No Trespass Orders in NH: Rules, Duration, and Penalties

A no trespass order in NH is a written notice from a property owner telling a specific person to stay off their property. It isn’t issued by a court and doesn’t require a lawyer. Once the person has received it and returns anyway, they can be charged with criminal trespass under RSA 635:2, which in most cases is a misdemeanor.¹

What a No Trespass Order Is in New Hampshire

A no-trespass order is a private document. The property owner writes it, delivers it, and files a copy with the local police. There’s no judge involved and no hearing. Its legal force comes from RSA 635:2, which makes it a crime to knowingly enter or remain somewhere after being told not to.¹

The word “knowingly” is doing real work in that statute. A person who wanders onto your land by accident hasn’t committed criminal trespass. Prosecutors have to show the person understood they weren’t welcome, and that is exactly what a properly delivered no-trespass order establishes.

New Hampshire also treats posted signs and fencing as forms of notice — the statute calls property with either “secured premises.”¹ Generic “No Trespassing” signs work against everyone. A written no-trespass order is the tool for barring one particular person while your property stays open to others.

How to Issue a No Trespass Order

Many New Hampshire police departments provide a fill-in form and instructions. Gilford and Moultonborough both publish downloadable packets, and other departments have similar resources.² You can also draft your own as long as it contains the necessary details.

At a minimum, the notice should identify:

The person being barred: full legal name and date of birth, ideally with a physical description or recent photo so responding officers can identify them.
The property covered: street address and a description of the boundaries. If some areas are off-limits and others aren’t (a building but not the parking lot, for example), say so.
The restriction itself: a clear statement that the person is not permitted to enter or remain on the property.
The effective date.

Vague boundaries or missing identifying details give the recipient room to argue later that they didn’t understand what was off-limits, which undercuts the “knowingly” element the state has to prove.

Delivering the Notice

A notice that never reaches the person protects nobody. The two standard delivery methods in New Hampshire are hand delivery and certified mail with a return receipt.² If you hand-deliver, have a witness present and document the date, time, and location on the form’s return-of-service section. Certified mail gives you a signed postal receipt that’s harder to dispute.

Filing With the Police

Once the notice has been served, bring the original to your local police department. Officers keep these on file so they can verify the trespass status when they respond to a call.³ Without that step, officers arriving on your property have no independent way to confirm a notice exists, and the situation collapses into competing accounts. Filing with the department is what connects your private document to public enforcement.

How Long a No Trespass Order Lasts

RSA 635:2 doesn’t set an expiration date. The language police departments use on their forms typically states that the notice stays in effect until the owner gives the person written permission to return.³ In practice, it’s permanent unless you revoke it.

A notice doesn’t automatically transfer if you sell the property. The new owner would need to issue their own. And if circumstances change, you can lift the order any time in writing. Notify the police department when you do so their records match.

Penalties If the Person Returns

New Hampshire’s classification of criminal trespass is tiered, and the level of the charge depends on the circumstances.

Basic criminal trespass, with no aggravating factors, is a violation. The maximum penalty is a $1,000 fine and no jail time.⁴

Trespass rises to a misdemeanor when the person enters in defiance of a personal order from the owner, enters an occupied structure, enters posted or fenced property, or violates a court order barring them from the location.¹ This is the tier that applies when someone returns after receiving a no-trespass order.

Under RSA 625:9, a misdemeanor with no specified class defaults to Class B.⁵ A Class B misdemeanor carries up to a $1,200 fine and no jail time.⁴ Prosecutors can escalate to Class A by filing a notice of intent before arraignment, or when the offense involves violence or threats. A Class A misdemeanor brings the potential penalty to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

The practical picture: a first-time return after a no-trespass order is usually charged as a Class B misdemeanor with a fine and no jail. Repeat violations, threats, or entry into someone’s home give the state grounds to push for Class A. If the trespasser causes more than $1,500 in property damage, the charge climbs again — a misdemeanor for a first offense, and a Class B felony for any subsequent one, carrying up to seven years in prison.¹

No Trespass Order vs. Protective Order

These get confused often, and they aren’t the same tool.

A no-trespass order is a private action by a property owner. You write it, you deliver it, and it bars someone from a specific piece of property. Enforcement runs through RSA 635:2.

A protective order under RSA 173-B is issued by a judge. It’s available when a family member, household member, or current or former intimate partner has committed or threatened abuse, including assault, criminal threatening, sexual assault, stalking, harassment, or unauthorized entry.⁶ A protective order can do things a no-trespass notice cannot: order the person to stay away from you personally rather than just your property, prohibit all contact, grant temporary custody of children, and require the surrender of firearms.

If the situation involves domestic violence, stalking, or threats from someone you have a relationship with, a protective order is the stronger tool. If you simply need to keep someone off your property — a former employee, a disruptive neighbor, or a stranger — a no-trespass order is usually sufficient. RSA 635:2 treats defiance of either kind of order the same way for criminal trespass purposes.¹

When a No Trespass Order Won’t Work

A no-trespass order is a powerful tool, and it also has real limits. Overstepping them can create legal exposure for the owner.

You Cannot Use One to Remove a Tenant

A landlord cannot use a no-trespass order to remove a current tenant. Tenants have a legal right to occupy the property under their lease, and ending that occupancy requires New Hampshire’s formal eviction process under RSA 540, including a written notice to quit and, if necessary, a court proceeding.⁷ Trying to skip eviction with a trespass notice won’t hold up and can expose the landlord to liability.

There is one narrow exception. After a court issues a final eviction judgment in a case involving domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, the landlord can bar the person from the property, and their return after written notice becomes criminal trespass.⁷

Fair Housing Restrictions

Property owners who rent housing cannot use no-trespass notices to exclude people based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits practices that make housing unavailable to members of protected classes, and selectively trespassing tenants’ guests or family members on those grounds falls within that prohibition.⁸

Public and Quasi-Public Property

The rules change on government-owned property and on some private property that functions like a public space. The First Amendment limits the government’s ability to exclude people from public forums without a valid, content-neutral reason. Private commercial property generally isn’t held to the same standard; the U.S. Supreme Court has held that shopping centers and similar private businesses can invoke trespass laws to exclude people even when those people are engaged in expressive activity, as long as the property hasn’t been dedicated to general public use.⁹

If You Received a No Trespass Order

The first thing to do is obey it while you sort out your options. Returning to the property while the notice is active is a criminal offense, whether or not you think the notice is fair.

Because a no-trespass order isn’t a court order, there’s no built-in appeal. You can’t file a motion to vacate the way you could with a restraining order. Your practical options are to contact the property owner and try to resolve the underlying dispute, or to consult an attorney if you believe the notice violates your rights — for example, if a landlord is using it to sidestep eviction protections, or if it appears to be motivated by discrimination.

If the notice covers property where you have an independent legal right to be, such as your own home, a unit you’re leasing, or a public building, those rights don’t vanish because someone handed you a piece of paper. Asserting them usually requires legal action of your own rather than ignoring the notice and hoping it works out. An attorney can tell you whether the order has any legal force in your specific situation and what to do next.

1
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 635:2 – Criminal Trespass
2
Gilford Police Department. No Trespass Order Packet
3
Moultonborough, New Hampshire. No Trespass Order – Non-PD Involvement
4
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 651:2 – Sentences Authorized
5
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 625:9 – Classification of Crimes
6
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 173-B:1 – Definitions
7
New Hampshire General Court. New Hampshire Code 540:2 – Termination of Tenancy
8
The United States Department of Justice. The Fair Housing Act
9
Congress.gov. Quasi-Public Places