Dobens v. Fagnant

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THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

___________________________

Belknap
Case No. 2024-0111
Citation: Dobens v. Fagnant, 2025 N.H. 31

KELLY DOBENS & a.

v.

SCOTT FAGNANT & a.

Argued: January 14, 2025
Opinion Issued: July 17, 2025

Devine, Millimet & Branch, P.A., of Manchester ( Richard P. Driscoll on
the brief and orally), for the plaintiffs.

Smith-Weiss Shepard & Kanakis P.C., of Nashua (Brittney M. White on
the brief, and Robert M. Shepard orally), for the defendants.

COUNTWAY, J.

¶1 The plaintiffs, Kelly Dobens and Tammy Stockton, individually and
as co-trustees of the Kelly Dobens and Tammy Stockton Revocable Trust,
appeal an order of the Superior Court (Leonard, J.) ruling that the defendant,1
Scott Fagnant, individually and as trustee of the Faye Fagnant 2019 Trust, did

1 Because Scott Fagnant is one individual being sued in two different capacities, this opinion

refers to a singular defendant.
not violate RSA chapter 205-A (2019 & Supp. 2024), or engage in an unfair or
deceptive trade practice, when he failed to give the plaintiffs 18 months’ notice
that he was terminating their lease because he was changing the use of the
manufactured housing park. We reverse and remand.

¶2 The trial court found the following facts. The Faye Fagnant 2019
Trust owns Hills Lakeview Trailer Park & RV Park (Hills Park). The defendant
controls the trust and Hills Park, which is a manufactured housing park under
RSA chapter 205-A. See RSA 205-A:1, II (2019) (“‘Manufactured housing park’
means any parcel of land under single or common ownership or control which
contains, or is designed, laid out or adapted to accommodate 2 or more
manufactured houses.”). Hills Park is only open seasonally — from
approximately May 15 through October 15. The defendant entered into
seasonal rental lot agreements with his tenants, which he renewed “year-to-
year” by sending the agreements to his tenants in late winter.

¶3 The plaintiffs rented a site at Hills Park where they kept their
manufactured housing unit. The parties do not dispute that the plaintiffs’
occupancy of their manufactured housing unit was on a seasonal basis. In
2021, as in years prior, the plaintiffs received a new seasonal agreement for
use of the property during the rental season.

¶4 In between the 2021 and 2022 rental seasons, the defendant decided
to change the use of Hills Park from allowing both manufactured homes and
recreational vehicles (RVs), to allowing only RVs. When the plaintiffs did not
receive a contract for the 2022 season, they sent the defendant a rent check.
The park manager returned the check, without cashing it, along with a note
that Hills Park would not be renewing the contract with the plaintiffs. The
defendant nonetheless allowed the plaintiffs to use their unit at Hills Park for
the 2022 season without paying rent.

¶5 On July 7, 2022, the defendant sent a letter to the Hills Park tenants
(the Notice), notifying them that Hills Park would be “closing its gates on
October 31, 2022,” and requiring that all RVs, manufactured housing units,
and other structures be removed no later than that date. The parties do not
dispute that the defendant sent the Notice because he intended to change the
use of Hills Park.

¶6 The plaintiffs filed a complaint in September 2022, seeking a
declaratory judgment and damages caused by the defendant’s unfair and
deceptive trade practices, and attorney’s fees. Following a bench trial, the trial
court found that the defendant did not violate RSA chapter 205-A and did not
engage in an unfair or deceptive trade practice. The trial court denied the
plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration and the plaintiffs subsequently filed this
appeal.

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 [¶7] On appeal, the plaintiffs challenge the trial court’s rulings that: (1)
the Notice requiring the plaintiffs to remove their manufactured housing unit
was not deficient because the plaintiffs were not entitled to 18 months’ notice
to remove their unit; and (2) the defendant did not violate RSA chapter 205-A
or engage in an unfair or deceptive trade practice.

¶8 We first address the plaintiffs’ argument that the trial court erred in
ruling that the defendant was not required to provide the plaintiffs with 18
months’ notice under RSA 205-A:3 (2019). Resolving this issue requires that
we engage in statutory interpretation. We review the trial court’s statutory
interpretation de novo. Horton v. Clemens, 173 N.H. 480, 483 (2020). We first
examine the language of the statute, and, where possible, we ascribe the plain
and ordinary meaning to the words used. Id. When the language of the statute
is clear on its face, its meaning is not subject to modification. Id. We will
neither consider what the legislature might have said nor add words that it did
not see fit to include. Id.

¶9 RSA chapter 205-A governs the regulation of manufactured housing
parks. It provides that “a tenancy may be terminated by a park owner or
operator” only for the listed reasons, including “[c]ondemnation or change of
use of the manufactured housing park.” RSA 205-A:4, VI (2019). Termination
for this purpose requires that the park owner give “notice in writing to the
tenant in the manner prescribed by RSA 540:5 and by first class mail, to
remove from the premises within a period of not less than . . . 18 months . . . .”
RSA 205-A:3, III (2019).

¶10 It is undisputed that the defendant sent the Notice to the plaintiffs
to inform them that he intended to change the use of Hills Park and that it
provided less than four months’ notice requiring the plaintiffs to remove their
unit. However, the trial court found that the plaintiffs were not entitled to
notice under RSA 205-A:3 due to the nature of their tenancy. The trial court
noted that the 2021 seasonal rental lot agreement provided that the plaintiffs
had a right to occupy and use their unit at Hills Park only within a certain time
frame, and not year-round. The trial court therefore ruled that when the
plaintiffs occupied the site during the 2022 season despite the fact that the
defendant did not renew their seasonal rental lot agreement, the plaintiffs
became “holdover tenants,” whose tenancy expired on October 15, 2022. The
trial court reasoned that because the tenancy expired on October 15, 2022, the
plaintiffs were not entitled to an 18-month period to remove their unit under
RSA 205-A:3 “because the removal date in the Notice was October 31, 2022.”
Assuming, without deciding, that the plaintiffs would not have been entitled to
18 months’ notice to remove their unit if their holdover tenancy had expired,
we conclude, for the reasons that follow, that the trial court erred when it relied
on the expiration of the seasonal rental lot agreement to support its ruling that
the plaintiffs had a “leasehold tenancy” for the 2021 tenancy, and, therefore, a
holdover tenancy that expired on October 15, 2022.

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 [¶11] RSA 205-A:4 grants owners of manufactured housing parks the
right to terminate a tenancy in order to “change [the] use of the manufactured
housing park.” RSA 205-A:4, VI. When an owner intends to change the use of
the park, the owner must “giv[e] notice in writing to the tenant . . . to remove
from the premises within a period of not less than . . . 18 months . . . .” RSA
205-A:3. The lengthy notice requirement recognizes that there is a distinction
between an eviction from traditional residential property and an eviction from a
manufactured housing park. Unlike a tenant evicted from a traditional
residence, a tenant evicted from a manufactured housing park must not only
remove his or her personal possessions, but also remove his or her
manufactured housing unit. See Laro v. Leisure Acres Mobile Home Park
Assocs., 139 N.H. 545, 547 (1995) (stating that “[w]hen a tenant is evicted from
a mobile home park, the mobile home is ‘evicted’ and removed as well”).

¶12 Nothing in RSA chapter 205-A suggests that the fact that a lease
providing that the plaintiffs were entitled to occupy their manufactured
housing unit only seasonally relieves the defendant from its statutory
obligation to provide notice pursuant to RSA 205-A:3. The defendant argues
that RSA 205-A:3, III does not apply to “holdover tenants in seasonal
manufactured housing parks.” Although the defendant is correct that RSA
chapter 205-A does not specifically address seasonal parks, we disagree with
his contention that this omission means that the statute does not apply to
seasonal parks. Reading RSA chapter 205-A to exclude seasonal parks would
require us to read an exception into the statute that the legislature did not see
fit to include, which we decline to do. See Appeal of Cover, 168 N.H. 614, 622
(2016). Other statutes relating to property rental specifically provide
exceptions for seasonal, short term, and vacation rentals. See, e.g., RSA
540:1-a, IV(b) (2021) (providing that a “tenancy” shall not include occupants in
“[r]ooms in hotels, motels, inns, tourist homes and other dwellings rented for
recreational or vacation use”). If the legislature desired to limit the application
of RSA chapter 205-A to exclude seasonal parks, it could have done so. See In
re Estate of McCarty, 166 N.H. 548, 551 (2014).

¶13 We now turn to the plaintiffs’ argument that the trial court erred in
finding that their holdover tenancy expired on October 15, 2022, and that they
were thus not entitled to 18 months’ notice. The parties do not dispute that
the plaintiffs’ occupancy of their unit at Hills Park was on a seasonal basis.
While their use and enjoyment of their unit was limited to the renting season,
the plaintiffs kept their manufactured housing unit on the site in Hills Park
throughout the year. Throughout the off-season, when the plaintiffs were not
occupying their unit but it nonetheless remained on the site, the plaintiffs were
tenants. See RSA 205-A:1, IV (2019) (“‘Tenant’ means any person who owns or
occupies manufactured housing and pays rent or other consideration to place
said manufactured housing in a manufactured housing park.”). Accordingly,
although the plaintiffs’ occupancy of the unit was only seasonal, they were
tenants throughout the entire year.

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 [¶14] The same is true of the plaintiffs’ holdover tenancy in 2022. Even if
we assume that the defendant is correct that the plaintiffs’ right to occupy their
manufactured housing unit ended on October 15, 2022, their holdover tenancy
did not expire on October 15, 2022. Because the plaintiffs’ unit remained on
the site, the plaintiffs continued to be holdover tenants after October 15, 2022.
Cf. Laro, 139 N.H. at 548 (“When the plaintiffs left their mobile home in the
defendant’s park after their eviction, they became holdover tenants.”). We
therefore conclude that the trial court erred in finding that the plaintiffs’
holdover tenancy expired on October 15, 2022. Rather, the plaintiffs continued
to be tenants at all times relevant to these proceedings.

¶15 Accordingly, the trial court erred in finding that the plaintiffs were
not entitled to an 18-month notice period to remove their unit under RSA 205-
A:3. Because the defendant provided less than four months’ notice requiring
the plaintiffs to remove their unit, the defendant violated RSA 205-A:3.

¶16 Finally, the plaintiffs argue that the trial court erred in failing to
award damages, costs, and fees under RSA 358-A:10 (2022). The trial court
found that “the defendant did not violate RSA 205-A, nor did he engage in an
unfair or deceptive trade practice,” and “[a]ccordingly, the plaintiffs are not
entitled to attorney’s fees and costs.” The trial court did not make any
additional findings regarding unfair or deceptive trade practices, or the
availability of remedies under RSA 358-A:10. Because we determine that the
defendant failed to comply with the notice provision of RSA 205-A:3, we
remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Reversed and remanded.

MACDONALD, C.J., and BASSETT and DONOVAN, JJ., concurred.

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