New Hampshire’s public works security statute is a two-threshold statute like Texas, Virginia and Pennsylvania. That is not what makes it worth its own page. What makes it worth a page is the claim procedure, which works nothing like the rest of the country’s.
Two figures, and a “may” underneath them
RSA 447:16 puts the trigger, the amount and the scope of cover into a single long sentence:
“Officers, public boards, agents or other persons who contract in behalf of the state or any political subdivision thereof for the construction, repair or rebuilding of public buildings, public highways, bridges or other public works shall if said contract involves an expenditure of $75,000 in behalf of the state or $125,000 in behalf of a political subdivision, and may if it involves an expenditure of less amount, obtain as a condition precedent to the execution of the contract, sufficient security, by bond or otherwise, in an amount equal to at least 100 percent of the contract price”
Three separate rules are packed in there.
The threshold depends on the buyer, and it points the way round most people do not expect: the state triggers at the lower figure and a town, city or county at the higher one. So the same contract value is mandatory security with the State and discretionary with a municipality.
Below the figures the body may still require it. “and may if it involves an expenditure of less amount” — a permission, not an exemption. A small New Hampshire contract is not automatically unbonded.
The obligation attaches before execution. Security is obtained “as a condition precedent to the execution of the contract” — earlier than Idaho’s binding-on-execution and earlier than Nevada’s binding-on-award.
“By bond or otherwise”, at one hundred percent
The amount in RSA 447:16 is a floor — at least 100 percent of the contract price, or of the estimated cost of the work where no aggregate price was agreed. The second half of that matters on cost-reimbursable or unit-price work, where there is no single contract sum to take a percentage of.
And the instrument is open: “by bond or otherwise”. New Hampshire joins Maryland, West Virginia and Colorado among the states whose primary noun is security rather than a bond, which means the acceptable form is a question for the contracting body rather than a closed statutory list.
What the security actually covers
Most statutes say “labor and materials” and stop. RSA 447:16 enumerates, and the list is the most detailed in this series:
“conditioned upon the payment by the contractors and subcontractors for all labor performed or furnished, for all equipment hired, including trucks, for all material used and for fuels, lubricants, power, tools, hardware and supplies purchased by said principal and used in carrying out said contract, and for labor and parts furnished upon the order of said contractor for the repair of equipment used in carrying out said contract.”
Equipment hire is named — including trucks. So are fuels, lubricants, power, tools, hardware and supplies. And so is a category almost nobody else reaches: labor and parts for repairing equipment used on the job.
If you rent plant onto New Hampshire public work, fuel it, or repair a machine that is working on it, you are inside the conditioning language by name rather than by argument. Compare Idaho, which names equipment rental in Idaho Code § 54-1926, and South Carolina, which names rental equipment in its claim provision — New Hampshire goes further than either.
The claim is filed, not served
This is the provision that makes New Hampshire different, and it inverts the habit every other state in this series teaches.
“To obtain the benefit of the bond, any person, firm or corporation having any claim for labor performed, materials, machinery, tools, or equipment furnished as aforesaid shall, within 90 days after the completion and acceptance of the project by the contracting party, file in the office of the secretary of state, if the state is a contracting party, or with the department of transportation, if the state is a party to said contract by or through said department, or with the department of administrative services, if the state is a party to said contract by or through said department, or in the office of the clerk of the superior court for the county within which the contract shall be principally performed, if any political subdivision of the state is a contracting party, a statement of the claim, a copy of which shall forthwith be sent by mail by the office where it is filed to the principal and surety.”
Four things follow, and each is a departure.
You file with a public office, not with the prime. Under 40 U.S.C. § 3133(b)(2), in Maine, in North Dakota and in Pennsylvania, the claimant writes to the contractor. Here the claimant lodges a statement with the state or the court.
Which office depends on two facts: whether the contracting party is the state or a political subdivision, and — if the state — which department it acted through. Transportation and administrative services each take their own filings.
The office notifies the surety for you. The statute directs that a copy “shall forthwith be sent by mail by the office where it is filed to the principal and surety”. A claimant who files correctly does not also have to chase the surety’s address.
The 90 days runs from completion and acceptance of the project — not from your last day on it. That is the opposite measure from the federal rule and from every other state in this series, and it cuts in the claimant’s favor: a supplier who finished early does not lose its claim while the job is still running, which is exactly the trap 40 U.S.C. § 3133(b)(4) sets.
Then one year, in the superior court
“Public Works Section 447:18 447:18 Petition and Hearing. – Said claimant shall, within one year after filing such claim, file a petition in the superior court for the county within which the contract shall be principally performed to enforce his claim or intervene in a petition already filed, with copy to the principal and surety, and such further notice as the court may order.”
The year runs from the filing of the claim, not from last furnishing — so the two steps chain rather than overlap. And the statute contemplates intervening in a petition already filed, which is a sensible provision on a job with several unpaid claimants and one fund.
What RSA 447 does not settle here
This page reads the security requirement and the two claim provisions. It does not state what forms the contracting body will accept under “by bond or otherwise” — that is the body’s call and it appears in the solicitation, not the statute.
It does not cover bid security, which is not in these sections.
And it does not address what happens to a claimant who files in the wrong office. Given that the filing is the mechanism by which the benefit of the bond is obtained, that is a question for a New Hampshire construction lawyer and not for a page on the internet.
