New Hampshire Seller Disclosure Requirements: What Home Sellers Must Reveal
New Hampshire lists topics rather than a form. Under RSA 477:4-c the seller of any property with a building discloses the water supply and sewage system in writing before the contract is signed; for a one-to-four-family home, RSA 477:4-d adds insulation, flood-zone status and any heating-oil tank, due before or while the offer is drafted. Neither section gives the buyer a cancellation right. After a sale goes wrong, buyers sue for fraud or misrepresentation.
Three sections of RSA 477, three different triggers
These rules sit in the conveyancing chapter, and each has its own scope and deadline. They read as lists of information. In every case the buyer signs a copy to acknowledge receipt, but none of them sets out a form.
| Section | Which sales | Deadline | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSA 477:4-a | “any interest in real property which includes a building” | “Prior to the execution of any contract” | A fixed notice, word for word from the statute, on radon, arsenic, lead, PFAS and flood; seller or seller’s agent delivers it |
| RSA 477:4-c | same: any property with a building | “Prior to the execution of any contract” | Private water supply (type, location, malfunctions, installation date, date of the latest water test, and any problem such as an unsatisfactory test or a test with notations); sewage disposal system (tank size, type, location, malfunctions, age, last service, service contractor); seating capacity for a food service establishment |
| RSA 477:4-d | property “used or proposed to be used for a one to 4 family dwelling” | “Prior to or during the preparation of an offer” | The same private water supply details; private sewage system (location, malfunctions, last service, service contractor); insulation type and location; a federally designated flood hazard zone; a residential heating oil underground storage tank |
Not knowing is no excuse for leaving a blank. Under 477:4-c, unknown information must be “stated in writing.” Under 477:4-d, the fact that water, sewage or insulation information “is not available shall also be conveyed, in writing.”
The heating-oil tank item is the newest. It was added to RSA 477:4-d(I)(e) by 2026 chapter 122, effective August 4, 2026; the April 2026 text of the section stopped at the flood-zone item. A seller reusing a disclosure prepared before August should add it. Section 477:4-a was last amended by two 2024 acts that took effect January 1, 2025.
Where the sections are silent
None of these three sections lists exempt sales. There is no carve-out in their text for estates, foreclosures or transfers between relatives. And 477:4-a says outright that it does not “create or place any liability with the seller or seller’s agent for failure to provide the notification,” nor affect the validity of the title.
Stigma, meth, condos and energy tariffs
- Homicide, felony, suicide (RSA 477:4-e). The owner or agent need not disclose that the property was the site of one “unless the buyer requests such information” and the owner or agent knows. Answering a buyer’s request cannot give rise to a lawsuit, and the parties may write their own disclosure terms on this point into the contract.
- Methamphetamine (RSA 477:4-g). Until the Department of Environmental Services finds the property meets cleanup standards, the seller must disclose in writing, before signing, any methamphetamine production he knows occurred there.
- Condominiums (RSA 477:4-f). Before or during preparation of an offer, the seller gives written notice that the buyer may obtain the RSA 356-B:58 information from the unit owners’ association. Section 356-B:58(I) lists nine items the buyer may obtain before the contract date: the statements under RSA 356-B:46, VIII (and 356-B:47 where it applies); capital and major maintenance expenditures the association expects in the current or next 2 fiscal years; the status and amount of the reserve fund; the latest income statement and balance sheet; pending suits or judgments against the association; what insurance the association carries for owners and what an owner would normally add; a statement that the prior owner’s alterations are not known to violate the condominium instruments; the declaration, by-laws and formal rules; and the monthly and annual fees and any special assessments “made within the last 3 years.” On a resale by anyone other than the declarant, the association’s principal officer must furnish them within 10 days of a written request.
- Utility-financed efficiency work (RSA 477:4-h). If the seller knows a metered utility at the property carries charges under an RSA 374:61 tariff for energy efficiency or renewable energy improvements, he must disclose them in writing.
When the disclosure turns out wrong: two Supreme Court cases
Snierson v. Scruton, 145 N.H. 73, 761 A.2d 1046 (2000), began with septic trouble after closing. The buyers sued under RSA 477:4-c and 4-d directly, and the court turned them down: “Nowhere in these statutes, however, does the legislature indicate an intention to create a private right of action.” It also refused to use the statutes as the negligence standard, because they are “significantly broader than the common law duty to disclose latent defects.”
The same buyers’ fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims went forward, based on what the sellers wrote in their disclosure form. The form’s warning that it was not a warranty did not stop a fact finder from deciding the sellers meant the buyers to rely on it.
Silence is treated differently. In Ingaharro v. Blanchette, 122 N.H. 54, 440 A.2d 445 (1982), sellers who had struggled with a weak well for years said nothing, and the court reversed a judgment against them: “Without such a duty, mere silence is not sufficient for misrepresentation.” The same opinion adds that “partial disclosure by a seller creates a duty of full disclosure.” A seller who learns an earlier statement was false must also correct it. Ingaharro predates the 1992 and 1994 statutes that now require the well and septic facts in writing.
The clock for these claims is RSA 508:4: three years from the act or omission. If the injury and its causal relationship to the act or omission “could not reasonably have been discovered” at the time, the three years run from when the buyer discovers them, or reasonably should have.
What the listing agent owes the buyer
RSA 331-A:25-b makes a seller’s agent disclose to a prospective buyer “any material physical, regulatory, mechanical, or on-site environmental condition” the agent actually knows about, before the buyer makes a written offer. It adds that this “shall not create an affirmative obligation on the part of the licensee to investigate material defects.” This is a licensing rule. Snierson quoted the court’s earlier holding that chapter 331-A was meant to have “no effect outside the ethical, licensing, and disciplinary confines of the business.” The agent must also tell the seller “the laws and rules regarding real estate condition disclosures.”
Houses built before 1978
The lead line in the 477:4-a notice is a warning, not a test. The binding lead rules are federal. Before the buyer is obligated under the contract, the seller provides the EPA pamphlet and discloses known lead-based paint and any reports he has (40 CFR 745.107). The buyer gets “a 10-day period (unless the parties mutually agree, in writing, upon a different period of time)” for an inspection or risk assessment, which he can waive in writing (40 CFR 745.110). Foreclosure sales are outside the federal rule (40 CFR 745.101).
More on New Hampshire and nearby states
- Real estate in New Hampshire
- New Hampshire closing costs, 2026
- Insuring a New Hampshire home
- Selling a house, step by step; buying one; the buyer’s checklist
- Find a home inspector; deal-breakers an inspection can turn up
- Selling with a mold problem
- Next door: Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts
New Hampshire disclosure questions
Can I sell my house as-is in New Hampshire?
Yes, as far as repairs go. The written well, septic, insulation, flood-zone and oil-tank disclosures are still due before the offer or contract, because the statutes contain no as-is exception. What you write is what a fraud or misrepresentation claim would be measured against, so an as-is sale is no reason to guess.
Can the buyer cancel after reading my disclosures?
Not under the disclosure statutes: nothing in RSA 477:4-a, 4-c or 4-d gives a buyer a right to cancel, and Snierson held that 4-c and 4-d create no private right of action. A buyer can walk away if the purchase contract allows it, for example through an inspection contingency. Separately, if a written disclosure is false, the buyer can sue for fraud or negligent misrepresentation, and in Snierson a claim for rescission based on the sellers’ written misrepresentations was allowed to proceed.
Do I have to mention that a previous owner died by suicide in the house?
Only if the buyer asks and you know. RSA 477:4-e does not require it otherwise, and it bars a lawsuit over answering the buyer’s question.
Our septic failed a year after closing. Do we have a case?
Possibly, if the seller’s written statements about the system were false, or were made carelessly, and you relied on them. Those are the fraud and negligent misrepresentation claims Snierson allowed. RSA 508:4 allows three years, counted from when you discovered the problem if it could not reasonably have been found sooner. A claim resting only on the statute, with no false statement, is the kind Snierson rejected.