause ordinances layering additional non-renewal requirements on top of RSA 540, so the state statute is the whole of the local law on this question.

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