New Hampshire starts off the year with drop in bankruptcy filings

43 January filings are second-lowest number for the month

When it comes to bankruptcies, New Hampshire started off 2023 almost as well as it did last year. While this January didn’t see the lowest number of recorded bankruptcies in a month but it saw the second lowest number.

Some 43 Granite State individuals and business filed for bankruptcy protection in January, just two more than the previous January, which was the lowest monthly total displayed on the federal website, which dates back to the 1980s. The latest total is down by nearly a third from the 64 filed in December, which was the high for last year.

On the whole, bankruptcies in 2022 declined nearly 10 percent from 2021. There was a total of 658 filings last year, an average of 55 a month.

To put that in context, there were some 381 bankruptcy filings recorded in January 2010, in the midst of the Great Recession, a year when the average number of filings was 459 per month.

Business filings were also down in January, with three filings accompanied by business-related debt and two businesses filing for bankruptcy directly. They were both reorganizations, meaning they may survive as a going concern, and both share the same ownership.

The businesses were:

• Plourde Sand & Gravel Co. Inc., Hooksett and Loudon, filed Jan. 30, Chapter 11. Assets: $9,192,624. Liabilities: $8,072,411.

• Red Hat Realty, LLC, Loudon, filed Jan. 30, Chapter 11. Assets: $328,600. Liabilities; $4,122,989.