Your Right to Attend Association Meetings in New Hampshire

The decisions that affect your home — budgets, rules, assessments — often get made at association meetings. In New Hampshire, what access you have to those meetings depends, once again, on whether you live in a condominium or another kind of HOA. This is general information, not legal advice — for how it applies to your specific situation, a licensed New Hampshire attorney is the right resource.

For condominiums: RSA 356-B addresses meetings

New Hampshire's Condominium Act (RSA 356-B) contains a cluster of meeting provisions that were modernized in recent years:

• RSA 356-B:37 — Meetings
• RSA 356-B:37-a — Notice to Unit Owners
• RSA 356-B:37-b — Meetings by Telephonic, Video, or Other Conferencing Process
• RSA 356-B:37-c — Meetings of the Board of Directors and Committees of the Association
• RSA 356-B:37-d — Executive Session

Together these address when meetings happen, the notice owners are entitled to, how board and committee meetings work, and the limited circumstances for closed executive session. The recurring themes are notice and access.

How often must a New Hampshire condo board hold an open meeting?

At least once each quarter. Under RSA 356-B:37-c, a condo board must hold an open regular meeting where unit owners get a reasonable chance to comment on any matter affecting the association. Notice generally comes at least 10 days ahead, or 5 if at least 70 percent of owners are full-time residents. Small condominiums under § 356-B:37, VII are excluded.

One provision in that cluster gives condo owners a concrete, recurring right. Under § 356-B:37-c, the board must hold a regular open meeting at least once a quarter at which owners can speak:

"Not less than once each quarter ... the board of directors shall hold an open regular meeting during which unit owners shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to comment on any matter affecting the association." — RSA 356-B:37-c

Notice of that meeting, with the agenda, must generally be given at least 10 days ahead (5 days if at least 70 percent of owners are full-time residents), and materials given to the board before the meeting are to be made reasonably available to owners as well — with carve-outs for unapproved minutes and executive-session matters. This is a stronger access right than a board-only schedule: it is a guaranteed open meeting each quarter where members get to be heard. (The section does not apply to the small condominiums covered by § 356-B:37, VII.)

Why notice is the leverage point

Notice exists so owners can attend and participate before a decision is final. When a condo board adopts a rule, approves a budget, or raises assessments at a meeting that owners were never properly notified of, the lack of notice under § 356-B:37-a is often the first thing a homeowner or attorney examines. Executive session (§ 356-B:37-d) is a limited carve-out, not a way to move ordinary business behind closed doors.

Voting by proxy: a 2024 clarification (HB 1129)

How owners vote when they cannot attend matters as much as the meeting itself. A 2024 law, HB 1129 (Chapter 222, effective January 15, 2025), added proxy definitions to the Condominium Act — amending § 356-B:3 and the voting rules in § 356-B:39. It distinguishes a directed proxy, which lets the owner instruct the proxy holder how to vote on specific issues, from an undirected proxy, which gives the holder full discretion. It also limits how many proxies one person can wield: in associations of more than 20 units, proxies cast by any single person generally cannot exceed 10 percent of the votes cast (or a lower bylaw figure), and in associations of fewer than 20 units, no one person's proxies can represent a majority. The practical effect is a guardrail against a single individual quietly controlling an election or a bylaw vote through stacked proxies.

Minutes and financial information

If you couldn't attend, the minutes show what happened. New Hampshire pairs meeting-minute disclosure with the financial-information right in § 356-B:37-e: the board must make minutes available within 60 days of the meeting or 15 days after it approves them, whichever comes first, and financial information is available within 15 days of a request. Requesting minutes is a common move when a board action seems to have appeared from nowhere.

What meeting rules apply to non-condo HOAs in New Hampshire?

Mostly the declaration and bylaws. RSA 356-B generally doesn't apply to non-condo HOAs. If the HOA is a nonprofit corporation, RSA 292 also applies; from January 1, 2027, it will limit when boards and committees of homeowners' associations established under it may meet in executive session, and no final vote or action will be allowed during one (§ 292:8-m, IV).

If your community is a non-condominium HOA, RSA 356-B generally doesn't apply, so the § 356-B:37 meeting rules aren't your hook. Meeting and notice rights instead come from the declaration and bylaws and, if the HOA is a nonprofit corporation, RSA 292 — which, from January 1, 2027, limits when boards and committees of homeowners' associations established under it may meet in executive session and provides that "No final vote or action shall be taken during an executive session" (RSA 292:8-m, IV). See Condo vs. HOA in New Hampshire.

If meetings are closed or unnoticed

When an owner believes a board is meeting without the required notice or improperly using executive session, the options include raising it with the board in writing and consulting a licensed New Hampshire attorney about whether the applicable meeting rules — RSA 356-B for condos, or the bylaws and RSA 292 for other HOAs — were followed.

Sources

• RSA 356-B:37 — Meetings
• RSA 356-B:37-a — Notice to Unit Owners
• RSA 356-B:37-c — Meetings of the Board of Directors and Committees of the Association
• RSA 356-B:37-d — Executive Session
• RSA 356-B:37-e — Disclosure of Financial Information and Meeting Minutes to Unit Owners
• RSA 356-B:39 — Voting
• New Hampshire HB 1129 (2024), Chapter 222 — proxy authority in condominium associations (eff. Jan. 15, 2025)
• RSA 356-B — New Hampshire Condominium Act (full chapter)
• RSA 292 — Voluntary Corporations and Associations