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2000 New Hampshire Attorney General Reports and Opinions 1 (2000)

handle is hein.sag/sagnh0004 and id is 1 raw text is: August 15, 2000 Arthur Slattery, Chairperson New Hampshire Real Estate Commission 25 Capitol St., Rm. 437 Concord, NH 03301-6312 Dear Chairperson Slattery: This is in response to your inquiry to me, via Director Emmonds, on August 8, 2000 for my opinion as to whether the Real Estate Commission (Commission) has the authority to approve consent decrees' which resolve pending investigations into violations of RSA 331-A. Of particular interest is whether said consent decrees can include imposition of sanctions pursuant to RSA 33 1-A:28, I, on the licensee who is a party to the consent decree and whether there must be a hearing on the merits of the consent decree. It is my understanding that the Commission's current practice allows a licensee against whom a violation of RSA 331 -A:26 (Prohibited Conduct) has been alleged, to enter into a consent decree with the Commission's executive director or investigator and other parties as an alternative to litigated resolution. The Commission then considers the proposed consent decree in a publicly noticed meeting, to which the parties are invited but not required to attend, and determines whether to accept the consent decree as submitted, impose additional conditions, or reject the consent decree and proceed to hearing on the merits of the complaint. This procedure includes prior notice and an opportunity for a hearing, appears to comport with the practice of other licensing boards and, in my opinion, is well within the Commission's lawful powers. New Hampshire administrative agencies, including professional licensing boards , generally allow and encourage amicable resolution of disputes3. Administrative agencies For purposes of this opinion, the term consent decree is used synonymously with settlement agreement to mean the consensual resolution of a dispute alleging misconduct by a licensee. In fact, these terms have somewhat different connotations which this letter does not address. 2 For example, The Board of Medicine, among others, utilizes consent decrees based on statutory language similar to that in Chapter 331-A. See, RSA 329:17,VI and VII.

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