Manutsom v. Town of Hollis

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THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

___________________________

Hillsborough-southern judicial district
Case No. 2025-0249
Citation: Manutsom v. Town of Hollis, 2026 N.H. 27

WISARAT MANUTSOM, TRUSTEE OF THE FARLEY ROAD REALTY TRUST

v.

TOWN OF HOLLIS

Submitted: February 10, 2026
Opinion Issued: July 17, 2026

Alfano Law Office, PLLC, of Concord (John F. Hayes on the brief), for the
plaintiff.

Cronin, Bisson, & Zalinsky, P.C., of Manchester (Christopher B. Drescher
on the brief), for the defendant.

DONOVAN, J.

¶1 The plaintiff, Wisarat Manutsom, trustee of the Farley Road Realty
Trust (Trust), appeals an order of the Superior Court (Temple, J.) awarding
summary judgment to the defendant, the Town of Hollis (Town). The plaintiff
argues that the Town violated her due process rights by providing insufficient
notice of an impending tax deed and two tax liens before it took the Trust’s
property. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

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[¶2] The following facts are taken from the summary judgment record.
This action concerns the Town’s taking of a property located in Hollis (Property)
due to unpaid property taxes. No evidence suggests that anyone occupied the
Property at any time during this case.

¶3 The Trust has owned the Property since at least 2008, when the
plaintiff became the Trust’s trustee. That year, the plaintiff notified the Town
of her travels abroad, gave the Town her email address, and authorized “Mark
A. Copp and/or Raymond H. Copp” to act on the Trust’s behalf with regard to
the Property’s taxes. The plaintiff provided Mark Copp’s contact information,
including his address in Manchester. The Town’s records around this time also
listed a California mailing address for correspondence regarding the Property.
Later, in a 2017 email, the plaintiff asked the Town to send future notices
about the Property to an address in Maine.

¶4 From 2016 to 2018, the Town mailed six letters regarding the
Property’s outstanding taxes, all by certified mail, to the various addresses
provided by the plaintiff. These letters included a notice, for which Mark Copp
signed at his Manchester address, of impending tax deed for the Property’s
then-unpaid 2013 taxes. Four of the other five letters were returned as
undeliverable. Among the undelivered letters was a notice of impending tax
lien for the Property’s 2016 taxes, which explained that the Town would
execute the lien if it did not receive payment by April 2017.

¶5 During the same period, the Town also emailed the plaintiff four
times about the Property’s unpaid taxes. Of note, in an email exchange in May
2017, the plaintiff asked the Town’s tax collector if she could pay the
outstanding taxes for 2013 to 2016. The tax collector provided the total
amount and warned, “I have been in ongoing discussions with the Board of
Selectmen regarding the significant delinquent balance on this property and
would strongly encourage you to make payment as soon as possible to avoid
the town pursuing a tax deed.” In an email to Raymond Copp later that month,
the plaintiff stated: “The amount to pay on Monday will be $69,123.91 [f]or
taxes year 2013-2015 . . . I decided to not pay for year 2016 because we need
money here.” She subsequently paid the overdue taxes for years 2013 to 2015.

¶6 In March 2019, the Town mailed a notice of impending tax lien
regarding the Property’s unpaid 2018 taxes to the Manchester and Maine
addresses the plaintiff had provided. Three days later, it mailed a notice of
impending tax deed for the Property’s delinquent 2016 taxes to both addresses.
All of this correspondence, sent by certified mail, came back as undeliverable.
The next month, in April 2019, the Town’s tax collector deeded the Property to
the Town. See RSA 80:76, I (2012) (providing for collector’s deeding of property
“after 2 years from the execution of the real estate tax lien”).

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[¶7] A week after deeding the property, the tax collector sent notices of
the taking by “non-certified” regular mail to the Manchester and Maine
addresses. These notices explained that the Town had taken the Property by
tax deed, but the plaintiff could repurchase it at any time through April 18,
2022.

¶8 Nearly three years later, on April 8, 2022 — upon confirming the
proper mailing address with the plaintiff via email, and shortly before the
plaintiff’s repurchasing right expired — the Town mailed additional certified
notices of the taking to the Manchester and Maine addresses. Mark Copp
signed for the copy of the notice sent to his Manchester address.

¶9 From April 2022 to March 2023, the Town, the plaintiff, and Mark
Copp exchanged additional emails related to the Property’s auctioning and sale.
In April 2024, the Town entered into an agreement to sell the Property to a
third party. In May 2024, the plaintiff, through counsel, offered to pay the total
amount owed in outstanding taxes and penalties in exchange for the Property’s
reconveyance. The Town rejected her offer.

¶10 The plaintiff subsequently sued the Town. As relevant to this
appeal, she alleged that the Town provided insufficient notice of the 2016 and
2018 tax liens and the 2016 tax deed in violation of the Due Process Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. After both
parties moved for summary judgment, the trial court granted the Town
summary judgment. The plaintiff moved for reconsideration, which the trial
court denied. This appeal followed.

¶11 On appeal, the plaintiff challenges the trial court’s determination
that the Town’s attempts to notify her of the Property’s impending taking by tax
deed, as well as of the 2016 and 2018 tax liens, satisfied her Fourteenth
Amendment due process rights. Because the plaintiff argues under only the
Fourteenth Amendment on appeal, we confine our discussion to the Federal
Constitution and do not analyze her rights under the State Constitution.

¶12 “In reviewing the trial court’s rulings on cross-motions for summary
judgment, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to each party in
its capacity as the nonmoving party.” Polonsky v. Town of Bedford, 171 N.H.
89, 93 (2018). “If our review of that evidence discloses no genuine issue of
material fact and if the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law,
then we will affirm the grant of summary judgment.” Id. “We review the trial
court’s application of the law to the facts de novo.” Id.

¶13 We first consider the Town’s efforts to provide notice of the
Property’s taking by tax deed for the unpaid 2016 taxes. On appeal, the
plaintiff contends that after the Town’s mailed notices of the impending tax
deed came back as undeliverable, the Town should have taken the additional

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reasonable step of emailing her the notice, pursuant to Jones v. Flowers, 547
U.S. 220, 225 (2006).

¶14 In Jones, the United States Supreme Court held that under the
Fourteenth Amendment, “when mailed notice of a tax sale is returned
unclaimed, the State must take additional reasonable steps to attempt to
provide notice to the property owner before selling his property, if it is
practicable to do so.” Id. (emphasis added). Consequently, even where an
initial notice is “reasonably calculated to reach the intended recipient when
sent,” id. at 226, the government must take supplemental measures if it
“becomes aware prior to the taking that its attempt at notice has failed,” id. at
227. The Court proffered examples of reasonable steps: mailing uncertified
letters, addressing the correspondence to “occupant,” or posting notice on the
property’s door. Id. at 234-35. Conversely, the government need not conduct
“[a]n open-ended search for a new address” or reference phonebooks or
government records. Id. at 235-36.

¶15 Upon the return of the undelivered certified notices of the
Property’s impending tax deed, the Town issued no further notice before the
collector executed the deed in April 2019. The Town asserts that it complied
with Jones, noting that the plaintiff learned about the tax deed before her
three-year repurchasing right expired. The Town sent notices to the
Manchester and Maine addresses by regular mail a week after the deed’s
execution, and in April 2022 — during the final weeks before the plaintiff’s
repurchase deadline — it emailed her and mailed certified notices regarding the
Property.

¶16 Nonetheless, Jones concerned the government’s “constitutional
obligation of notice before taking private property.” Id. at 232 (emphasis
added); see also id. at 223, 230, 231, 238 (also referring to government’s
burden to provide notice prior to “taking”). As the Court stressed: “[B]efore
forcing a citizen to satisfy his debt by forfeiting his property, due process
requires the government to provide adequate notice of the impending taking.”
Id. at 234 (emphasis added). Importantly, here, the deed’s execution divested
the Trust of ownership of the Property. Indeed, the Town’s post-deed April
2019 letter notified the plaintiff that “[t]his deed conveys 100% ownership to
the Town,” and that “[a]t this time, you are no longer allowed access to the
property without prior approval from the Town.”

¶17 In Jones, the pertinent Arkansas statute “preclude[d] the State
from taking the property for two years while the property owner may exercise
his right to redeem.” Id. at 231 (emphasis omitted). The State’s undelivered
notice in Jones thus attempted to advise the owner that unless he redeemed
his property by paying his delinquent taxes, the State would sell — and thereby
“take” — it in two years. Id. at 223. After the post office returned the
unopened, unclaimed letter, the State did nothing until it announced the

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public sale in the newspaper nearly two years later — an effort the Court found
“not constitutionally adequate” given that more tailored methods of notice, like
follow-up regular mail, were feasible. Id. at 237. The Jones Court therefore
had no occasion to decide whether notice issued after an initial government
action to seize tax-delinquent property, but before the taxpayer’s redemption or
repurchase right expires, satisfies due process. See id. However, subsequent
cases that have considered this question counsel that such notice does not
suffice as an additional step under Jones.

¶18 For instance, the Vermont Supreme Court considered a town’s
follow-up letter mailed one day after a tax sale — a different type of foreclosure
proceeding than that here — and well within the taxpayer’s redemption period.
Hogaboom v. Jenkins, 93 A.3d 131, 137-38 (Vt. 2014). Citing the additional
fees that attached upon the tax sale, the court rejected this follow-up notice as
a sufficient supplemental step following the town’s undelivered pre-sale notice.
Id. at 138. Elsewhere, a Missouri appellate court likewise determined that a
follow-up notice sent during the taxpayer’s redemption period would not satisfy
Jones. See Investment Corp. of Virginias v. Acquaviva, 302 S.W.3d 195, 199-
201 (Mo. Ct. App. 2009) (remanding for development of record regarding
whether reasonable additional methods of pre-sale notice were available to tax
collector).1

¶19 On the other hand, in upholding the adequacy of follow-up notice
sent after a tax sale, an Arkansas appellate court reasoned that, in the words
of a trial witness, “nobody’s position change[d]” immediately following the sale
and during the taxpayer’s redemption period. Morris v. LandNPulaski, LLC,
309 S.W.3d 212, 217 (Ark. Ct. App. 2009). The court emphasized that as title
did not transfer to the purchaser on the sale date, the commissioner’s post-sale
letter appropriately notified the taxpayer of the sale “before he was deprived of
his property.” Id. at 218. Conversely, here, the Trust’s property deprivation
occurred when the collector executed the deed. See Jones, 547 U.S. at 234.
Further — and as the plaintiff observes — repurchasing the Property after the
deed’s execution would require her to pay a penalty equaling ten percent of the
Property’s value, in addition to the back taxes, interest, and Town’s costs. See
RSA 80:89, II (Supp. 2025); RSA 80:90, I (Supp. 2025). We accordingly
conclude that the Town was required to provide sufficient notice to the plaintiff
prior to the deed’s execution; its post-deed correspondences with the plaintiff
did not constitute an “additional reasonable step[].” Jones, 547 U.S. at 225.

1 In addition, in a case predating Jones, we rejected a due process challenge to New Hampshire’s
tax sale process on the reasoning that the applicable statutes mandated notice before both the tax
sale and the property’s subsequent deeding to the tax purchaser following the taxpayer’s
redemption period. White v. Lee, 124 N.H. 69, 77 (1983); see RSA 80:20-:38 (2012) (setting forth
tax sale procedure). We have also previously assumed, without deciding, “that a taking of
property occurs when the tax collector executes a tax deed to the municipality” under RSA 80:76
(2012), as in this case. Polonsky v. Town of Bedford, 173 N.H. 226, 234 (2020).

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[¶20] The Town next argues that the plaintiff knew, or should have
known, that the Property’s deeding was imminent. It observes that after the
tax collector warned her by email “to make payment as soon as possible to
avoid the town pursuing a tax deed,” the plaintiff affirmatively chose not to pay
the 2016 taxes. We note that, as the Jones Court explained, “the common
knowledge that property may become subject to government taking when taxes
are not paid does not excuse the government from complying with its
constitutional obligation of notice before taking private property.” Id. at 232.
The Town’s email exchange with the plaintiff did not discuss the potential
deeding in concrete terms, and it occurred nearly two years before the Town
eventually deeded the Property.2 We therefore reverse the trial court’s
summary judgment ruling regarding the Town’s notice of the tax deed and
remand for the trial court to determine an appropriate remedy in light of this
opinion.

¶21 As for whether the Town’s notice of the Property’s 2016 and 2018
tax liens sufficed under the Fourteenth Amendment, “because this issue may
arise on remand and because both parties discuss it in their briefs, we address
it.” George v. Al Hoyt & Sons, Inc., 162 N.H. 123, 138 (2011). The plaintiff
argues that the Fourteenth Amendment required the use of email in addition to
the Town’s mailed notices.

¶22 Notice of a tax lien suffices if it is “reasonably calculated, under all
the circumstances, to apprise” a party of the impending lien. Mullane v.
Central Hanover Tr. Co., 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950); see Dusenbery v. United
States, 534 U.S. 161, 168 (2002). Because a tax lien infringes less severely on
an individual’s property rights than a tax deed, the level of notice required by
due process is reduced. See Jones, 547 U.S. at 229 (noting that assessing the
adequacy of notice entails weighing the private and governmental interests at
stake); First NH Bank v. Town of Windham, 138 N.H. 319, 327 (1994)
(“comparing the relative effects on interested parties” of a tax lien and tax
deed); RSA 80:69 (Supp. 2025) (discussing taxpayer’s ability to redeem interest
in land subject to a tax lien).

¶23 The Town mailed an undelivered certified notice of the impending
2016 tax lien in March 2017 to the California address in its files. Notably,
delivery of all the Town’s prior notices sent to the California address had failed.
Although the Town had twice sought to procure a more reliable mailing address

2 The Town also argues that RSA 80:77 requires mailed, not emailed, notice, and that “email was
no guarantee that the Town would receive any response” from the plaintiff. Contrary to the
Town’s contention, the plain text of RSA 80:77 does not bar the use of email in addition to the
required “certified mail, return receipt requested” notice of the impending deed. RSA 80:77.
Moreover, “it is not our responsibility to prescribe the form of service” to be used. Jones, 547 U.S.
at 234 (brackets omitted). Our conclusion that notice of the Property’s taking was constitutionally
infirm turns on the Town’s failure to take any “additional reasonable steps” before deeding the
Property, not on its refusal to use email specifically. Id. at 225.

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from the plaintiff, to no avail, these previous efforts did not mitigate the Town’s
duty to provide proper notice following the failed deliveries. Rather, the inquiry
before us is whether the Town’s mailing the impending 2016 tax lien notice to
only the California address was “reasonably calculated, under all the
circumstances, to apprise” the plaintiff of the impending lien. Mullane, 339
U.S. at 314. Particularly given that the Town had alternative methods of
contacting the plaintiff — namely, Mark Copp’s Manchester address and the
plaintiff’s email address — we conclude that the Town’s notice of the 2016 tax
lien did not satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment.

¶24 As for the 2018 tax lien, the Town mailed undelivered certified
notices of this impending lien in March 2019 to both the Manchester and
Maine addresses. The Town’s only previous notice to the Maine address —
sent in 2018, following the plaintiff’s 2017 request to use that address — was
returned undelivered. However, Mark Copp had signed for two of the Town’s
three prior notices to the Manchester address. The plaintiff’s contention that
due process compelled the Town to use email is therefore unavailing. To the
contrary, as the trial court reasoned, the Town “seems to have been justified in
sending the notice of the 2018 Tax Lien to the Manchester Address, where
notices had been received in the past, and to the [Maine] Address, to which the
plaintiff had asked that notices be sent.” On the record before us, we conclude
that the Town’s use of both the Manchester and Maine addresses was
“reasonably calculated” to notify the plaintiff of the 2018 tax lien. Mullane, 339
U.S. at 314; see also Jones, 547 U.S. at 231 (“[T]he failure of notice in a
specific case does not establish the inadequacy of the attempted notice.”).

¶25 We therefore reverse the trial court’s summary judgment rulings
regarding the Town’s notice of the tax deed relating to the unpaid 2016 taxes
and its notice of the 2016 tax lien. However, we affirm the trial court’s decision
regarding the Town’s notice of the 2018 tax lien. We remand for further
proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Affirmed in part; reversed in part;
and remanded.

MACDONALD, C.J., and COUNTWAY, J., concurred.