New Mexico HOA laws and resources.

Three acts carry the governance of a New Mexico community. The Homeowner Association Act governs homeowners’ associations and expressly not condominiums; the Condominium Act governs condominiums created after 1982; and the older Building Unit Ownership Act still governs those created before it. Around them sit the Nonprofit Corporation Act that supplies corporate machinery where an association is incorporated, the Human Rights Act that is New Mexico’s fair housing law, the Solar Rights and Solar Recordation Acts together with the municipal section that voids a covenant prohibiting solar collectors, the Collection Agency Regulatory Act that licenses collectors, and the Unfair Practices Act that supplies the remedy when the complaint is about conduct.

Nine things are worth knowing about how New Mexico HOA law works:

• Which statute governs you is the first question, and the answer is not always the Homeowner Association Act. Section 47-16-15(C) says the Homeowner Association Act “does not apply to a condominium governed by the Condominium Act”. Own a lot and the HOA Act is yours; own a condominium unit and the Condominium Act is, unless your condominium predates 1982, in which case it is the Building Unit Ownership Act. Nearly every other bullet here changes depending on which of the three you are in.
• A homeowners’ association that withholds records owes you fifty dollars a day. Section 47-16-5 gives a lot owner twelve named categories of financial and other records — including bank statements, reserves, all current contracts and the names and addresses of all members — within ten business days of a written request, free to inspect and capped at ten cents a page to copy. Miss the deadline and subsection D creates a rebuttable presumption of wilful non-compliance, with the owner entitled to the greater of actual damages or fifty dollars per calendar day from the eleventh business day. Put the request in writing and keep the date.
• Check the county clerk before you argue about an assessment. Under § 47-16-4 every homeowners’ association must record a notice of homeowner association — within thirty days of the declaration for one organised after 1 July 2013, and by 30 June 2014 for an older one. Subsection D is the consequence: if it never did, the association’s authority to charge an assessment, levy a late fine or enforce a lien is suspended until the notice is recorded.
• You may speak at the meeting, not merely sit in it. Section 47-16-17(D): “All lot owners shall have the right to attend and speak at all open meetings, but the board may place reasonable time restrictions on those persons speaking.” The same section requires an annual meeting at least once every thirteen months, meeting notice not less than ten and no more than fifty days ahead — expressly “notwithstanding a provision to the contrary in the community documents” — and forty-eight hours notice of board meetings with drafts of proposed policy resolutions. A meeting may be closed only for legal advice, litigation, or an individual’s personal, health or financial information.
• A fine needs notice, a hearing and a vote — unless your documents say otherwise. Section 47-16-18 lets an association fine and suspend common-area use only after written notice and an opportunity to dispute, with a written statement or hearing on fourteen days notice; and if the board or its committee does not approve the fine by majority vote, “neither the fine nor the suspension may be imposed”. Read the opening words though — the whole regime applies “unless otherwise provided for in the community documents”, and it does not cover a failure to pay assessments.
• An old condominium is not swept into the new Act, and opting in means recording a resolution. The uniform act New Mexico worked from applies a list of its provisions to pre-existing condominiums automatically; § 47-7A-2(A) is a single sentence and carries no such list. A pre-1982 condominium therefore stays wholly under the Building Unit Ownership Act until a resolution is approved by a majority of the unit owners and then recorded. It is the resolution that gets recorded, not a declaration. Be wary of commentary here: the Compilation Commission prints the uniform act’s commissioners’ comments under these sections, and they describe provisions New Mexico never enacted.
• There is no six-month lien super-priority in New Mexico — and the older act is the stronger one. Many states adopting the Uniform Condominium Act put a slice of unpaid assessments ahead of a first mortgage. Section 47-7C-16 does not: it gives competing association liens only equal priority with each other, and subsection H lets the declaration make the lien subordinate to other liens. By contrast § 47-7-24 of the Building Unit Ownership Act does state a priority — behind tax liens and a first mortgage of record, ahead of everything else. That difference shows up in a foreclosure.
• A covenant that effectively prohibits solar panels is void — and the section that says so is filed under municipalities. Section 3-18-32(B): a covenant, restriction or condition in a deed, contract, security agreement or other instrument, effective after 1 July 1978, that effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar collector “is void and unenforceable”. Read the limits inside it: the instrument must post-date 1 July 1978, the test is effective prohibition rather than any rule touching panels, and subsection A’s bar on county and municipal restrictions carves out historic districts.
• Your board is not a collection agency — but the company it hires probably is. Section 61-18A-2(C) defines a collection agency as one collecting debts owed another, and excludes an officer or employee of a creditor collecting in the creditor’s own name. The management company or agency your association engages is generally covered and must be licensed. One trap in the same subsection: a creditor collecting its own debts under any name other than its own that suggests a third party is collecting is inside the Act. Where the conduct rather than the licence is the problem, the Unfair Practices Act carries actual damages or one hundred dollars, up to treble damages for a wilful violation, and fees to a prevailing complainant.

Looking beyond the core acts? See related & miscellaneous New Mexico laws — the landlord-tenant, mobile home park, subdivision and lien statutes that can reach a community, plus four things people assume about New Mexico law that the statutes do not bear out.

• New Mexico Secretary of State business search↗ — look your association up by name for its contact information, officers and filed documents. That filing is what tells you whether it is incorporated at all, and if so under which article — which decides whether the Nonprofit Corporation Act reaches it. HOPB’s HOA Directory links through.
• Declaration, bylaws, amendments and the notice of homeowner association — recorded documents live with the county clerk where the community sits. Two things to look for while you are there: recording the declaration is what perfects the assessment lien (§ 47-16-6(C), and § 47-7C-16(C) for a condominium), and the notice of homeowner association under § 47-16-4 is the filing whose absence suspends the association’s power to charge you.
• A statement of what you owe, in recordable form — on written request an association must furnish a recordable statement of unpaid assessments within ten business days, and it binds the association and the board: § 47-16-6(D) for a homeowners’ association, § 47-7C-16(G) for a condominium. Ask for it in writing before a dispute hardens.
• Requesting HOA documents — how to ask, what to ask for, and what to do when a board will not answer. Pair it with the records section for your own regime, which differ considerably in strength.