Enforcing a New Hampshire money judgment: the weekly payment order, and the year you wait if it fails

New Hampshire's main tool against an individual judgment debtor is not a writ. It is a court-ordered payment plan, obtained by motion under Rule 51, and the rule says so in its second sentence.

No writ required first

A judgment creditor seeking an order for weekly payments under RSA 524:6-a must file a motion with the court setting out specific grounds for relief. Issuance of a Writ of Execution need not be a preliminary step to the weekly payment process.

That skips a step most states require. A creditor does not have to levy, fail, and then come back — the motion can be the first move after judgment.

"Setting out specific grounds for relief," though. A bare request will not do.

The hearing is the point

Rule 51(b) makes the hearing automatic on filing:

Upon the filing of such a motion, an Order noticing the action and identifying a date for a hearing will issue requiring the judgment debtor to appear at a time and date named therein and submit to an examination relative to his or her property and ability to pay said judgment.

The motion produces a summons to be examined, not a paper decision. And service is prescribed, with a fallback that catches out creditors who rely on the mail:

The judgment creditor shall cause the Notice of Hearing to be served either in-hand or by certified mail, restricted delivery, return receipt requested. If the judgment creditor elects to serve the Notice of Hearing by certified mail, restricted delivery, return receipt requested, and if the return receipt is returned without indication that the Notice of Hearing has been properly served, then in-hand service shall be required.

Certified mail is allowed, but a return receipt that comes back without confirming proper service does not merely raise a question. It converts the requirement to in-hand service.

What happens at the hearing

Rule 51(d) sets a deliberately informal proceeding:

On hearing, the judgment debtor will submit a financial affidavit and will be examined under oath as to his or her property and ability to pay. Either party may introduce oral and written evidence as the court deems relevant. Technical rules of evidence will not apply.

A financial affidavit, sworn examination, and relaxed evidence rules. Both sides may put in evidence.

Two provisions govern attendance, and they cut in opposite directions.

The debtor's absence does not stop it. Rule 51(e): "If the debtor fails to appear at the hearing, the court may proceed and orders may be made in the debtor's absence."

The creditor's absence might. The last sentence of Rule 51(f) requires that "[a]ttendance by the plaintiff or plaintiff's counsel is required unless excused by the court."

Three outcomes

Rule 51(f) and (g) between them describe what the court can do.

Dismissal, where there is nothing to reach:

If the court finds that the debtor has no property other than property that is exempt from attachment or execution and that the debtor is unable to make weekly payments on the judgment, the motion will be dismissed.

Both limbs are required — no non-exempt property and an inability to pay weekly.

Production, payments, or both, where there is:

If the court is satisfied that the debtor has property not exempt from attachment or execution, the court may order the debtor to produce it, or so much thereof as may be sufficient, to satisfy the judgment and cost of the proceedings, so that it may be taken on execution. If the debtor is able to make weekly payments on the judgment, the court may, after allowing the debtor an appropriate amount for his or her support and that of the debtor's family, if the debtor has a family, order the debtor to make weekly payments on the judgment from time to time. The court may also make an Order combining any of the orders above mentioned.

The support allowance is the debtor's protection here, and it is discretionary rather than formulaic. New Hampshire does not run a percentage-of-disposable-earnings calculation the way Vermont does; the court sets an amount for the debtor and the debtor's family and orders payments out of what is left. Bringing a full picture of household expenses to the hearing is therefore the whole of the debtor's case. Claiming an exemption from garnishment compares how other states structure this.

The order is never final

Rule 51(h) keeps the file open:

The court may prescribe the times, places, amount of payments and other details in making any of its orders. The court may at any time review, revise, modify, suspend or revoke any order made. Failure to obey any lawful order of the court, without just excuse, shall constitute a contempt of court. Contempt proceedings will be initiated by the creditor by a verified motion.

Either side can come back when circumstances change — a debtor who loses a job, a creditor who learns of new income. Enforcement is by contempt, and the creditor starts it with a verified motion.

Rule 51(i) prevents contempt from being treated as a settlement of the account:

A sentence for contempt shall not end the proceedings nor any order made by the court, and future violations of the order, upon which the sentence was founded, may likewise be dealt with as for contempt.

Serving a contempt sentence does not discharge the payment order. The order survives, and the next violation is a fresh contempt.

And the year

Rule 51(j) is the provision that should govern whether a creditor files at all:

If the motion is dismissed, the creditor shall not file within one year after the date of such dismissal another motion against the same debtor upon the same judgment unless the court otherwise for good cause orders.

Lose the motion and you wait a year, absent good cause. A creditor who files before knowing anything about the debtor's finances risks buying a twelve-month delay — which makes post-judgment discovery, below, the step to take first.

Execution, discovery and contempt

Rule 52(a) supplies the conventional route and opens post-judgment discovery:

Process to enforce a judgment for the payment of money shall be a Writ of Execution, unless the court directs otherwise. The proceedings on and in aid of execution shall be in accordance with applicable statutes. In aid of the judgment or execution, the judgment creditor or the judgment creditor's successor in interest when that interest appears of record, may obtain discovery from any person, including the judgment debtor, in the manner provided in these rules.

"From any person, including the judgment debtor" — banks, employers and family members are within it. Because the discovery runs "in the manner provided in these rules," the machinery in the New Hampshire motion to compel applies after judgment too, including the conditional default in Rule 29(d) for unanswered interrogatories.

Given the one-year bar in Rule 51(j), taking that discovery before filing the weekly-payment motion is usually the better sequence.

Rule 52(b) carries the enforcement powers:

Attachments for contempt may be issued by the court at any time upon evidence of the violation of any injunction or other order, or for neglect of witnesses to give evidence upon subpoena, and commitment may be made thereon. Parties may be arrested upon order of court and required to give bonds for appearance and to abide the order of court in any case where it shall be deemed necessary.

Rule 52(c) then allows sheriffs and deputies to take bail in civil contempt proceedings, forwarding it "forthwith" to the clerk of the issuing court.

Where the contempt is criminal rather than civil, Rule 52(d) applies, and it carries a protection worth knowing: in an indirect criminal contempt "if the contempt charged involves disrespect to or criticism of a judge, that judge is disqualified from presiding at the trial or hearing except with the defendant's consent."

Paying money into court

One rule sits earlier in the sequence but belongs in the same conversation. Rule 50 lets a defendant pay in what is admitted:

In proper cases, the defendant may pay into court any sum of money which he or she admits to be due, accompanied by the general issue as to the balance; and, if the plaintiff shall refuse to accept the same with his or her costs, in full satisfaction of his or her claim, such sum shall be struck out of the Complaint; and unless the plaintiff shall prove that a larger sum be due him or her, he or she shall have no costs, but the defendant shall be allowed costs from the time of such payment.

The cost consequence is the point. A plaintiff who turns down the payment and then fails to prove more recovers no costs, and pays the defendant's from the date of payment in.

A short checklist

If you hold the judgment:

1. Take post-judgment discovery first under Rule 52(a); the one-year bar makes a blind motion expensive.
2. Set out specific grounds in the Rule 51 motion.
3. Serve in-hand, or by certified mail restricted delivery — and switch to in-hand if the receipt comes back unconfirmed.
4. Attend the hearing. Rule 51(f) requires it unless the court excuses you.
5. Ask for a combined order where the debtor has both property and income.
6. Enforce by verified motion for contempt, and remember a sentence does not end the order.

If the judgment is against you:

1. Appear. Rule 51(e) lets the court make orders without you.
2. Bring the household budget. The support allowance is the mechanism that protects your income here.
3. Ask for revision when circumstances change — Rule 51(h) allows it at any time.
4. Consider Rule 50 if part of the claim is genuinely owed; refusing a payment in can cost the plaintiff its costs.

Where these rules live

• N.H. Super. Ct. R. 50 — Deposit in Court
• N.H. Super. Ct. R. 51 — Periodic Payments
• N.H. Super. Ct. R. 52 — Enforcement, Contempt, Arrest
• New Hampshire motion to compel discovery
• Claiming an exemption from garnishment
• Setting aside a New Hampshire default

This page explains what the Superior Court rules say. It isn't legal advice, and RSA 524:6-a and the New Hampshire exemption statutes these rules operate on are statutes this site doesn't carry.