New Hampshire asset protection: a statute that spells out, in so many words, that a single-member LLC can be taken by its owner's creditor

Most states leave the weakness of a single-member LLC to be worked out by the courts, which is why so much of the protection literature is spent guessing how a judge will treat a sole owner’s interest. New Hampshire does not make you guess. Its LLC statute states, in plain terms, that if a court orders an execution sale of the membership rights of a sole member, the buyer obtains all of that member’s rights, becomes the member of the company, and the debtor ceases to be a member. So in New Hampshire a single-member LLC can be taken outright by a member’s personal creditor, and the statute says so on its face. That candor is the most important thing to understand about protecting an LLC interest here, and it points straight at the fix: a genuine multi-member structure. The home is a separate story, with a solid homestead but no entireties.

The single-member weakness, written into the statute

Start with what New Hampshire’s charging-order statute actually says.

New Hampshire’s statute provides that on an execution sale of a single-member LLC interest, the buyer takes all membership rights, becomes the member, and the debtor is out.

Under RSA 304-C:126, a personal creditor of a member gets a charging order, a lien on the member’s membership rights, and the statute allows a court to order an execution sale of those rights. Then it does something most states’ statutes do not: it spells out what happens in the single-member case. If the court orders an execution sale of the membership rights of the sole member of a single-member LLC, the purchaser obtains all of the member’s membership rights and not merely a transferee’s economic rights, the purchaser becomes the member of the company, and the debtor-member ceases to be a member. That is the whole company, transferred to the creditor’s buyer by operation of the statute. There is no ambiguity to argue about and no favorable reading to hope for; New Hampshire has legislated the outcome.

A multi-member New Hampshire LLC keeps meaningful protection, because a foreclosure buyer takes only the economic interest and does not automatically become a member.

The contrast with the multi-member case is sharp. In a multi-member LLC, a buyer at a foreclosure sale takes the transferable interest, the right to distributions, but does not automatically become a member or gain management control, so the company stays with its remaining owners. That difference is the entire protection strategy in New Hampshire: the single-member LLC is weak by statute, and the multi-member LLC is not. The single-member LLC page covers the general weakness; New Hampshire is the state where it is least deniable, and where a real second member, funded and genuine, is not a refinement but the core of the plan.

The home, the homestead, and no entireties

On the residence, New Hampshire is solid but not exceptional.

New Hampshire’s homestead exemption is $120,000 per owner and doubles to $240,000 for a married couple.

Under RSA 480:1, the homestead exemption protects an owner’s interest in a primary residence up to $120,000 in value, and because it attaches per owner, a married couple who own the home jointly can protect up to $240,000 between them. That is meaningful protection, well above the tiny homesteads of states like Kentucky, though below the quarter-million-dollar and unlimited homesteads of Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Florida. It applies automatically, without any entity or special titling. What New Hampshire does not offer is the marital shield some states layer on top.

New Hampshire does not recognize tenancy by the entireties, so the homestead, not the way the deed is held, is what protects the marital home.

Many states let a married couple hold their home as tenants by the entireties, beyond the reach of a creditor of one spouse. New Hampshire is not among them, so a New Hampshire couple relies on the $240,000 homestead for that protection rather than on titling. The entireties page covers the shield New Hampshire lacks. For a home with equity above the homestead, that gap is where insurance and deliberate structuring carry the rest.

The veil, in New Hampshire’s terms

To reach an owner behind the entity, a creditor uses New Hampshire’s test.

New Hampshire pierces the veil where an owner so dominated the entity that it had no independent existence and used it to promote fraud, injustice, or an illegality.

Under LaMontagne Builders, Inc. v. Bowman Brook Purchase Group, New Hampshire disregards the entity where the owner controlled it so completely that it had no separate existence and used that control to promote fraud, injustice, or an illegal act, and New Hampshire recognizes reverse piercing as well, reaching entity assets for an owner’s debt in the right case. The piercing the veil page covers the doctrine; the New Hampshire defense is the same as everywhere, keeping the entity capitalized, formal, and genuinely separate, which in New Hampshire also means genuinely multi-member for anything you want protected.

The bottom line

New Hampshire’s statute, RSA 304-C:126, provides that on an execution sale of a single-member LLC interest the buyer takes all membership rights, becomes the member, and the debtor is out.

A multi-member New Hampshire LLC keeps meaningful protection, because a foreclosure buyer takes only the economic interest, so a genuine second member is the core of the plan.

The homestead is $120,000 per owner and doubles to $240,000 for a married couple, which is solid though below the strongest states.

New Hampshire does not recognize tenancy by the entireties, so the homestead, not titling, protects the marital home.

The veil is pierced on domination plus fraud or injustice, and New Hampshire allows reverse piercing, so clean separation and real capitalization remain the defense.

What this page does not cover

This page is about how creditors reach you in New Hampshire. The freedom-of-contract act, the broad power to exculpate managers, and how the operating agreement carries the second-member fix are on the governance page. New Hampshire’s business profits and enterprise taxes, which apply even though there is no income tax, the meals and rentals tax, and the transfer tax are on the structure and cost page. The $100 formation fee, the $100 April 1 report, and the separate business-tax filing are on the filing page.

Last verified August 2026.