Tentative Seminar Schedule — 2.0 CEU’s
Meeting Schedule — 1.0 CEU for 2 meetings per year
Applying NH Land Sales Disclosure to the Condo Law — John R. Chagnon, LLS
John will speak on his understanding of the legal aspects of applying NH Land Sales Disclosure and Condominium Law to the process of creating Condominium Site and Floor Plans, and also discuss Plats and Plat Standards in general.
John is the owner of Ambit Engineering, a Land Surveying and Civil Engineering Firm founded in 1988. John has been the engineer and surveyor of record for numerous Condominium Development and Condominium Conversion projects. John has been an NHLSA member since 1985 and has served as an NSPS Trig Star sponsor since 1991 and previously served as the NSPS Trig Star National Program Chair. John currently teaches the Legal Aspects of Land Surveying class at the UNH Thompson School. Mr. Chagnon received the National Society of Professional Land Surveyors 2002 Surveying Excellence Award, the highest individual honor awarded to a Land Surveyor by the surveying profession.
Stone Wall Mapper Project — Rick Chormann
You can’t help noticing the innumerable stone walls arrayed across the NH landscape, but then again perhaps they seem so commonplace that they just blend into the background of your day-to-day experience. This project is an invitation to take a “fresh” look at these simple relics from New Hampshire’s past and see them in a new light, or more literally, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). With the availability of LiDAR across NH, we can see imagery of land elevations through the trees, revealing – among other things – stone walls that are deep within forests today. You can explore New Hampshire’s LiDAR landscape, and contribute to the mapping of the state’s stone walls, with the New Hampshire Stone Wall Mapper, and learn something new about our state’s geologic and cultural history as you page through the companion story map “Wall-to-Wall: Connecting Landscape and Culture”. Every stone wall that you identify and map using this easy-to-use application will help to build a statewide “Wall-to-Wall” database to document these amazing testimonials of our ancestors’ strength and perseverance, and help to preserve them for future generations.
Rick Chormann, State Geologist and Director NH Geological Survey is currently playing a key role in the NH Stone Wall Mapper Project.
Misinterpretations in the Condo Act — Robert E. Ducharme, Esq.
Robert will go over some misinterpretations in the Condo Act regarding surveyor’s problems that have occurred in front of planning boards, matching what’s on the plans with what’s in the documents, and how to get more business for surveyors.
Attorney Robert E. Ducharme is a Seacoast resident whose civil law practice is limited to Condominium Law. Attorney Ducharme has owned and lived in a residential condominium, owns commercial condominiums, has worked as a condominium property manager, and has practiced condominium law since 2000. He has developed condominiums for himself, co-investors, as well as developers, creating documents from scratch and seeing projects through from the initial idea to the handing over of the Association from the developer to the first Board of Directors. The New Hampshire Supreme Court has made it clear that condominium boards are, by and large, filled with volunteers whose expertise lies other than in the management and operation of a condominium association. Unfortunately, there is no primer course for operating a condominium association.
Condo Act Loophole — Thomas W. Aylesworth
Thomas will guide attendees through several recent court decisions dealing with property rights, taxation, and assessing, including: A loophole in New Hampshire’s condominium act – Condominiums at Lilac Lane Unit Owner’s Association v. Monument Garden, LLS; Double taxation in tax deeding? – Polandky v. Town of Bedford; Church parking spaces leased to students are taxable – St. George’s Episcopal Church v. Town of Durham; Park owner responsible for unpaid water bills, but not property taxes – Everett Ashton v. City of Concord; and Destruction by fire “good cause shown” for abatement – Carr v. Town of New London.
Thom has over twenty years of experience as a practicing attorney in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He represents condominiums, corporations, and individuals in a wide range of matters with a primary focus on complex real estate litigation. His specific areas of practice include construction defects, condominium enforcement, zoning and land use litigation, beach rights, and other property disputes. He has tried and litigated cases in the Massachusetts and New Hampshire state and federal courts and has successfully argued appeals in both states. He has also handled matters in various administrative agencies and served as an administrative law judge. Since 2008, Martindale-Hubbell has recognized Thom with an AV-Preeminent® rating, the highest such rating available to an individual attorney. In recent years, Thomas served as an adjunct professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he developed and taught a course on law and public policy.[/learn_more]
After dinner, join us as we welcome Michael Bruno, author of “Cruising New Hampshire History: A Guide to New Hampshire’s Roadside Historical Markers.” The idea for this book began in the fall of 2015 while discussing the lack of a user-friendly, interactive state website, or a previously published book. For nearly three years, he has devoted his efforts to not only visit, photograph, collect GPS coordinates, and research each of the 255 markers installed; but to include the back story and detail other points of interest in the Granite State. “Since publishing this book on May 15, 2018, I have been humbled by the overwhelming response to the book. I have met an incredible number of New Hampshire historical marker fans and others who have a sincere love for our beautiful state.”