New Hampshire Exemption for a Specially Adapted Homestead

RSA 72:36-a is the only New Hampshire veteran property tax provision that is an exemption rather than a credit, and it is total: the qualifying veteran "shall be exempt from all taxation on said homestead". The gate is the house, not only the veteran. The section reaches a person who is a veteran as defined in RSA 21:50 "and who owns a home which has been specially adapted by the Veterans Administration through an approved Special Adapted Housing (SAH) or Special Home Adaptation (SHA) grant or owns a home that has been specially adapted and has been acquired using proceeds from the sale of such an SAH or SHA home". A surviving spouse, as defined in RSA 72:29, V, takes it on the same terms. That second limb is the one to notice. A veteran who used an SAH grant on a first house, sold it, and put the proceeds into a second adapted house keeps the exemption. Without that clause the benefit would die on the first move, which is what happens in several other states in this catalog. Then the veteran must satisfy one of three conditions in paragraph I. Subparagraph (a): "Is 100 percent permanently and totally disabled as prescribed in 38 C.F.R. 3.340, total and permanent total ratings and unemployability." The statute names the regulation and it names unemployability in the caption it quotes. 38 C.F.R. 3.340 is the federal provision covering both total ratings and total disability ratings based on individual unemployability, so a veteran paid at the total rate through unemployability is inside this exemption on the face of the statute. Very few states write the citation in like this, and it removes the argument an assessor might otherwise make about a schedular percentage. Subparagraph (b): a double amputee of the upper or lower extremities or any combination, or paraplegic, as the result of service connection. No permanence finding and no rating. Subparagraph (c): blindness of both eyes with visual acuity of 5/200 or less as the result of service connection. That is a specific acuity threshold, tighter than the general legal blindness standard of 20/200 used in RSA 72:37 for the blind exemption, so a veteran who is legally blind but better than 5/200 does not reach this subparagraph and should look at RSA 72:37 instead. Paragraph II requires satisfactory proof of the service connection disability to be furnished to the assessors. Two structural points. RSA 72:36-a is in the RSA 72:27-a list of local options, so a town has to have adopted it. Unlike the credits, the amount is not a town choice; the exemption is all or nothing. And RSA 72:35, I-a says the optional credit for service-connected permanent and total disability "shall replace the tax credits pursuant to RSA 72:28, 72:28-b, 72:28-c, and 72:36-a in its entirety". A veteran who qualifies for this exemption and lives in a town that adopted the optional disability credit should work out which is actually worth more before accepting one. In a town with a $25 per thousand rate and a $350,000 assessment the exemption is worth about $8,750 a year and the maximum optional credit is $5,000. The catalog records that conflict in the RSA 72:35 entry too, because the interaction is not obviously what the legislature intended. The section was amended by 2020 chapter 1, 2024 chapter 13, and 2026 chapter 252 section 3, the last of which took effect August 31, 2026 as part of the same conforming act that widened the discharge standard elsewhere in the code. Application is on the ordinary RSA 72:33 permanent application by April 15, and appeal from a refusal runs under RSA 72:34-a to the board of tax and land appeals or the superior court by September 1 following the notice of tax.