Frequently Asked Questions

The Town of Hanover accepts cash, certified bank checks, cashiers checks, personal checks, and money orders. If a personal check is returned for non-payment by our bank, an additional $25 returned check fee will be assessed.

The Town of Hanover offers no-charge electronic funds transfer payments (e-checks) of Property Tax bills, Utility bills and motor vehicle registration renewals. Credit and debit cards may also be used, but please note that there is a convenience fee for processing credit card transactions; the Town does not receive any portion of this service charge. View the New Hanover Online Bill website to pay your property tax bill using Invoice Cloud.

Complete the Address Change Form (PDF) and mail the completed form to the Town of Hanover, Attn: Assessing Department, P.O. Box 483, Hanover, NH 03755.

It is the homeowner's responsibility to forward the tax bill to their mortgage company for timely payment. However, many major banks independently request tax billing information directly from the Town of Hanover, and this information (which is all public information) is provided to them electronically. Therefore, it is possible that your mortgage bank may obtain the necessary tax information in order to make timely payment to us without receiving the physical tax bill from you. Please check with your bank directly for information specific to your circumstances.

Exemptions are available for the blind, disabled and elderly. Tax credits are available for Veterans and Disabled Veterans. For more information, please visit the Assessing web page or contact the Assessing Department at 603-640-3207.

The property tax bill due July 1st covers the period April 1st through September 30th; the property tax bill due December 1st covers the period October 1st through March 31st of the following year.

Hanover's property taxes are due semi-annually each July 1st and December 1st.  If 2nd half tax bills are mailed later than November 1st, they will be due 30 days after bill date.  For example, 2024 bills were mailed November 20th and were due on December 20th. 

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Interest accrues on unpaid balances at 8.0% annually and begins to accrue the day after the due date noted on your bill. This interest rate is established by State statute. Please note that we will accept the USPS postmark on or before the due date as timely payment. For those items without a USPS postmark (online bill payments, metered mail, etc.), the payment must be received in our office by 4:30 pm on the due date to be considered timely.

The interest rate is 12.0% annually for a property tax lien. This interest rate is established by State statute.

Taxpayers have two years from the date the lien is executed to redeem liens plus associated interest and costs prior to the Tax Collector deeding the property to the Town of Hanover. A series of mail notifications are sent to the homeowner at the last known address as part of the deeding process.

The Town of Hanover generally sends their semi-annual property tax bills out in late May and late October. If the time of your property closing is near one of these processing dates, please be advised that you may not receive your property tax bill as it will be sent to the last owner of record with the Town of Hanover. The Grafton County Registry of Deeds generally takes four to six weeks to record a new deed; the Town is notified of ownership once a month from the Registry of Deeds once the deed is recorded.

This is probably the single most common question posed in any community, and yet, the answer is not always so well received. Sadly, municipal staffs are often the first line of citizen attack when tax rates seem too high. Tax dollars are a concern for everybody in that we only want to pay our fair share.

Ironically, that is also true of municipal employees! Yes, many of us also own homes and in many cases, right in the communities we work in. So rising property taxes are just as much a concern to us as it is to you.

To that end, we would like the public to be aware that we are constantly looking for ways to hold budgets down. Whether it is through the use of new technology, restructuring current programs to run more efficiently or actual cuts in program dollars; we are all constantly reviewing the bottom line to improve things.

Property tax rates across New Hampshire are at an all-time high, and Hanover is no exception. So, what can we do as citizens to help hold our tax rates down? Each taxing authority's respective governing body determines its own budget. To that end, residents may have limited input on how much money is to be raised and appropriated. However, that does not mean one cannot let their concerns be known! To do so, you will need to contact each group (i.e. Town Manager/Select Board, School Board, County Commissioners, and Legislators) and let them know about your desire to hold spending down and to find new sources of revenue. In short, get involved and see what you, as a concerned citizen, can contribute to help in holding costs down or in finding new sources of community revenue. We all need to do our part in making our community work.

At the present time, the Town has five separate and distinct tax rates. The 2022 base tax rate for Hanover is $16.41 and is broken down as follows:

Add to this base rate your local Fire District rate to determine your final tax rate. The 2019 Fire District rates are as follows:

First of all, tax rate setting is not a function of local government!

Property tax rates are set for every community each fall by the Department of Revenue Administration (DRA) in Concord. Consider it a form of check and balance for the community. To do the calculation each municipality must send in its total assessed value, exemption and credit figures, and the municipal budget. The school district and county will send in their respective budgets and the Legislature sets the state education figure. Once all the items are received at the DRA, a rate can be calculated.

Simply put, the tax rate is computed by dividing the total of the budgets by the total taxable assessed value of the Town. For example, if the total of all the budgets is $100,000 and the total taxable assessed value of the Town is $1,000,000, then the tax rate would be $10 (100,000 ÷ 1,000,000 = 0.10 or $10 per thousand). Though this example is oversimplified, it does provide a realistic model of the process.

• Property Record Card - Review your property record card(s) for data accuracy. The assessed value is only as good as the accuracy of the data on the card.
• Exemptions and / or Deferrals