Short-Term Rentals in Carroll County: Conway's Ongoing Regulatory Fight

Town of Conway v. Kudrick: the NH Supreme Court settled the zoning question

In Town of Conway v. Kudrick (case no. 2022-0098), decided May 2, 2023, the New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld a trial court ruling that Conway's zoning ordinance, as written at the time, permitted non-owner-occupied short-term rentals in the town's residential zoning districts. The case arose from the town's own attempt to treat a specific short-term rental as a zoning violation; the Supreme Court sided with the property owner, based on how Conway's own ordinance defined the relevant use. The practical upshot for a buyer: as of this ruling, an STR use itself is not, by default, a zoning violation in Conway's residential districts under the ordinance language the court reviewed -- but zoning permission and the separate registration/inspection requirements below are two different questions, and clearing one does not clear the other.

Chapter 72's inspection ordinance: a real legal snag, then a real town-meeting fight

Separately from the zoning question, Conway adopted its own rental inspection and licensing ordinance (Chapter 72, "Housing Standards") requiring registration, inspection, and certification for rental dwelling units, including short-term rentals. That ordinance ran into a genuine legal problem of its own: it cited the wrong state statutes, and as of a September 2024 Board of Selectmen meeting, the town announced it would not enforce the inspection program against non-compliant landlords until the citation errors were fixed and a related lawsuit resolved.

The town brought the issue back to voters at its April 8, 2025 Annual Town Meeting. One warrant article proposed repealing Chapter 72's inspection and certification requirements outright and replacing them with a one-time owner self-affidavit -- that repeal article was not recommended by either the Board of Selectmen (voting 0-4-1 against) or the Budget Committee (voting 0-12-2 against), and it failed to pass. On the same ballot, a separate article (Article 16) amended and renamed the chapter to "Housing and Life Safety Standards," revising the rental-unit rules rather than eliminating them. Conway followed up in May 2025 by publishing a new STR safety checklist for owners -- consistent with the inspection-based framework remaining in force, now under corrected citations, rather than being repealed.

The state-law floor: RSA 674's registration fee cap and inspection limits

Underneath any specific Conway ordinance, New Hampshire state law sets a floor and a ceiling on what a municipality can require of an STR owner. Under RSA 674, a town may require an owner to file a registration statement with the town clerk within 30 days of first advertising the property as a rental, naming a local contact authorized to accept legal service of process -- and may charge no more than $50 for maintaining that filing. The same statute bars a municipality from making that registration contingent on an inspection unless there is reasonable suspicion of a specific violation under RSA 48-A:14's life-safety code provisions. That statutory ceiling is worth knowing regardless of which specific NH town a parcel sits in, but it is Conway's own inspection ordinance -- not the state registration statute -- that has actually generated the litigation and repeal fights described above.

What to check before buying for short-term rental use in Carroll County

1. Confirm the specific town's current zoning ordinance language on short-term/vacation rentals directly -- Kudrick resolved a specific dispute under Conway's ordinance as it existed at the time; do not assume every Carroll County town's ordinance reads the same way, or that Conway's own ordinance has not changed further since.
2. In Conway specifically, ask the Planning Department for the current, corrected text of Chapter 72 ("Housing and Life Safety Standards") post-Article 16, including the current registration/inspection process, fee, and renewal cycle -- this is an active area of local rulemaking, not a settled ordinance.
3. Separately confirm the property's registration requirements under RSA 674 (the $50 fee cap, the 30-day-from-advertising filing deadline) with the town clerk, and don't assume state-law compliance alone satisfies a town's own separate inspection ordinance.
4. Ask the seller directly whether an existing STR registration or inspection certificate transfers with the sale, and confirm independently with the town rather than relying on a listing's claim.